Why Tea and Cake?

There's a song by Anne Murray called Another Pot o' Tea.

Put on another pot of tea
Because I'm in love with the Irish accent of your stories
And I need someone to help me.

Well, they say that now you don't talk straight,
And as of late it's been my lot to be afraid,
To remember you by anything,
But memories I already keep.

So put on another pot of tea,
Because I'm in love with the Irish accent of your stories,
And I need some sympathy.

It's harder when it takes so long to leave,
The table where we all learned to laugh, learned to grieve,
Over the pain that came so close to you
And it comes so close to me today.

So put on another pot of tea...

I'm showing by British roots to talk of tea and cake. Tea is drink, food, medicine and so much more for the British. For me tea and cake has always been synonymous with a gathering of kin and kindred spirits. From the time when as a child I would lay out plastic cups on a blanket for my stuffed toys, I learnt the joy of invitation and began my training in sharing and empathy.

Drinking a cup of tea (or coffee) in company, is a prelude to conversation, a settling down, a ritualised opening to listening and sharing. Even the act of laying a table with cups and saucers, the warming of the pot, is like a warming of the heart, it brings over me a sense of inclusion and belonging. I think of the economy of movement of my Grandmother's hands as she placed cups on saucers and arranged custard cream biscuits on a plate. How we groaned about it when we were trying to diet! How later we chided ourselves for moaning, because we understood the connectiveness between her offering of food, drink, and the offering of love.

I think of the miles I would drive with Mum to find the best cafe, the best piece of cake, the best brew of coffee. Even when money was short, which it nearly always was, we could not deprive ourselves of this tradition. In fact in hard times it became even more essential. "We'll treat ourselves" we said and what we meant was I will treat you, you deserve happiness and simultaneously you were saying the same to me. And in each other's company we found the comfort and humour that made the rest of the struggle ok.

I write this piece whilst sat alone in a busy cafe and I am overwhelmed again, as I am every day, by the inconsolable grief of losing my Mum, my best friend, my confidante, my companion, the person who loved me longest and loved me best. How inadequate words are to describe this love that gathered me in, listened, counselled, and gave me solace and healing when I was broken open. How to explain now the emptiness that extends to all edges of my world?

My Mum and my grandmothers taught me that love is simple. First you listen, then you understand and then the love flows.

A blog is an acknowledgment of the new reality of physical separation. Despite that, "Tea and Cake" is intended to be an expression of the willingness to listen, understand and love, even when we are too far from each other to sit down at the table together.

To quote another Anne Murray song:
There's a wren in a willow wood,
Flies so high and sings so good,
And he brings to you,
What he sings to you.