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It was my grandad who taught me how to worship the cup of what we jokingly called our “medicine.” I think my ritualistic tendencies came from him, both inspired and inherited. It began with our morning cups, and the quiet, practiced routines that accompanied them.

A few lessons that have stayed with me - 

some practical and metaphysical:

Use the same dedicated vessels, always clean, always the ones meant for this purpose. They hold memories.

When you reach the last few sips, leave a little behind as an offering occasionally. Who it’s for is yours to decide, but it’s polite to offer to the home, ancestors, or land as a sign of respect. 

Look into the cup as if it might speak. Sometimes it does in its own way.

Stare longingly into the pool of brackish darkness. Reminisce on its answers, watch them pool to the surface. Sip, reflect, and repeat. 

Add honey if your chest is tight with congestion (practical). Let the steam loosen what’s been held too long. 

Feel it breathe life into your limbs, coaxing you back to yourself.

Speak to the ache it wakes up in you, question what it wants. Ask it to leave, or gently tell it to go.

Ask those around you what time it is and make another cup anyway.

—

For me, it’s part meditation, part spell. 

The act of brewing, whether it’s coffee or tea or something else, carries a sense of tradition handed down and reshaped through time. As well as a source of curation and vulnerability. 

It brings me back to early childhood, even before my grandad's influence truly settled in, to afternoons spent outside brewing “potions” from whatever I could find. A handful of foraged berries and flowers, some mud, roots, twigs, and leaves. With the contents in a bird bath full of recent rain (the best time to make these). I’d stir it with a stick and imagine the concoction bubbling, warmed by magic or the sun or my breath. Making up ideas of what the elixir might become, create, or cure. 

The kids in my neighborhood and I would hold little potion-making gatherings. We’d gather round, sharing stories and wishes over the brew together. Each taking a turn to add a new component to the murky mixture and stirring with intention.

That was one of my earliest unprompted rituals. Now my brewing practice feels more refined and intentional to fit my needs, but at its core, it's not so different. My hands move with memory and devotion. What began in play and familial routines has become a quiet way of returning to myself. A ritual of presence.

Maybe it’s strange to feel so much when I pour a cup or make a brew. I know it’s just coffee, just tea, just attention and liquid. But I do. Every time. It centers me in a world that’s always pulling me elsewhere in every direction.

—

I found myself reflecting on this again when visiting a new friend.

She brewed a pot using wares and teas from her family in the UK and Japan, each item chosen as an act of homage and respect. She told me the stories held in each vessel, cup, and imported tea she had brought with her when she moved to the States. Everything was chosen with care, layered with lineage and hospitality. 

We sat for hours, unspooling the day through conversation and silence, working and not working, tethered by steam and porcelain.

The liquid became a medium of conversation, of connection, of inspiration too. Something changed in us during those hours, as if the tea itself helped to make a small opening. A conduit into the in-between, loosening what we might have otherwise held onto too tightly. 

—

There’s a scientific reflection to be had here too. I could delve into caffeine as a psychostimulant on the central nervous system. I could explain it, go down that path of receptor behavior and conditioning, release of neurotransmitters, or psychological dependence but that’s another side-tracked thread entirely. 

This is the heart of it though: the ritual, the comfort passed between hands, the subtle shift in us when we slow down and offer presence to one another. About how we’re grounded through this experience and sensation, together.

—

When my grandad’s father was still alive, the two of them were close. They ran a mechanic shop together and shared their breaks over coffee and tobacco. Early in the morning. During breaks in the day. Again in the hush of evening. And often deep into the night. 

This theme reoccurs. 

It was never just about the drink. 

It was about the rhythm, 

the presence, 

the pause they shared. 

My great-grandad passed away shortly before I was born, but by the time I was five, I was beginning to take up the practice and step into that role beside my grandad when he retired. Our cycle began to take shape, echoing the one he’d known with his father as I got older. And in time I’ve learned lessons from it.

People have always told me I remind them of my great-grandad. They’re not wrong, I’ve heard stories about him and we have a lot of similarities in personality. Knowing this, I like to believe that in some way, I helped complete this seemingly generational routine left open and almost uncompleted for the last portion of my grandad's life. 

—

Since he passed, there haven’t been many others to share coffee with like this, except his sister, my grand aunt, when she visits, and a past friend who is gone now. 

Still, I offer. 

I brew. 

I sit. 

The act itself becomes a gesture and an invitation of whim and regard.

To ancestors. To the house. To the land. 

To whatever out there listens in. 

And to my inner child too. 

~ Sylvie Vesper

A prose-ish essay piece and sort of a comfort offering, as my first post here.

This week I realized I’ve now lived half of my life without my grandad in it as of next week so I’m feeling nostalgic. He raised me as his own during those earlier years. Thinking back on them often brings a mix of feelings of grief, regret, and time filled ache. But also comfort, joy, and bittersweetness. I turned to writing after he passed away as a coping mechanism when I was struggling.

I promised myself recently that I’d return to writing more once my spring quarter ended (I shouldn't fall out with it but college and life, it happens). This feels like a good place to begin again. 

Apologies if it’s a little all over the place. It is sometimes difficult to tame my rambling & thinking spirals into a readable and cohesive format. But the practice helps!