Leaflet No. 21
This week’s leaflet tea tastes like...snow, potato chips, honeyed butter, platformer games, flight delays
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 Beobab.tree’s 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.
I am transcribing this leaflet out of a terminal at O'Hare. I crave the firmness of my mattress, giggling with my roomie, and teasing the cat. That stinky, stinky cat.
Being in transit is a weird time. Airplanes are akin to video game Save Rooms because flights tend to be meditative for me. As brown noise washes over the cabin, my mind is awash with questions, memories, and dreamy thinking.
Like any Leaflet, I share some things I've been enjoying and some sweetness. I want to also add some thought-salad from a day in transit as to invite anyone to join the conversation too--throw some cherry tomatoes in the salad mix.
Enjoying:
🌺 c(*)ke zero as my in-flight drink of choice.
🌺 time with my little sister.
🌺 butter that has been whipped with honey, so that it is sugared, simple, and complete.
🌺 any pretzels you can get from the Mall (I practice brandlessness on this blog, but I think we all know which purveyor of mini pretzels I am referring to)...saying YES to a dip!
🌺 Freeing myself of the pressure to sound like a Smarthead by saying something is "awesome".
🌺 Reflecting on "objective thinking":
Off of a twitter book recommendation, I started the small book "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned" and it lays out what has felt right and loose within me.
As someone who forgets the generation they are in (gen Z? millenial?) and who doesn't need the label to know that innovation-speak weighs heavily on the soft animal inside, I appreciate how the authors have put it plainly through their backgrounds and continued work in AI and computer science.
The overarching question is "why does modern life revolve around objectives?" and to what point are the lofty goals we keep to ourselves or share to others limiting our potential to explore reasonable, awesome stepping stones towards fulfillment of some-sort?
If you have the inkling to retire the idea of New Year Resolutions and instead vibe with the spirit of Intentional Continuance, I say this is an affirming read.
If you'd like an e-copy, send me a message.
Sweetness:
I will expand on one (1): Ultimate Chicken Horse.
A childhood friend invited a few of us over to join his family carne asada. I thought it was one of their annual cookouts with family abound: nieces only getting taller, the pack of soda coming from the garage's fridge, waiting your turn while taking in the carne-cornucopia. I was wrong.
It was just me, two other childhood friends, his brother, and parents. No line to the beautiful meat of a 12-hour smoke, potato salad, and grilled tomatoes embedded with bacon. Just a kitchen island for open-concept grazing.
The intimacy of this structure surprised me, and, in some ways, aged-me-back to being a kid again, graciously thanking the parents for the meal and minding how I converse around them (no tall nieces to run around, ambient laughing, or pick-up soccer in the yard).
An aside: pro-aging is about honoring the dissonance between a long-lost behavior and your present self. When I mind my manners extra in front of my friend's parents, then run down the basement with my pals hoo-hoo and haw-hawing, I am closing a gap in time. I am both adult and my childhood best friend's friend all at once.
Yes, I had to correct my friend's Dad (whose vague memory of me studying neuroscience somehow fired the latent connection that I was always a good influence on his son) that I am actually not a neurosurgeon—that I am actually aiming for Secret World of The Library (leaving him a bit puzzled, faint question marks swirling around his head). Though at the end of the conversation, of the clarification, I was just vibing.
Ok, so Ultimate Chicken Horse is "a party platformer game where you build the level as you play, placing traps and hazards to screw your friends over, but trying not to screw yourself" (Steam, 2016) by Clever Endeavour Games.
I think it's great. It was one of the first video games I've ever seen my friend Y play with us, who has always favored sitting on the bench and contently watching us other three gas ourselves from a rigorous (ultimate) game of Tag.
This game got her to shriek and laugh, and that made me very happy.
Depending on how you play, it can be cooperative or chaos. Objectives change as the game evolves. Maybe one round you focus on sabotaging, then make it easier for everyone, then back to being an agent of havoc.
You are held accountable by the choices you make, since the obstacle you place effects your navigation across the environment to arrive at the flag. I love games that play different each time and bid you to flow with spontaneity.
I also like that it must be multi-player. Like a ritual that takes at least two persons to invoke the magic, cooperative play is contingent on communal enrapture.
I played the Monkey who quite faithfully wore the :D emoticon. It looked ridiculous every time I miscalculated double-jump and fell into the void. It was fun, the character design and movements cute, and I've never heard of this game before.
Like the book on objectives, this game invites the unplanned. You can plot and play with low stakes. If your avatar falls off the map or gets crisped by the flamethrower--ok, what of it—next round, We're So Back.
The game's design helps the individual let loose from tight, high-pressure objectives (Save the Princess! Eliminate the Boss! Run away from slender giant!) through collaborative adaptability. Maybe there are some amusing streams on Youtube of the game for y'all to see what I mean.
Maybe you can get the sense from this transcription that I've been thinking about how to Relax and relieve myself of objectives that are not flexible or respectful to how I view my timing, the world, and my small place in it.
My flight's about to board. I'm sitting a few seats next to an elderly man who just crushed a bag of potato chips, in the same nonchalant crunching as a teenage boy.
I hope your day is kind to you and you are kind to you.
Warmed,
Isabel
