I’m at the table at Chai Shai for the second time this week. My companion is drinking Coca Cola that comes from Mexico.  It’s got real sugar, he explains.  Coca Cola made in America uses corn syrup.  I didn’t know.  I sip my hot chai.  My companion says, Not my cup of tea, and we laugh.  I look down at the brown liquid.  I never liked hot chai before this place, I say.  Then I had this.  It’s warm and comforting.  It’s like love in a cup.

He chuckles.  He tells me that should be the title of my blog tonight.  I smile; he smiles.  Then we go on eating, talking, sharing.  When we leave the restaurant, the air has cooled.  We stroll down to the car, still talking idly about nothing earth-shattering but with a genuineness that can rarely be replicated or forced.  We say goodnight in my driveway and I climb the steps to my porch, still thinking about the cup of chai.

I’m remembering hot cups of coffee and tea over the years.  Heavy mugs bought at funky little stores in St. Louis decades ago; mismatched Haviland tea cups from my mother’s kitchen filled with hot Earl Grey.  Cooled coffee poured from a Melamine cup and sipped from a saucer, at the table in the breakfast room during my childhood.  Warmth; comfort; an escape from the presses of life; four ounces of kindness; love in a cup.

I lock the front door, and set down my bag.  The worries linger behind on the porch, and will be waiting when I come out in the morning.  But I am safe inside; and sheltered; and that will do for tonight.

Zen tea served in a cup from my mother’s kitchen on a matching saucer found at a thrift store by my sister Joyce.