“Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you.” ~ Jonathan Stroud
Tea has formed a literal and symbolic baseline for what has gone on at this website over the last twenty years. From its inception, this little corner of the internet was intended and designed to be a place of whimsical distraction, devoid of the ads and intrusions and comments that so often plague and ruin other sites. I’ve aimed to keep this as enjoyable as possible while being somewhat interesting to visit, with interesting twists and turns along the way. Of course, over the course of two decades, the overall undulations have been relatively smooth and unremarkable, and there is comfort in that.
When so much of the world has grown volatile and tense, I have striven to make this place somewhat consistent and comfortable – likening it to a living room that is largely quiet except when a gathering or company is coming – a place where one can sit down for a spell and enjoy a light read with a cup of tea or coffee or something stronger should you so desire. It’s a room that can be whatever you need or want – a room of requirement, perhaps, but with a lot less clutter, unless that makes you happy. It changes with the seasons, with the day, with the hour – it can start off cool and gray in the hours before dawn, when the couch or chair begs for use with a blanket and pillow. It can become brilliantly lit with sunlight streaming in the bay window, pouring through the fronds of a Norfolk Island pine and an ancient fern. It transforms into an afternoon refuge, the last of the days light fading while one sits quietly on the floor in meditative contemplation. It closes in a bit on itself at the approach of night, as one by one the lamps come on and gently warm the space, lending it the coziness and comfort we may crave in the evening.
And so I welcome you here, whenever you may need or want a moment of quiet, apart from the mayhem of social media and the madness of what our world has become. I’ll put on a fresh pot of tea…
“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.” ~ Lin Yutang
