Put the kettle on. Throw away the last tea bag. Rinse out the milk container and fill it again. Fill the sugar. Pull out a fresh tea bag from the metal tin on the counter. I've done it enough times that it's habit. My mother's day begins with tea and ends with tea. And at least once during the afternoon, she takes a few minutes to drink another cup.
My mom recently spent two weeks in Colorado. Being away from her isn't anything new, but this time, it felt longer. I have a stash of Yorkshire Gold tea (the only kind she'll drink; having infamously said, "I have a sensitive palate, and this just doesn't have the complexities of flavor that Yorkshire Gold has" in reference to another British tea that she tried only tried once) on my bookcase. I bought it for one pound sometime last summer, and I've saved it ever since. While she was gone, I drank more Yorkshire Gold than I have in the past year. I'm not sure why...maybe it was something about the methodicalness of preparing it that I've gotten so used to that reminded me of her. Maybe it was the smell of the tea. She always smells like Yorkshire Gold. You know how they say that people attach more memories to smell than to anything else? I think it's that way here.
She's getting ready to leave again on Saturday, for two more weeks. And I'll make more tea. And the process of preparing it and the taste and the smell will continue to remind me of her.
