New Year’s Eve: What I Found in My Notebook

“If we’re not mindful, it’s not tea that we’re drinking but our own illusions and afflictions.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

From my journal: December 12, 2012

There was cat fur in my tea, and I just swallowed it … so that is how ritual begins. And for many years, she celebrated the solstice by drinking a little cat fur with her tea at 5:42 a.m., a certain Ceylon from Fiji or green jasmine from the sacred source, Amazon (dot com). I am writing in dust, on a piece of dead tree. The tyrant chides, pay attention. Sometimes when a fleck of dust hits the coiled bulb, it sparks, a tiny explosion, and you can almost hear out of the florescent buzz, I was here, look, I was here.