Teabagging Tea Lovers

Just because I like Orange Pekoe, well, I am exotic anyway.  I've never been a brand snob.  Blue Ribbon. Red Rose. Lipton. Twinnings.  Just plane old tea. It is warm welcoming. My #NoName teabags are even okay, and my jumbo bag has lasted me a few years. This week I saw some Red Rose on sale: 144 bags for $7.99.  That seemed fair so through the till we went.

I don't make a full pot anymore.  Just one bag into my to-go cup, and I usually top it up after I've poured my first into a china cup so my subsequent sips are a bit weaker.  It is good!  Don't cringe!

Of course, it is 2020. I compost all my kitchen organic matter. Yesterday, two tea bags were draining in the corner of my sink, before I would plunk them into my compost.  I went to pick them up, and heard this strange crinkling sound.  I had never heard a teabag crinkle before.

My mind wandered to some eco-discussions about the Stash (and other) high end teabags that had been made from plastic, and yes indeed, we'd begun ingesting these micro plastics.  But no.  Not my lowly orange pekoe teabags with no string and no wrapper!  But what about that crinkly noise?

I picked them up and moved them around. I even recorded the sound (Play button is at the bottom of the story.) CrinkleCrinkle.  Yes.  These teabags looked like any teabag I'd seen since birth.  The Red Rose Tea Co. (a subsidiary of Unilever!) had duped me! Grrrr.  I was  using plastic teabags.  I yanked the one that was already in my compost out of the pail, to protect my rich soil-to-be.

Then I began freeing the rest of my orange pekoe from their plastic prisons.  Yes, all 144 prisons.  I do know that supposedly the tea we drink in these square bags is the dregs.  The sweepings from the tea-processing floor.  I already confessed though, I'm not a tea snob. I can buy tea pearls, sun dried green tea, organic and fair trade.  But this tea tastes like my life.  (btw - This box of tea boasted "Rain Forest Alliance Certified" - so there are some ethics, just not the plastic-free ethic.)  I set up a work station.  Scissors, Tea capture plate, plastic capture bin, and so began to de-package 418 grams of tea from those little white sachets.

Before my great tea release, I'd measured how much dry orange pekoe was in each bag.  For my next cup of tea, I measured that into a tweezer-style tea-ball that was seldom used.  It will be getting called into action much more frequently as these 418 grams get steeped into my morning pick-me-up.

Shame on the teabaggers for forcing me to use my tea-ball.  I doubt there will be a return to the paper tea bags that were safe for my compost. Are plastic tea bags a sign of progress or digress or egress or devolution?  

In my mind I can hear the VP of production and the VP of marketing and the VP of finance having the conversation. These bags are cheaper!  We'll have to revamp our whole production line!  Make them identical because we'll have to keep this change secret from our customers.  And I think they succeeded.  The petroleum bi-products industry found a whole new customer, or maybe they are made from recycled pop bottles.  Now, is that justification?

Time for some tea to ponder that circular thinking.

Listen to the Crinkly Teabags:

Conjuring the Ghost Plane

We have knitted in.

We have found ways to keep going forward without the big fat social obligations.

Practical things have happened to me.  I do my dishes more frequently, so that's good.

My physical self seems to be hanging on.  I am not as great a victim to my shopping behavior in the grocery market.  I do fall off my chips and cookies wagon every week or so, but that frequency has diminished.

Dreams though.  Well there is something else.  My diurnal clock has shifted.  Mornings are more welcoming than they used to be.  I resisted and resisted.  Time to get up.  Really?  It's 5:30.  I have succumbed to predawn alertness.  But, since I feel generally well, physically, what is the harm.  No harm.

Except for the dreams.  I think it is the dreams that are awakening me.

Every morning is different.  I am learning to take messages from them, and posting them in to my daily thoughts and reflections.  They bring curiosity there.

This morning was a case in point.

I ran into Bobby Dove. I asked her if she lived in  Oakburn and indeed she did.  Miraculously, so had I, in a previous iteration of my little life, and I asked her the address.  "Ten Matheson", she reluctantly reported. We were standing in a very run down version of pre-nineties Brandon and I had a marble-sized lump under the insole of my shoe, and my bunion was killing me.  But I was eager to share useless touristy information in an over-enthusiastic travelogue toward a place where she could share her art.  A gig.  We got to the place, an outdoor stage setting, albeit, messy and there we found Ainsley Friesen who was waiting. Bobby pulled out her lap steel and Ainsley was standing at a mic up high on a secondary platform.  Electronics were all in place and they started to sing.  My bunion was still sore, but I was pleased to see art begin.  They reached a crescendo and I added a loud wailing harmony to their voices.  I was filled with joy.  Instantly they both exuded guttural anger at me.  They yanked out their audio cables and stomped away, leaving me standing with my aching bunion, and wondering why they despised collaboration. 

I woke.  My bunion was killing me.  Wait.  I don't have a bunion!  Wait, does this really hurt?  I moved my big right toe in circles to check.  I could swear it still hurt.  I actually sat up and put my foot on the ground to check for pain.  I was still doubting.  No indeed.  I had no pain, but my mind had really made me believe in it.  I wondered if this was the nature of Ghost Pain that my uncle, a diabetic amputee had described.  

More important, though, was the reflection.  I had a the Phantom Pain of resentment resting just under my rib cage.  That was much more interesting than the physical pain.  Then I laughed.  No!  It is exactly the same.  The only difference is that physical pain can be real, but resentment is never real.  It is always only conjured.  I have, in this realm, only love for Bobby and Ainsley.  Of course, this says something about my reaction to disappointment.  Who among us has not had to face disappointment?  Who among us dwells on the resentment and who just lets it float, like a dream, beyond the now of a waking moment?

I give thanks to my Yoga Guru, Shell Andréa for gently bringing awareness to my thinking.  I am pleased that the lessons are arriving in my dreams. I am also grateful that I do not suffer from bunion pain and have great empathy for those who do.