Teatime

The world around mi

The world stands still!

I was about to removed the laundry of the drying rack. My thoughts, which carried me far away, accompanied the folding of the individual pieces of clothing. From one day to the next everything changed around me. No aircraft roams the sky and most cars stand like contemporary witnesses on the streets and parking lots. The large cruise ships keep away from the seas and a trip is limited to the own garden at home. A friendly handshake, a hug or enjoying the first warm rays of the spring sun in the beer garden are no longer possible. 

Even the proximity to my granddaughter is overshadowed by the current situation, which has not only changed life in Germany. Calmness returns back into the streets and alleys and maybe also in the hearts of the people. Peace and quiet replace the restlessness and the fast pace of our time. The hustle and bustle that otherwise determined our lives seems frozen. So I persevere, stay in my apartment and avoid contact with other people.  A tiny "living being" keeps the whole world in suspense and apparently shows us our limits. It is accompanied by fear, the worry of getting sick, dying, or losing what we have always taken for granted.

 My laundry has now disappeared into the closet, only my thoughts cannot find a place to rest. My path has now led me to the kitchen. My eyes fall out of the window. The sun is shining on the forsythia bush, the yellow flowers of which welcome spring again, as it did last year. A familiar return but  the peaceful picture does deceive . My thoughts shower me with scenarios and pictures.  I dread the next shopping, hope that the nursing staff will be able to keep the virus away from my severely disabled daughter and that my son will not get infected at work. This variety of thoughts, questions and uncertainties flood me. At that moment I had to think of a story that my father wrote.  I feel like this ship's boy, sitting in the ship's small rope chamber rigid with fear. He is be delivered to the storm and the wrath of the waves, which made the little ship to a game ball of the forces of nature. But in his need he also found hope that would accompany him in his life from then on. 

 So I try to sort my thoughts and fall back on what my grandmother taught me. I take the green tin out of the cupboard and start making tea. The measuring spoon slides through the black leaves, which are already waiting in the metal container. The individual actions, which are part of the East Frisian tea culture, direct my thoughts back to my essentials. When the sugar candy then bursts under the hot liquid, the calm comes back.  Familiar words run through my head as I watch the cloud of cream slowly emerge from the surface of the hot tea. It's as if my mother's warm voice were whispering to me: "Necessity is the mother of invention!"The hope that one can master every challenge in life was also anchored in her. Sometimes you have to break new ground or go back to the tried and tested. So I started to look inside myself, how I would like to deal with this new time.

Take good Care of yourself!