So you’re driving your friends to the train. It’s cold and sunny and you have a day of picking up and dropping off and picking up again ahead of you.
Perhaps someone little in your house had a bad dream, and as a consequence you might not have gotten so much sleep, and you drop your friends off in Wassaic, NY, insisting that you’ll see them soon even though they are going very, very far away today (much farther than the train can take them, even). Their cat gives a final panicked meow from her little carrier, and you kiss them each twice in the French fashion. Then it is still cold and sunny and you are still sleepy, as you pull into Millerton. The tea shop is just opening, and you have about 27 minutes, and you can fill them all in the tasting room. Hillel is ready for some fascinating conversation, and he’ll look at you with that look that intense twenty three year old Aquarians (just guessing here) tend to have as he asks you about your life, your sense of taste, and your children. And you can stand there for all 27 minutes and pick out teas from all over the world. And Hillel will make you a cup of anything, and then a cup of anything else, until you’ve run out of conversation or you have to go pick up the bigger one to take her to her physical. But until you go, you can just stand there and taste, and notice the differences between Japanese green tea and Chinese green tea, and actually have a moment to notice what something actually tastes like.
And the sun comes through the long windows in the tasting room and it can be slow, and fancy just for that little bit of time.
Occasionally I teach workshops, and I have one coming up this fall. Join me and stellar novelist 