By Barbara Neal Varma //
“Hi, my name is Barbara and I’m a tea-aholic.”
It’s true.
While others covet their coffee and wine bars, I have a hot tea habit that takes up more than its fair share of kitchen real estate.
Center stage is a large wooden tea box with a generous 12 cubbies. And that’s still not enough to stock my many types and flavors, forcing me to take over the cupboard above to handle the overflow.
I’ve got black teas, green teas, herbal teas galore. Bagged teas, loose teas, even fancy designer numbers tucked in silky little sachets. My teacup collection could rival the queen’s, but for daily use I favor one of those insulated mugs with a sippy top, the better to keep the contents warm, not to mention safe from curious kitty noses.
Then there are the goodies that go with: Biscotti and banana, zucchini, or pumpkin bread. Those mini Hostess donuts with the waxy chocolate coating that for some reason, maybe because they remind me of my childhood, I’m half addicted to. When in season, I even stock the hard stuff: Girl Scout cookies.
So what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with writing?
Well, I could say teas with their evocative scents are great for stirring memories to fuel my stories. One whiff of Constant Comment and I’m 18 again and back at the Peppermill Restaurant in Vegas, having breakfast the morning after marrying my high school sweetheart. We sat together on the same side of the booth (because: honeymooners), making it easy for me to steal a first sip of the sweet, citrusy brew he’d ordered with his pancakes.
That marriage didn’t last, but my love of a good cuppa did. Plus, I got a lost-love essay out of it, as published in A Cup of Comfort for Divorced Women with the… wait for it… steaming cup of tea on its cover.
I could also say I simply like the stuff, one of life’s simple, soothing pleasures, like chocolate, that folks have been indulging in more and more while stuck at home during the pandemic.
I could say all of that, and it’d be true. But these days my final answer is this: a hot cup of tea with something sweet to start my day keeps me sane, keeps me writing, in a world gone cray-cray. Julia Cameron had it right: “Keep the drama on the page”—but I don’t think even the esteemed Artist’s Way author could have foreseen a worldwide pandemic, or the recent storming of our Capitol, the images on my big-screen TV so heartbreakingly surreal, I kept waiting, praying for the Jedi to swoop in and stop the madness!
For several days after, I couldn’t write a thing, not even the three stream-of-consciousness “morning pages” that Julia advocates. I slept in instead, staying safe if unproductive under the covers.
Until this morning. Because, guess what? Turned out the angst of not writing can be just as motivating, if not more. So I made myself get up, get ready, settle in at the computer, and enjoy a hot cup of Blackberry Sage (today’s selection) just like I have for so many years.
Heaven knows what the day will bring, but in this quiet, familiar moment, doing what I’ve always done, there is calm, there is hope for a brighter future.
And with that—plus a couple of the Scouts’ finest—I can get back to writing.
Cheers.
BARBARA NEAL VARMA is a contributing writer to Orange Coast Magazine and has appeared in other notable publications, including The Atlantic. Her easy-humor personal essays have proven popular with readers, one gaining numerous hits on Orange Coast Magazine‘s website. (Hello: Desperately Seeking Donny.) You can learn more at BarbaraNealVarma.com.
Really excellent! Conversational writing style was very easy to read and was effective at changing my emotional state.