Tea.

I drink this tea sometimes, Yogi Tea. If you live in Portland, chances are you've had this tea yourself, or at least seen it staring back at you as you hemmed and hawed in the coffee aisle. Each tea bag carries a little message. I like to try to see how that message speaks just to me, how it fits in with my day, my life, my thoughts or problems. Sometimes it's obvious, or too generically insightful to be interesting: "Have faith." "All is light." Sometimes it takes me a minute.

I'm drinking this tea now, but only because I've run out of jasmine. It's fine. The water's already a little cool, but it's fine. My entire apartment smells a bit like fabric softener, and the smell itself is soft, too, like it belongs in liquid. Vaguely floral. Pale blue. Soft, like no one lives here.

Maybe humans are just too talented at seeing the signs. Lately, the past two weeks or so, I've felt gently pushed in a new direction. It's subtle at first, a new book here, a conversation there, and it's all coincidence. But it adds up. Then it's the unmistakable boredom, the comfort of an ego assuaged, and I wonder what I really want. What would make the best use of me. Moments later, a new perspective - wherever the attention is, I'm there. I'm there doubting the clarity of it all.

My daughter: she snores. Not now, just breathing gently through her nose, breaths in and out and in again. It's reassuring. Grounding. She keeps me tied to this path, wherever it is that it goes.