"Restlessness" by Anna, another tea-lover

Restlessness.

My body is bleeding from treacherous paper cuts
across the surface of my mind.
Letters, pictures, notes, postcards from far away.
They are small. But they are many. And they are hard to ignore.

The skin warms from the pain of missing.
Images, sounds, smells fill the air around me, stinging the blood.

I want to get up and press my palms against the window so that I can feel the sound of rain. Outside. Hazy and strange and empty, the thought that somebody, somewhere, is running fingers down the crying glass.

In the world where technology has brought us so close,
‘www’ fills the drops of silence falling down the heart.

What we share is rubbing salt of memory into the scars on our skin,
fragile, tender and defenseless.
And restlessness.

Like something is missing.

photo by Tatiana G

Tea and Coffee

Oh my god the weather's become so cold this week! I just biked to the station to get some bread, and my hands are numb from cold. I'm gonna make meself a cuppa tea.

When I was living in Edinburgh, I was amazed by how often my British friends drank tea. (Scottish a little less so, perhaps. Their winter and wind are harsher, and drum of whiskey makes you forget that for a wee while..)

Hmmmm the tea is nice. To be honest , I seldom had to make myself a cuppa there because my flatmates would just make one for me, always with one spoonful of sugar and a plenty of milk. And if I visited my friends at their flat, they would all be sitting there sipping tea in their big mugs, and they'd offer me one. (Caroline, Lucija, Lucy, Ronnie and Tammy's flat was exactly that--except they'd all be smoking fags at the same time!
(oh i miss them...)

Since I came back to Holland I hardly ever made tea.
Firstly, there was no flatmate, until 3 months ago, and my flatmate now drinks loads of tea, but has yet to offer me one (Hint hint Bart!).
Secondly, at work or study, the Dutch's drink of choice is usually coffee. My dad told me that the Dutch have at least 5 "Coffee breaks" a day at work.
At universities there are many coffee vending machines that disgorges some horrible stuff but still there's a que at every break between lectures. Of course sometimes I'm inclined to have one of those, cos it only costs 21 euro cent, but it really tastes foul! (The way the plastic cup first falls from the top to the holder, then after that couple of seconds of silence, "zzzzz....shoooooooooo........", I despise the indifference of this kind of machines)

Anyway, a couple of days ago I picked up 3 different kinds of teas by Celestial Seasonings at a local supermarket, and I knew that Croix used to drink this brand so I must have had some, but I got addicted to them straight away.

My favorite right now is 'Tension Tamer'--not that I'm super stressed but it just tastes gorgeous...the ingredients are; Eleuthero ginseng root, peppermint leaves, cinnamon, ginger root, chamomile flowers, lemon grass, licorice root, catnip leaves, tilia flowers, natural lemon flavor, hops, and Vitamins B6, and B12..
(Click here to know what all the herbs are)
I know I love beer too but isn't that the most healthy-sounding ingredients you can have for a drink?

Not only does it makes me warm and happy, it makes me to write! But I better go study for my exam. And no you won't know what I got for it, cos it's mechanics, something I'm bad at.

I will write again about tea and coffee soon. After some research you know?

Enjoy the rest of Sunday afternoon! (oh wait who am i talkin to?)

On Japanese Newspapers and Beautiful Suicide, if that does ever exist...

I always keep up-to-date with Japanese news. Primarily from the websites of Asahi Shinbun, the second-biggest national newspaper (some articles available in English) and Nikkan Sports (Japanese only--a popular sports paper).

Japanese newspapers, if you ever see the real one, is a work of art--all the articles fit neatly in its page (never "Continues on page 5") , headlines run horizontally and vertically, even the smallest spaces left are filled with miniscule adverts of Yakult or medicine.

On Radio program schedule, you see that all the names of the programmes are shortened so severely, that you have no idea what it is. (So that everything can be crammed into a space of 8 by 14 -20 centimeters)

Of course, also the content--the news, differs in the way it's told and the nature of it.
For example, these days I see lots of articles about school teachers sexually harassing his students, or having sexual relationship with students or having sex with underaged girls who sell their body for a quick cash. I don't think I ever heard a similar story on Dutch news, or English news.
There might be an article next to it about an old man who got attacked by a bear, when picking some mushrooms in a forest, that he fought the beast off by clinging to the bear's neck (real, but old story).
Some are told in a typical matter-of-fact way ("a house gutted by fire"----the owner, Mr ### is missing, a body was found and police suspects that it is Mr ###.) like, duh....

The others are just plain bizarre, or emotional, or both.
A story on Asahi website last week, was exactly that.

A policeman came across an empty car with the engine running, parked outside a disused crematory, with classical music playing loudly on the stereo. Inside the car, 5 or so receipts from petrol stations, and on the back, what seems to be a logbook of the last day of a man and his wife.

The same afternoon the police found 2 skeletons lying side by side in the incinerator, still warm.
The man, an 80-year old, had been caring his wife (82), who had dementia for the last few years. Recently his health has also deteriorated, and he had decided to put his plan into action. A night before the fateful day, he sent his will which was made a year ago to the city hall, donating all his possessions, including their sizable land.

The note tells a short but powerful tale;

"4:30 pm My wife is waiting in the car."
"8pm Leave the house with my wife."
They drove around their favorite places and houses of their brother and sister, slowly making way.
"She waits without saying a word."
"At 12:45am I will set fire. Good-bye."

I couldn't help thinking that this was the most beautiful suicide I've ever heard (In a surreal way---just the thought of classical music in the pitch dark and the fire made me stifle with all sorts of emotions).
I am totally against suicide but this man..... his love for his wife, and to do it in the way he did, at his age is.....I don't know what word I should be using here--morbid on the one side, yes, but the whole orchestration and the almost religious-feel to this man's last act somehow makes me think that he actually did really appreciate his life, and that he wished no more pain, and the most fitting way that he could come up with, 'just happened to be', this whole thing, perhaps.

So many articles, so many deaths and accidents, but this one I don't think it's easy to forget.

Sorry for the 2 sort of "heavy" posts in a row---I've been busy and this was the first thing that came in my head so that's why---next time will be something totally different, I hope!