Golden Buds of Joy - Part. 1
In which I start a substack and drink tea.
Thursday January 19, 2023 12:22 PM - Kamakura, Japan
Roof Deck
Golden Buds of Joy*
Steeps 5 & 6
It’s too cold to have tea on the roof deck. I’m having tea on the roof deck anyways. The iron tables have these lumpy designs that make it difficult to balance anything on. Okay, now I’ve discovered a tiny place in the middle of the table and each chair that’s perfect for holding cups and gaiwans. These are the two items that appear most eager to fly away in the midday winter breeze.
I’m drinking a tea that was gifted to me. With this substack I intend to gift something to readers. I don’t know if I can define that gift in words. If I tried, it might be the gift of life time. Time for life. Time for tea. This is what Tea w/ Dweez aims to do: gift you life time.
Of course, life time is different from a lifetime. It’s a time to be alive.
Golden Buds of Joy* tastes like those Golden Memory balls from the Pixar movie appear to feel. Core memories. They are little nuggets of Shou pu’erh tea. All of them are different shapes and sizes. They almost look like little candies found in a drawer, complete with a little dust on the outside.
I'm brewing the eighth steep currently. I started brewing this tea around 9 AM this morning. It’s past 12:30 now. It keeps giving.
My fingers are cold as I type this. Maybe I should have brought a pad and a paper. Maybe that’s what I’ll do next time. Right now, life is showing up like this: I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here in Kamakura. I feel many urges at once. I can act on only one of them now: to write these words. Next, I will drink more tea. I’m learning how to be peacefully eager. Serenely excited. Gently bonkers. Thrilled and keeping it tucked. Passionately calm or calmly passionate.
I want to take off my shoes and feel the earth to make creative decisions, like Rick Rubin. I don’t know how to do that and drink tea and type and feel cold at the same time. I don’t know how much to define about this substack. I don’t know whether it should be poetry or personal essays, tea-heavy or tea-light, fiction? Photos? Videos? What are these stories? What are these words?
Language continues to fail me but it’s the tool I know best how to use. So here it goes:
The seventh steep makes me taste my front porch at Budlong in Exposition Park, Los Angeles. It makes me taste my mom’s christmas cookies in Brian Head, Utah. I’ve moved to Kamakura, Japan for an indeterminate period of time. I’ve started a substack with an indeterminate goal.
What I can say for sure is I want to simplify and to share. What I can say for sure is there will be tea. Oh yes, there will be tea.
I try to google Kamakura weather to note how cold it is. It takes a while with the wifi really having to muscle it out to get up here but the results have at last arrived: 46 f. 8 c. 44% humidity 2 m/s wind. Cloudy.
I’m not going to run and say hi to my parents today. I’ll go tomorrow. I didn’t bring enough water for a full eighth steep. The bit I did bring is cold by the time I have it. Or maybe, just lukewarm.
*This bulletin is being powered by Golden Buds of Joy, a shou (some say ripe, some say cooked, but 熟茶 works best) pu’erh tea from Fly Awake teahouse in Portland Oregon.
Here is a link to the tea:
http://flyawakepdx.com/shop/6nzrjplgmp2l766xjul9lenc4eaz7g
The description on the website says it all:
“This is simply the most heart opening teas we have ever experienced! Your insides will kick-drum to the tempo of the prehistoric space-traveling spores that populated this planet. Once you plug in, you will understand you intimate connection to the primary network. The Universe is working with you, not against you. What you do with this knowledge is crucial in the effort to liberate the World.”
