Tea for One

This is one of those mornings. The clouds hang low in the sky, menacing the hills with dark shrouds of mist and rain. The light wind is chilling, cutting to the bone, and even the birds who are willing to venture out are staying low to the ground or huddling in low branches with their feathers fluffed to the utmost.

Inside, as I sit near the window looking out, I am snuggled in the depths of a warm afghan with my hands wrapped around a cup of brisk tea mixed with a generous dollop of milk and a plate of homemade bread, toasted and slathered generously with real butter and homemade ruby grapefruit marmalade. I have had a busy and long weekend, and I have an hour to myself before I go rushing off into the rain again. It is a day for practicing hospitality for myself.

My toast rests on one of my favorite pretty plates and my tea is in a lovely cup and saucer that makes me feel good to use. Because it is just myself and my writing tools I could just as easily have dumped my lovely toast onto a paper towel or paper plate and my tea into whatever mug happened to be in the front of the cupboard. But I am just as worthy of the pretty stuff as any visitor I may have. Many of us have forgotten to practice hospitality with ourselves and our families. The very dailiness of our contact with our families, the seeming burden of feeding our own selves every day. They wear on us and make us forget that we, too, are special guests and friends in need of seeing the pretty things in life.

So today I invite you to take the time to use the "good" plates for a meal, put a flower that you find beautiful in a vase where you can enjoy it during your day