Camellia sinensis
Aug. 16th, 2007 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapeofthingsYesterday was a public holiday. Consequently, today seems a strange hybrid of Monday and Friday, the sense of displacement heightened by sleep-loss and a confused body clock.
I make my boss cups of tea. It forces her to stop, just for a moment. I take delight in the quiet power of a steaming mug of tea, the ritual and physiological (no tea bags, please).
Quiet moments must be created; else the journey becomes ever more reactive. Time to reflect, to realign, snatched back from the endless demands of “work/life balance”. Two weeks ago on a Friday night we drove through the chaos of mental white noise until we claimed the silence again: high above the city where the breeze blew freely. The inky sky both moonless and cloudless with the Milky Way arcing away into eternity. We saw four shooting stars that night, though made no wishes.
Sometimes I water myself down in order to stretch further, cover more ground. Sometimes I retract into the tightly closed ball of my own consciousness where no-one else may enter. I am, by nature, a little melancholy, introspective at times, shut tight, though given space and all the things that nourish me I burst forth again, like a tree leaf-sprung after rain. I am coming to realise this retraction and expansion is essential to being me, an elasticity that binds two contrasting aspects.
I slept late this morning, a counterpoint to wakefulness in the earlier hours, with fitful, anxious dreaming. Now the day is thick with dreams of a different kind, of darkness pricked with stars and gentle grounding; time stolen to re-gather myself, contract into the closed bud so swollen with irrepressible life.
My empty cup shall soon be filled: another quiet moment for some tea.
I make my boss cups of tea. It forces her to stop, just for a moment. I take delight in the quiet power of a steaming mug of tea, the ritual and physiological (no tea bags, please).
Quiet moments must be created; else the journey becomes ever more reactive. Time to reflect, to realign, snatched back from the endless demands of “work/life balance”. Two weeks ago on a Friday night we drove through the chaos of mental white noise until we claimed the silence again: high above the city where the breeze blew freely. The inky sky both moonless and cloudless with the Milky Way arcing away into eternity. We saw four shooting stars that night, though made no wishes.
Sometimes I water myself down in order to stretch further, cover more ground. Sometimes I retract into the tightly closed ball of my own consciousness where no-one else may enter. I am, by nature, a little melancholy, introspective at times, shut tight, though given space and all the things that nourish me I burst forth again, like a tree leaf-sprung after rain. I am coming to realise this retraction and expansion is essential to being me, an elasticity that binds two contrasting aspects.
I slept late this morning, a counterpoint to wakefulness in the earlier hours, with fitful, anxious dreaming. Now the day is thick with dreams of a different kind, of darkness pricked with stars and gentle grounding; time stolen to re-gather myself, contract into the closed bud so swollen with irrepressible life.
My empty cup shall soon be filled: another quiet moment for some tea.