The day had been particularly trying. My daughter was exhibiting all the finer qualities of being a teenager. With a heavy heart, I forcibly dismissed the incident as growing pains and reminded myself not to take it personally. This is hard when you suspect that your psyche is still hovering over the boundary line between youth and the twenties even though numerically you’re pushing half a century and should have claimed maturity decades before.
For their part, the boys were simultaneously wasting things – all sorts of things that were worth money – and making a mess with their wastage. It’s a double whammy I frequently have to contend with.
The cats, of course, were shredding the furniture, knocking things over with their fun zoomies, and hacking up hairballs that are never just hair of course. Meanwhile, other people’s cats were leaving their deposits in my garden, not only stinking up the place but also digging up my plants. I love cats, but there are some cat hoomans I just cannot tolerate.
One of my clients was also up to her usual tricks. She likes to “leave it all up to me” and then figure out a thousand words in what she actually wants. It usually has nothing to do with what I’ve already written. I should’ve dumped her a long time ago, but, you know, she’s a familiar nuisance, and she pays as soon as she accepts the final edit. Remind me to never again judge people who hem and haw about leaving an unhealthy relationship.
When the day becomes overwhelming, my options include quietly losing my mind – scratch that, people a street over can hear me lose my schnitzel – or just sagging. The second one tends to be the quiet option. I can’t sag and ruminate on the many ways the day’s sucking for very long, but I do allow myself a break to calm myself down and regroup. My preferred way of self-soothing is with a cup of tea.
There’s just something about tea, isn’t there? Coffee pumps you up (theoretically speaking, anyway; not even coffee can wake me up when I’m sleep-deprived, which is sadly my default state) because of the caffeine. Tea, especially green tea, also has caffeine, but it has l-theanine as well. It’s a compound that supports relaxation among other things, so it counters the stimulating effects of the caffeine in tea.
So, that’s what I do: I find a corner away from everybody and have a hygge moment with my cup of tea. I’m assuming you know what hygge’s all about; it has been quite a fashionable word in recent years. It refers to the quality of coziness and comfort (usually also conviviality, but you can totally hygge it up all by yourself). As a concept, it’s something we have to thank the Danes for. They originally came up with it, but when outsiders found out about it, entrepreneurial minds recognized it as something that the human soul craves and tried to bottle it up. They took something that was essentially about life’s simple pleasures and put a designer price tag on it.
A part of me resents what pop culture did to hygge, but that’s a personal issue. In any case, I can still obtain it without subscribing to the trend. I can even be all aesthetic hygge without dipping into commercial hygge. The usual elements are often things I already have at home after all. What are these? When I visualize a hygge setup, what I see includes a candle, a plant, a cat, a book, and a hot drink, all of which I already have in abundance. That’s a picture of contentment I can easily create.
Ideally, when I endeavor to achieve hygge, I would’ve already been done with the day’s battles and ready to completely relax; however, as long as my boys are awake, there’s hell to be raised. It’s just not in me to turn my back on chaos, to play the fiddle while my kids trash the house. Nevertheless, when it does get overwhelming, I can look away for a minute or two and fix myself a hot drink, kick off my footwear, put my bare feet up, and sip liquid peace.
My hot drink of choice is tea, but cocoa is also a favorite, especially during the holidays. Understandably, I feel healthier drinking tea. I drink all sorts, usually sweetened with honey. I like having variety on hand not only to suit my mood but also my health needs. I’m a great believer in the medicinal properties of tea. It’s my usual go-to for minor ailments. That’s why I also have plenty of plants in my garden that I can turn to in a pinch when I need herbal tea.
When I’m stressed and stretched taut, a hot cuppa loosens up the tightness in my soul and keeps my concerns at bay while I fortify myself.
Am I trying to sell tea to you? Nope, to each her own, of course. Not everybody loves tea. Nonetheless, everybody does need a version of a tea break from time to time. We all have to deal with challenges that seem intent on trouncing us, and it’s up to us to find ways to cope. There are people who turn to coffee and derive a similar kind of experience.
I suppose this is essentially about accessing that fuzzy moment so that you can center yourself and see the bigger picture, beyond the trials that were right in your face just now.
Of course, if you’re not really a tea drinker, but feel that you might want to get into a tea habit after reading this, let me give you a little push then and romanticize tea for you with some of my favorite tea quotes:
“There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea.” – Bernard-Paul Heroux (Basque philosopher)
“But indeed, I would rather have nothing but tea.” – Jane Austen (Mansfield Park)
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C.S. Lewis
“Teatime is a chance to slow down, pull back, and appreciate our surroundings.” – Letitia Baldrige (White House Social Secretary appointed by Jacqueline Kennedy)
“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” – Bill Watterson (American cartoonist)
“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.” – Lin Yutang (Chinese inventor)
“The spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement.” – Arthur Gray (English author of The Little Tea Book)
“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment.” – Muriel Barbery (French novelist)
“Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.” – James Norwood Pratt (American author, a.k.a. America’s Tea Sage)
“There is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” – Jasper Fforde (English author, Shades of Grey)
“Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness.” Lu Yu (Chinese writer and tea master)
“Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.” – Frances Hardinge (British children’s writer)
“If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you.” – William Ewart Gladstone (former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
What about you? How do you create hygge? And which hot drink soothes you best? In the meantime, here’s a tea-oriented reel I made for Instagram a couple of months back.
This Small Life 
I’ve always loved tea but it became my beverage of choice after reading The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg. 😀
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One of my all-time faves ❤
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