Tea For Tue : Another Story from Tea With Whimsy

Three weeks ago, I posted A Bedtime Story I Tell Myself, which became the beginning to a story called Tea With Whimsy.  Here was the next installment originally written as a blog post on September 30, 2013 and titled Gathering Herbs in the Moonlight.  If you'd like to read the first post, just click the link below.

Gathering Herbs in the Moonlight

(Continued from A Bedtime Story I Tell Myself)

She straightens up and hands me her basket, and without a word bends over and goes back to cutting herbs.  She's never surprised when I arrive.  Whimsy is always expecting someone to show up, and of course they always do.

I stand shivering in the moonlight holding the basket, which fills up as Whimsy continues to snip herbs crooning softly as she works.  And I notice, that she seems to be singing a love song to the plants, like a mother singing a lullaby to a beloved child.  A small sigh of contentment seems to ripple round the garden, and I begin to feel not so chilled as before--as if someone just pulled a blanket up around my chin and tucked me in.

When the basket is over flowing, she straightens up and onto her toes, raising her arms over her head and stretching hugely.  She beams at me and invites me to come inside.

We enter through the kitchen door, and the warmth and the smell of fresh baked bread wrap around me like a soothing embrace.  I look around at the tidy kitchen and think about my own never quite clean kitchen, with the dishes in the sink, the crumbs on the counter, and unswept floor.

"And that's why you can't sleep at night!"

"Hey", I protest weakly.

"Well...your thoughts are very loud." 

I know they can be at times, and so I just nod and cock my head to one side raising my eyebrows, while she continues.

"It's true, though.  You've got a lot of..." and here she searches for a word and gestures, flourishing her hand around over and around my head.  Into my mind's eye comes a picture of a black tangled ball like a scribble on paper when someone is trying to get the ink to flow in a sluggish pen.  "...snarled energy", she finishes.  "You've got a lot on your plate right now.  Why do you want to be such a glutton and take on so much?  Are you sure you're not biting off more than you can chew?"

"Stop with the food analogies, you're making me hungry!"

Her eyes sparkle.  "Let's have some toast." 

And now my eyes are sparkling, and I nod my head enthusiastically in agreement.


That seems like a good stopping place for now.  (I think I'll have some toast--more later).


After all these years, I still remember that it was nearly midnight when I posted Gathering Herbs in the Moonlight.  I ended with "I think I'll have some toast..." and just as I was shutting down my computer, my husband Mike came out of the bedroom.  He had just woken up hungry.  The first words out of his mouth were, "Did you say something about toast?"

At that time he still didn't even know I was writing Tea With Whimsy, nor that I was having insomnia.  But somehow, he picked up on the suggestion of toast.  I love that form of communication.  And it figures prominently in Tea With Whimsy.