Tea: Christmas
Music: Yes, "Hearts"
Time: Night
Got a new Internet provider today. Apparently Blogspot likes it better than it liked my last one. I'll give it a go for a couple of days, see how things go. I'd love to not have to export the archives to another host, y'know?
Anyway ... I've got some catching up to do. I'm not even going to attempt to reconstitute my days since the last post, but I'll do my best in subsequent days to recapture whatever insights came to me over that span.
Today, I got word that a former sports editor of my hometown paper -- a job I also held for a while -- died last weekend of cancer. He was my first real writing mentor, and beyond that he was (although we didn't always get along) my friend.
It's knocked a lot out of my head, save one thought that stays with me:
When I die, will anyone remember me as a mentor -- and of what?
Too much for me to think about now. I'm going to take a deep sniff of something that smells really good, just to remind myself how good it feels to be alive and have all my senses.
The catching-up starts tomorrow, God and Blogspot willing.
Showing posts with label senses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label senses. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2009
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Cup XLV: Smoke in the Water
Tea: Lapsang Formosa Alligator
Music: Daylight's for the Birds, "Worlds Away"
Time: Morning(s)/night
It's the rarest of posts for this tea-infused rambler. That's right -- it's about tea.
Scents and tastes take us back to where we've been. I smell rain and diesel together, and I don't care what my eyes and ears say -- I'm in London and it's 1986, about to turn to 1987. Lilacs and honeysuckle put me in the back garden of my childhood home. No matter where I taste it, a gyros sandwich reminds me of Missoula, Montana (that's where my sister once lived, and we were visiting her when I first tried it).
Man. Now I want a gyros.
Anyway ... all of the above, I understand. Scent (upon which taste depends) is the sense of memory.
But the smell and taste of this tea put me somewhere I haven't been before -- at least, not that I can remember. One taste and it's morning, autumn, in a pine forest. Someone has gotten up to make the fire, and the smoke hangs in the cool air.
I have no easy explanation for the phenomenon. That doesn't mean there isn't one. But ten hours after the last steeping, the whole experience remains vivid as memory, (un)familiar as a dream ... and the tea is gone now.
Tonight's story:
Ada Trevanion, "A Ghost Story"
Music: Daylight's for the Birds, "Worlds Away"
Time: Morning(s)/night
It's the rarest of posts for this tea-infused rambler. That's right -- it's about tea.
Scents and tastes take us back to where we've been. I smell rain and diesel together, and I don't care what my eyes and ears say -- I'm in London and it's 1986, about to turn to 1987. Lilacs and honeysuckle put me in the back garden of my childhood home. No matter where I taste it, a gyros sandwich reminds me of Missoula, Montana (that's where my sister once lived, and we were visiting her when I first tried it).
Man. Now I want a gyros.
Anyway ... all of the above, I understand. Scent (upon which taste depends) is the sense of memory.
But the smell and taste of this tea put me somewhere I haven't been before -- at least, not that I can remember. One taste and it's morning, autumn, in a pine forest. Someone has gotten up to make the fire, and the smoke hangs in the cool air.
I have no easy explanation for the phenomenon. That doesn't mean there isn't one. But ten hours after the last steeping, the whole experience remains vivid as memory, (un)familiar as a dream ... and the tea is gone now.
Tonight's story:
Ada Trevanion, "A Ghost Story"
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