Tea

There are mornings when life seems glum and boring and grey. Today was one of those mornings. Rainy and cool, my son whining and throwing whatever he could get his hands on, me stomping about and yelling like an ogre. There was no food in the cupboard and my laundry lay limp on the line, the air wet.

To escape we went down to the backyard where D ate green tomatoes and I glowered at the neighbours' yards and the trash in the alley. Sinking self pity sucked at my toes.

Then my neighbour, the one who lives below us and only complained once in the whole year that we have lived here about the noise, offered me a cup of tea. My heart sang. Warm chai with two biscuits. I briefly hypothesized that the optimism and determination of the Indian subcontinent was due to so much tasty tea but then remembered that Indians are known for their fatalism.

D and I sat on the fire escape stairs and talked about the joys of sharing, more specifically, how glad we were that the neighbour had shared with us.

She barely speaks a word of English my neighbour, but she made my day.

And then the sun came out, my clothes dried and I made pasta salad for lunch.