Tag: tea

A Cozy Rain

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind of rain that falls on a day when you’d just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam, and look out the streaked window with complacency.
~ Susan Allen Toth from England for All Seasons

Cozy rains typically don’t happen on weekdays.  There are always things to do, places to be, people to impress, rain or shine.  On weekdays rain tends to be a drag-us-down,  smotheringly gray inconvenience of wet shoes, damp jackets, impossibly limp hair in school and work place.

But on a Saturday?  The same drops from the same cloudy skies become a comfy, tuck-me-in-once-again and snuggle-down kind of rain.  There is no schedule to follow, no structured day, no required attendance, no need to even poke my nose out the door (unless living on a farm with hungry critters in the barn).

This is why most northwest natives are rainophilics, anticipating this quiet time of year with great longing.  We are granted permission by precipitation to be complacent, slowed down, contemplative, and yes, even lazy…
*
*
*
Okay, enough of that.  Gotta get up, get going, laundry to do, house to clean, barn to muck out, bills to pay, meals to prepare.

Maybe in the morning the rain will still be falling and there will be a chance to sit with hot tea cup in hand after church, gazing through streaked windows. Cozy rain all day on a Sabbath Sunday.  With scones.  And jam.
Bliss…
that is, until Monday.

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The Edible World

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I came downstairs for Lavina’s scones, butter-ready
from the oven, crusty and cratered, awaiting their dollop
of jam.

The morning clouds had whipped themselves up
to a billow, mounds of soft cream.

The plink plink song of a chaffinch dotted the air like currants.
Daffodils, pats of butter on thin stems, did their little dance, and the edible world spread its feast before me on the fresh green tablecloth.

Oh, how delicious, this sweet Irish spring.
~Barbara Crooker, “Morning Tea” from The Book of  Kells

Northern Ireland
Whatcom County
Northern Ireland
Home
Whatcom County
Whatcom County

It was nine years ago we visited Northern Ireland where we were surrounded by ever-delicious colors and landscape and gracious hospitality where ever we went.

As I look out at our own rolling green hills and billowy clouds of a Whatcom County springtime, I am filled as if it were all edible feast, reminded of the vibrant green of the Irish countryside, backed by the silhouettes of the nearby Mourne Mountains.

If only all the world could be blessed and tasty as fresh warm scones with jam and a pot of tea.

Mourne Mtns – Northern Ireland
Whatcom County
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland

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Sewing the Dream

barnstormingblog4 Comments

In the juggle of job, geography,
child-rearing, art, sometimes the only
quiet is at the kitchen table,
a pot of tea, perhaps a bowl of custard,
a visitor. The conversation—a fine
visible thread one or the other
occasionally pulls tight—stretches
from Ireland to Alaska, culture
to creature, mad experience
to dizzy present. How to best sew
the dream? The question follows
the line we daily stitch:
the journey inside. On the stove
water steams. Another pot suffices.
~Ken Waldman,”Irish Tea” from The Secret Visitor’s Guide

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone…

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last.
Everything is waiting for you.
~David Whyte from “Everything is Waiting for You”

Many of us are feeling conversation-deficient right now. I know I am; even as a confirmed introvert, I struggle with the desire to stay comfortably internal when instead I need a good chat to discover through careful listening what others are thinking and saying.

Typed words on a screen or handwritten on a piece of paper, or confined to a muted box in a zoom meeting, or spontaneous telephone conversations just don’t do it.

We need a pot of tea, a mug of coffee, a scone or piece of fruit placed in front of us, and a couple of hours to trace the threads of our lives and see where they connect. We build a tapestry of friendship together, sorting through the colors and themes and blending what we can where we are able.

A conversation doesn’t have to be profound nor have an agenda. Sitting together with the patchwork of the world’s swirling events is reason enough. You choose the fabric, I’ll thread the needle and we’ll sew a dream of a better world.

When we stitch with our words, the good in you is sewn together with the good in me – a solid seam reinforced and everlasting.

Cozy Rain

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind … of rain that falls on a day when you’d just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam, and look out the streaked window with complacency.
~ Susan Allen Toth

Cozy rains simply don’t happen on weekdays.  There are always things to do, places to be, people to impress, rain or shine.  On weekdays rain tends to be a drag us down,  smotheringly gray inconvenience of wet shoes, damp jackets, impossibly limp hair in school and work place.

But Saturday?  The same drops from the same cloudy skies become a comfy, tuck-me-in-once-again and snuggle down kind of rain.  There is no schedule to follow, no structured day, no required attendance, no need to even poke our nose out the door (unless living on a farm with hungry animals in the barn).

This is why most northwest natives are rainyphilics, anticipating this quiet time of year with great longing.  We are granted permission by precipitation to be complacent, slowed down, contemplative, and yes, even lazy…
*
*
*
*
*
*
Okay, enough of that.  Gotta get up, get going, laundry to do, house to clean, barn to muck out, bills to pay, meals to prepare.
Maybe tomorrow the rain will still be falling and there will be a chance to sit with hot tea cup in hand, gazing through streaked windows.
Cozy rain on a Sabbath Sunday.  With scones.  And jam.
Bliss.

photo by Lea Gibson