Afternoon Tea Party c. 1891, by Mary Cassatt; drypoint and aquatint in color with touches of gold hand-coloring on ivory laid paper. St. Louis Museum
I can't say that I very interested in the conversation between my mother and great-grandmother, but there was one snippet that repeatedly came up and stuck in my mind. Great-grandmother always referred to these cherished visits as 'tepees', followed by a sly smile playing at the corners of her mouth. My mother would lower her eyes and giggle softly.
I quietly wondered about the tepees, because I never saw any sign of Native Americans camping out in great-grandmother’s backyard. Perplexed, I eventually asked my mother about them on the ride home one day. She explained that my great-grandmother was making a play on words. It was her way of politely saying 'tea pee' as she excused herself to go to the bathroom due to the predictable effect of drinking 2-3 cups of tea. Oh…. I understood the implication much better once I was old enough and my ration of tea was increased!
The tea parties shifted location to the kitchen of my mother’s best friend after my great-grandmother passed away. I was not quite seven years old, very withdrawn and wary. Even casual social situations were uncomfortable for me. As a child, I didn't understand how any grownup could possibly comprehend how I felt or that Tenny would already know everything about me through my mother. She demonstrated how in tune she was on many occasions, however.
The glass-fronted shelves in Tenny’s kitchen displayed her collection of tea cups from places where she had traveled. Selecting a cup and matching saucer was as much a part of the ceremony as the actual tea-drinking (and don’t forget that plate of tempting cookies, please). My mother always picked the same cup. It was adorned with trees blooming with pink flowers; over the years it was dubbed 'Pinky'. I was drawn to a cup that was decorated with azure blue flowers (a color I loved at that phase of my childhood). Since Tenny's favorite color also happened to be blue, it made me feel like she approved of my taste and that we shared something in common.
Tenny favored drinking loose green tea. It was rather flavorless to me, and presented a challenge as I struggled to avoid swallowing the loose leaves swirling at the bottom of the cup. Because the tea was so weak, no one bothered to add milk to my portion anymore. Reflecting back, I think perhaps she realized that green tea wouldn't stain those delicate china cups as much as black tea.
One day a book about how to read tea leaves was brought to the table. I recall feeling unsettled about this mysterious practice at first. I was such a serious youngster and tended to take things quite literal. When our cups were empty, my mother and I were instructed to flip them upside down and spin them around three times before turning them upright again. My mother and Tenny peered into the cups and tried to discern shapes in the dregs which they looked up in the book for interpretation. This fortune-telling seemed a tad wicked to me at the time, but still tempting as the forbidden fruit. It was all just in fun, but it took years before I grasped that this was just entertainment. What child doesn't want to believe in magic?
I'm not sure what prompted my change of habit, but unlike my mother's devotion to Pinky, at some point I decided to break my tradition of drinking from the same cup. I was probably about 11 or 12 and while it seemed disloyal, I was slowly beginning to spread my wings.
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