Leaflet no. 2

This week’s leaflet tea tastes like...cardamom, synthesizer, cactus, and skittles

Hello, everyone.

I hope you’ve been taking care.

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 Wednesday’s leaflets. From here, I invite you to sit with your own cuppa and peruse what media this week’s tea blend has to offer.

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Recommendations:

• An electronic music album I’ve been really enjoying is La Femme’s Paradigmes, which is sultry and full of adventure—like you’re on the subway, hopping car to car to overhearing people’s woes. It’s fun too! Every song (especially the stretch of ‘Lâcher de chevaux’ thru ‘Force & Respect’). Where you’d least expect it, a banjo shows up in “Disconnexion”. There is a strong reading of spooky with the music’s ghostly vocals, scurrying synth, figures darting across a dark forest of trees, and electronic tummy rumbles throughout. Actually, this is the album I played on my porch to welcome trick-or-treaters on Halloween. I am glad I sticked to my guts and played music I liked—and thought fit the occasion—instead of the pre-made Halloween playlists on spotify (nothing wrong with that, though). I just thought, if I’m posting up here for a few hours, I’m gonna play music I especially enjoy and want to share with suburbanites (Thank you to my friend Stephanie, whose good taste in music put me on to La Femme). When the album ran through, I selected songs from the Hylics video game soundtrack. I am proud of the porch atmosphere I created: music, my sketchbook, a bowl of assorted candy, and my Gloomy Bear plushie looming on a chair next to mine.

• This malawax (Somalian cardamon crepes) recipe I’ve made thrice now. So yom.

• havaiana flip flops - comfy and reliable.

• mint & sage tea

• the japchae rice combo from Kangchon in Centreville, VA

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Deciphered images in the tree bark:

Carry a big tote and an even bigger heart. Peep at the juice my Mom has been concocting daily (apples, bell peppers, celery, parsley) for us in the morning. Thank you, Mom.

Christmas cactus from Trader Joes. I am excited to take care of them and see them bloom. c:

Gloomy Bear.

Still thinking about this burrito I thoroughly ate alongside Alexander last Friday. What makes it so damn good is their al pastor, yes, but you can’t not acknowledge the use of refried beans in here as well. This particular meal makes me emotional, for many reasons.

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Sweetness:

Inspired by Sally Wen Mao’s poem Ode to Emptiness, guided so thoughtfully in this newsletter by Devin Kelly, I want to honor my ability to notice sweetness, even when I am going through incredible heaviness right now.

• how Yami showed up with Ozzie, her dog, to my porch on Halloween

• smiling at strangers at Zumba class, receiving smiles

• getting my breathing deep during & after class, thank you to the kind of movement that forces you to control your breathing, to keep going

• seeing my parents again

• opening a window, having it be fall outside

Here is the original poem…

Ode to Emptiness

There comes a time when you stop hoping
for love. What then to live for?

There are substitutes: the lunch
on your lap, the power lines overhead,

the heritage buildings lining
your neighborhood—

razed yesterday, absent today, raised tomorrow
from the dead. These black-bean

noodles never nourished
you, only gave you that impression,

but perhaps their imprint was enough.
What sweetness touches you now,

you must thank if you notice. Trash
can be delicious, tart as limes. There is mercy

in the way milk sours. Convenience
in the way we throw our spoils

away. Because some emotions are made
of plastic, junking up inside. Your debris

becomes your whole composition—
your oeuvre of sorrow, it kills entire whales,

it litters your whole ocean—a super-isle
of flotsam, never to decompose.

Every night you beg it to die,
and every morning your wish is granted. 

from The Kenyon Review (Mar/Apr 2020)

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I hope your day is kind to you and you are kind to you.

Warmed,

Isabel