Summer Mindfulness

In the summer, the cicadas sing.

It’s morning and I’ve already had my walk. Now it’s tea time. My favorite part of the day.

In the matcha bowl my mom got me for my recent birthday (47. Wasn’t I 40 yesterday? Wasn’t I 23 the day before? Wasn’t I 10 and all-knowing the day before that?), I whisk water and matcha powder and think of the mindfulness book I read some years ago that said something along the lines of: When you are drinking tea, let that be the only thing you do.

Actually, if memory serves me, it might have said: When you are washing the dishes, let that be the only thing you do. As a reminder that there are too many moments we rush through in our days with “dread and haste” (words taken from a Mindfulness of Doing the Dishes meditation script) and, in the process of hurrying through them, we risk missing out on life itself.

For the moments all add up.  

For years, I’ve wanted a matcha tea set; the matcha (chawan), the bamboo tea scoop (chashaku), the whisk (chasen), and the whisk stand (chasen stand). Several times, I nearly bought one for myself.

But I always put it off. It would be one more thing to pack away in those times when I wander off to adventure. Or it would be one more tricky, breakable thing to try to stuff into my carry-on luggage when I do travel. It would be something else with which to clutter up my mom’s kitchen counter. It would be an indulgence. An unjustified expense.

So many reasons.  

In the end, I’m saved from overthinking when my mom gives me my birthday present. And it’s perfect. “I always wanted this,” I tell my mom with a grin, copying my six-year-old nephew’s words. In my case, it’s nearly true (though “always” is still a stretch even for me). My mom knows how to find treasures. The exact right ones.

I’m pleased as punch, as my grandmother might have said. Actually, she would have said, “Tickled pink.” I’m tickled pink about my matcha tea set.

A day or so later, after I make an offhand remark about needing a special tea tray to keep from cluttering up my mom’s kitchen counter, my mom orders me a little tray. 

A surprise. A thoughtfulness. A listening. A kindness.

I’m tickled even pinker.

Though I’ve been living here for years now (where does that time go? Why does it fly by so fast?), since before my dad died, I’ve resisted trying to (also as my grandmother might have said) build my own nest. For if I can pack my things away, empty the drawers, and leave, then I don’t actually live here, do I? I’m just in between places.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about doing just that. Building my nest. Making the space I live within more mine. More me. I’ve been thinking about Being Here. Where I am.

In this kitchen, in this house, in this state, in this summer. Here.

The pamphlet, titled: “Preparing the Perfect Bowl of Matcha Green Tea,” that came with the fancy matcha tea my mom gave me along with the tea set says, “Begin with a slow, back-and-forth stroke, then agitate the mixture to a froth with quick strokes.”

Shifting from slow to agitating, it’s all in the wrist, I change the mindfulness line to: When you are making tea, let that be the only thing you do.

As I think and whisk, turning the water and powder into a pleasing green froth, I am not quite completely mindful since I’m thinking about being in the moment, rather than simply being in the moment.

But it is still nice.

For too often lately I myself have been agitated. About myself. The state of the world. This anger. That rage. The future. Money. Time. My physical being. My work. My sense of home. My sense of humor (or the lack thereof). All of humanity. The planet. Creativity. Productivity. All the other “ivities.” My longing for the mountains, forests, winter, cold weather, for anything besides than this city, humidity, and heat. Whisked around, finding irritations in the littlest things and the biggest ones.

Worse, not liking who I am in the middle of these irritations.  

Can’t I be better? Can’t I be kinder? Why must I snap instead of answering calmly, gently, contentedly? How can I go about “Preparing the Perfect Me”? Where’s the pamphlet for that?

When I’m whisked (and aren’t we all whisked at all times, every day?), I’d like for the resulting froth to be a pleasing one rather than something bitter and bad.

Being human is hard. Oh to be 10 and all-wise again. Oh to recognize beauty in all its forms and be taken by awe. Oh to wonder and laugh with ease.  

Perfection is unattainable. But excellence is always a good goal.

There, I’ve attained a satisfying froth. Small white-capped bubbles on the green surface of this, today’s tea. I rinse the chasen and place it on the chasen stand. I pour four ounces of oat milk and heat it up.

I am learning to make an excellent cup of matcha. How can I go about preparing a more excellent me?

Well, for starters, by being mindful. For another, by being intentional. For another, by not taking myself so seriously.

G.K. Chesterton said, “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.” Which always gives me a smile (“That gave me a smile” is something my dad used to say). I don’t need to be an angel (no matter what definition is being used) but I do want to be the best human I can be. The best version of myself. A version that comes closer to what one of my friend’s children told me long ago when she said, “You’re nice, you’re fun, and you’re always happy.”

Wanting now, as I did then when she said it, for those things to be more true than untrue.

I pour the milk over the tea. One day, I might try to learn how to make latte art designs. But for now, I can take this one step at a time.

Picking the chawan up with care, I put my hands around the curve of the bowl and sip slowly.

 

On the Other Side of the Table

 

I take two boxes of books and head off to a book signing event. There’s a table set up for me. My mom and sister help me place posters, books on bookstands, magical creatures, and treats out with decorative flair.

The comic book and gaming crowd has begun to wake up and venture out into the world. Because of that, there are already people wandering the store’s aisles and settling down at the gaming tables positioned off to the right of where I am.  

One of the brave, kind souls who stops to talk to me (and even more bravely and kindly buys my books) says, “I’ve never met an author in person before.” 

For a moment, I wonder what “author” means to him. Someone traditionally published? Does he know I self-published? And if he found out, would he regret categorizing me as he did?

I notice these thoughts without paying them too much mind. They aren’t crippling or anxiety producing. They’re just there like thoughts so often are. Some might call them flashes of what’s termed as “imposter syndrome.” Other might analyze them as the lingering effects of having been brought up in a culture that encouraged extreme humility and self-deprecation. I might do both. Or neither.

The funny thing is, the character, Hol, whose books I’m peddling, has similar thoughts over the definition of what it is to be a wizard. In his world, a wizard is one who wears a tunic. And he does. But because all the other wizards that came before him caught and tamed the magic that made up their tunics and Hol didn’t, he struggles with the question of whether or not he’s a real wizard.

But what does it mean to be a real wizard? What does it mean to be a real author?

Is it just a matter of having access to magic? Of wearing a tunic?

Is it just a matter of which side of the table I’m on?

I recently went to a talk and book signing by the author Martha Wells. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of her book series The Murderbot Diaries. And it was, as Dr. Horrible says, a crazy random happenstance that I saw the listing for the event, it was in the city I was in, and I was free to go. 

During the talk, Wells mentioned, with a kind of bemused astonishment—and I’m not going to remember her words exactly—that she was surprised by people’s reaction to her strange robot story.  

But people’s reaction and connection to a made-up world and a fictional character is a kind of (unpredictable) magic of its own. As it’s also a kind of magic to be able to, somehow, some way, create a character others find extremely relatable and, in this case, likeable.

I stumbled across the Murderbot Diaries during a rather dark period in my life. All Systems Red (book one in the series) was the first book in a long time that engaged me from the opening line and whose narrative voice made me laugh. As dramatic as this sounds, the story, the character, and the hope I found within that world saved me.

With a long line of others waiting behind me for their moment with her, in the brief moment I had with Wells as she signed a book for me, I told her that The Murderbot Diaries had helped me through a hard time and, in the process, reminded me why fiction (reading and writing it) is important and why Story matters.  

As so often happens when I want to be cool (or to be seen as cool), I got a little choked up. 

It was awkward and weird. She might have made some acknowledging noise. She might have said something in response. (I mean, how does someone respond to that?) But I do not regret telling her.

What I really wanted to do was sit with her writer to writer and talk about life, story, process, themes, ideas, and characters. What I really wanted was to be seen by her as more than a fan, to have a conversation, to be a friend. 

Instead, the gift I got from meeting Martha Wells was to hear what she had to say—words of wisdom, experience, doubt, astonishment—as she answered the interviewer’s and the audience’s questions, but, more than that, to see her as a human.

By seeing her as a human and an author, I could see myself as a human and an author, too.

On that night, with her on one side of the table and me on the other, I thought about what it might be like to be sitting in that chair with a long line of people waiting to tell me weird, awkward things, be excited about my character or characters, or simply get a signature on the title page of a book.

Today, with the brave and kind person asking me questions about myself and my books, I get to experience a little of that for myself. For this time, for now, and in this moment, I am on the other side of the table.

I am real.