Right before Andy was about to fill his favorite coffee cup for a morning cup of coffee, I borrowed it for this picture, and filled it with oolong tea. At such times he will occasionally refer to me as a menace, even if my usurping of his favored cup was entirely unintentional as far as disrupting his routine. Such is cohabitation, even after twenty-four years.
A cup of tea is a favored ritual for reminding one to be mindful. The process of making tea is simple enough – and the basic steps involved are an easy lesson in how to focus on the singular steps of a task one by one. That has translated into a step-by-step correlation on how to get through the average day. One step at a time, one little goal to accomplish, then on to the next. The idea of an entire day can be daunting for some people, but the idea of a minute or two is manageable for most of us. A day is nothing but a collection of minutes – you just need to get through them one by one. Or, as a wise man once remarked, “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.” That made more sense in my head than when I actually typed it out, but it stands true separately, perhaps not in direct relation.
Now I’ve dipped into the folly of overthinking when my mind should be on the tea at hand.
