Leaflet No. 18 - Laurie Lee

This week's leaflet tastes like ... Culver's frozen custard, A.I., turf, ceviche, cat hair, and Midwestern sensibilities

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Jul 26, 2023

Hello, everyone.

Tea Leaf Tech is a process in which I brew a cup of the Beobab.tree’s blend (its bark, leaves, its fruit, and a dapple of honey—of course!), which is a way to introduce settling and warmth into the day’s spiral of events. During this time of sipping and slowness, ideas and images collect at the bottom of the cup. The readings of the tea leaves laid to rest on ceramic glaze will be the basis of leaflets. From here, I invite you to sit with your own cuppa and peruse what sensations this week’s tea blend has to offer.

At the end of each month, I invite a guest who will have their fill of the blend and transcribe a leaflet, featured only on Beobab.Tree.

Laurie and I met out of the canon event where I was one of the assigned Peer Counselors for her freshman-year dorm hall.

Whenever Rossella (our RA) and I would would post up with buffalo bites and fries from our campus’ Co-op, Laurie would be one to regularly check in on us (I’d imagine we looked a little lonely sitting with way more fried food for two) and she’d stay to shoot the breeze. As two upperclassmen who yearned to be helpful and connect with our school’s emerging generation—Rosella and I appreciated these singular times together.

Since we reconnected in the Fall of 2020, I’ve felt counseled, seen, fed, loved, and remembered by Laurie and her power—that which is caring for her immediate environment in unwavering ways. One notable method is by baking in bulk. She is attuned to the art of ordering off any menu.

All of this to say, Laurie is a sister to me. I know her by her carrot cake, her chaotic energy, and her ability to speak her mind unabashed. Only she can call me “Issy”.

I met Laurie Lee when her hair was dyed blonde—now I’m the blonde one (with my brown roots spilling out of my noggin these days). I enjoy thinking of this timelapse image as a Disney-esque plot point where two characters have affected each other so much so, via affection, that some magic-induced phenomenon swatches my hair in hay-tones.

I feel that Laurie’s leaflet is especially poignant for the chapter of grand ole life I am in right now—returning to entities (one being my old self(s), another being my hometown) pure and pulsing. It’s so Laurie-Lee to drop beautiful points and poetic constructions and dash off going “heehee!!”.

Will this hit you in the right spot, too?

Hi hi!

I’m Laurie. I met Issy in school (she was actually my freshman ~peer counselor~ I.e., the dorm kamigami). I’m proudly from St. Louis, Missouri, but I now live in New York. Onwards!!!

Enjoying:

🌺The radio in the bodega near my apartment. It’s usually just 80’s hits and the sort, but those moments when Sunglasses at Night is playing and everyone is just head bumping along to it while they order sandwiches, or batteries, or whatever else they could possibly need.

Collective experience, enclosed in this space where we spend a lot of time, just not all at once.

🌺Cat haircuts. I may give my cat, Mufi, a fun haircut his next visit to the groomer. And I don’t wanna hear any slander about cat haircuts because they ‘groom themselves’.

Mufi loves getting shaved forreal, and he tells me so every night. I’m thinking of doing a mohawk strip down his back. I was reading one of those listicles of cat haircut types, and they said cuts like this (Dino cuts) can help boost a cat’s confidence because of all the extra attention they get from people.

I find that to be very sweet. Cats are known to be bitchy, but they crave love and affection and attention. They’re just like us!

Dino cut on a cutie kitty

Mufi ~a month after his last haircut, Mr. Handsome, hype him up!!!

🌺I joined a soccer league for the summer. I love how after you do a new exercise after a long time, you feel sore in different parts of your body. Today: my inner thighs, my second toe on my left foot, and my ribs. It feels like summer.

Sweetness:

🎴Reverting, in its many forms

I recently spoke with my dear friend Kadiatou and she introduced me to the concept of ‘reverting to Islam’ as opposed to ‘converting’. As she explained, the idea is that Islam is one’s true religion and to convert to Islam, you are returning to Islam. It’s beautiful to think there is always a community/state of being to ‘revert’ back to, whatever that means to you.

Kadi told me this in a time where I’ve been reflecting on ‘reverting’ in different ways. I recently went home and spent an evening with my best friend from childhood, Erin. We took gummies in a Peruvian restaurant, ate ceviche (“Best dish I’ve ever had at a restaurant at home” -Erin) and cackled in the nearly empty strip mall joint to memories of our high school Embarrassments and Triumphs.

Ladies love: acidic dishes n raw fishes

But Erin got me feeling shy! Only people who’ve known you through your many life forms, from grub to pupa, can re-fire those feelings, remind you of that fight-flight-freeze when your prom date asks you for a kiss in your Prius. And revert you back to someone you thought you Russian-dolled into interiority.

The uncomfy part of this feeling though is balancing the judgment I have of those past selves with the yearning. I yearn for the childhood honesty I never realized was so informed by my home.

Erin (left) and I at the ball game

🎴Frozen custard

After our dinner, we got frozen custard. We walked over to the Culver’s nearby and went into the frigid (AC goes crazy at fast food joints) shop to order our concretes. Hers: raspberry with macadamia nut. Mine: mint and brownie. Pink and green.

Home is slightly different from what we experienced in high school together. Back in the day (LMAO I am not old enough to be saying that), we had to smoke weed in the back of our friend’s Jeep Grand Cherokee on quiet dirt roads in the nearby wildlife reservation.

16 y.o. paranoia, we’d drive down around the reservation (Busch Wildlife, yes named after the beer company) with all the windows down, to ‘air out’ that stinky smell before we had to return home to our prying parents’ noses. We were calculated criminals.

Before our dinner at the Peruvian restaurant, we stopped at a dispensary near Erin’s house. We bought a pack of ‘fast acting’ mango gummies, on that sweet 15% student discount that they verified by vibe alone.

The store was a classic St. Charles application of big-city trends (fancy high-tech dispensaries). Warm modern interior, nice ‘specialists’ (sales women with septum rings), but without a single mention of any annoying weed terminology.

Sufficiently high, we end up at the Culver’s eating our Cosmo ‘n Wanda ice creams, being goofy. As we’re eating in the booth, the store manager walks up to us looking for conversation. She sees us taking this photo of our ice cream and starts advising us on how to take the “most aesthetic” pics.

The pic in question

She gave us her tips (portrait mode, and then that AI-app that makes fake pics of what you’d look like pregnant), and just chilled by our booth scrolling through her camera roll. It was one of those strange moments of human interaction I could never conceive of in New York.

She was unhurried and completely un-self-conscious. She was so excited about this AI-app and showed us her selfies that she mega-glammed with AI. (“I’m not posting pictures looking like this! 👉🫣👀”) Her air was so honest that it felt unreal.

I was so refreshed because the longer I live away from home, the more I miss these interactions: the Midwestern sensibility to never mask or signal, just be.

In some ways, it’s a state of being I want to revert back to. A reversion back to this core sensibility, informed by my becoming elsewhere.

Images in the tree bark: