Truce and Tea

We were zonked this morning - too tired to hike or go on an adventure but definitely needing a break from home which is also where we work. We decided to start the day by going to Annapurna Chai House for tea and a little hang out time.

When you work at home - you have to get out for a bit each day - but your get-away needs to be many things: close to home, worth the effort, and a true break from your home office; that place where you live out so, so many hours of your life.

Work's been stressful with deadlines - and Annapurna's Chai House is relaxing. The walls are each painted in several deep jewel tones - gold, red, mauve ... there are richly embroidered and textured curtains blocking off an enticing sitting area in the corner ... wood carved screens allow the light in but block the view of the traffic from 4th Ave outside - this place has very good feng shui. There are beautiful fabric saris draped over exposed ducts on the ceilings. I love this juxtaposing of no nonsense utility with whimsical and ancient beauty.

Robust and healthy plants hang here and there from the ceiling. The place is well lit and soft bhajans are playing in the background.

Although the place is often packed, the people who work here are consistently and reassuringly mellow, friendly and on top of it. It's my new favorite place. They have kick ass Chai and double layer, spelt flour, vegan carrot cake that is the best carrot cake of any persuasion that I have ever had. Folks - please believe that food can enhance your well being - and your taste buds too! It's really true.

We usually have a quick sit down and then it's back to work we go...but today is Saturday and we had nothing on the agenda. We didn't want to talk about work (god forbid!) but that's so easy to do when you are coming down from a heavy dose of it. To prevent that we drew a Tarot card before leaving and decided we'd spend our tea time talking about the card we drew.


The card we drew was Truce (the query was what card should Alex and I talk about at Annapurnas!)

Truce, the Four of Swords, was the perfect card for today. Truce is a kind of a crazy concept....so important in the larger order of things and also a bit paradoxical. It requires the effort and strength to back off - which is harder and requires more conscious honing than the strength to charge forward does.

To slow down, to remember that responsibility might involve giving ourselves some breathing space....that's the hard part in this world.

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Working at home - making Truce with the work vs. home is an ongoing need for the self employed - and it often helps to create a little ritual around the down time part.

Tea - for some reason seems to work for us. In addition to Annapurna's as a get away, we have several made-up versions of the venerable tea ceremony. Albeit they are more off the cuff and don't require formal attire.

Here are some of my favorites:

My sister gave me a glass tea pot and a few dozen flowering tea buds for Christmas. The whole act of making this tea forces you to slow down and enjoy the roses. I'm hooked.

Another favorite tea ceremony of ours is making Matcha Tea.

Matcha is the creme de la creme of teas - pampered and indulged all along it's planting, growing and processing cycle - it ends up as a fine green powder. It's the tea that's used in authentic Japanese tea ceremonies.

The very act of preparing Matcha requires slowing down and getting into the moment...calling a truce with time.

Baby Steps

My FB friend Bharati has been writing alot lately about good deeds and walking our talk. Her daily reminders have gotten me to spend a bit of serious time thinking about what I want to do and what I actually do and the difference between the two.

I love spring water and go through about 6 liters a week....Trader Joe's spring water...the kind that comes in plastic disposable bottles. My partner drinks about the same so that's 12 plastic liter bottles/week in our recycling bin. It's not headed towards landfill because I am a religious recycler. But it is wasteful, IMO, when I consider all the effort and energy that goes into this bottle that I will drink from for a day and then toss only to repeat those effort and energy requirements. This weekend I went out and got a drinking water jug that I can use and reuse. I admit I wanted glass just couldn't find it so I got a BPA-free plastic jug. And that's going to replace my TJoes water. No more plastic drinking bottles in the recycling.

Another - most likely harder one - is all the to-go cups I run through. My partner and I duck out for coffees or teas every other day and bring them back to the office. Our office trash bins have quite a collection of to-go cups in them by the end of the week. So part two of cleaning up my drinking act was to order a Nissan drinking cup which I hope, pray and demand of myself to remember when I'm heading to Annapurna's for tea or Guiseppe's for my Americano. To me these two little acts represent a bit more sanity taking over areas of my life where my actions don't yet jive with my ideals.