when drinking my green tea at lunch time, just a few blocks away from here, I closed my eyes and very actively listened to each one of the remaining senses. Holding the little cup in both my hands I felt the rough underside with the slightly cooler holding rim being in stark contrast to the hot ceramic on my left hand fingers. My right thumb found a little imperfection in the rim of the handy cup. I could not stop my skin from seeing this imperfection as a large interesting characteristic, as a unique fingerprint of this cup which would have allowed me to recognize it among a hundred others without this mark. The rim in general was glazed and smooth. My upper lip touched a glossy surface, while the lower lip met with the roughness of stoneware. This is also when the heat of the tea welcomed my face. The temperature felt just perfect. Maybe 60C maybe a little more. Not a temperature I would like to spend a lot of time in, but just the perfect temperature for green tea to enter my body.
The smell of the tea was very distinct as well. It was not really the smell of a beverage. It smelled like the back of a clean hand of a loved one perhaps? Such a good and familiar and yet distinct smell, or the feeling of a smell.
I slowly sipped a little of the liquid. A tiny bit, really, not a lot. It felt as if my body had been preparing for this moment. It was such nourishment, such good vibration that went through not-described areas under my skin all over my body. I let the tea travel through my mouth. A small, measured amount of warm, delicious, nourishing liquid. I hesitated a bit, then swallowed the elixir. I heard how my body accepted the tea with a whole sequence of unique sounds. I felt how the liquid traveled through me, radiating little shock-waves of good.
I leveled the cup, moved it away from my mouth. Still felt the temperature of the vessel, still felt the little imperfection under my thumb, still smelled the seductive body, still tasted the delicious nourishing liquid...
It was then that I opened my eyes.
The cup in my hands, the lightly greenish tea with little floating particles of leaves, the dark brown outside of the cup, the crackled green glaze on the bottom of it, the light spot with missing glaze on the rim, the steam coming from the cup... the sight of them all took over my perception. Everything was there in front of me, beautiful, subtle, and yet somehow louder than what I had just experienced...
What I now saw was still the same object with the same liquid, but it felt as if the other senses did not want to compete with my sense of sight. Seeing is such an overwhelming, such a strong experience. It is sometimes quite beautiful to have the luxury and time to play blind and to listen to what the other senses have to say...