Cold Cover Up

Nestling into my steaming cup with remnants of oriental jasmine tea leaves drifting on the bottom, my eyes cloud over as the snow begins to fall on the ocean horizon, it's time to mull me over before the tide grows cold. My bay window kicks out from this apartment complex and makes it seem as though I'm already flying westwards. Running my fingers round the chipped lipped rim of my mug, the steam licks the edges of my thumb and condensates on my fingerprint wrinkles so that the vapor drops hang onto the vestibules made by the dips and raises my skin cells have made by laying one on top of the other. I remember when skin cells made me happy. The energy transferring and bouncing back onto each other which in turn let me feel the bumps and lumps that weren't a part of me and were a part of you. Now it seems as though a physical contact, whether it be a nudge, a push, a pull, a trace of a finger sends each and every nerve cell receptor just below my adipose tissue shimmying and shaking. My nervous system is at a point of veritable quandary. The only touch I can withstand is the nose of my hound against the skin of my taut cheek. The wetness about as intrusive as spit bugs in flat crown trees, it's a necessary discomfort to discover the joyous fact that spit bugs do indeed exist and live in flat crown trees, same as where my dog actually does love me no matter what I do or how I may think I look or how wet his nose might be.


The custom of tea drinking has become a ritual, choosing the type of tea, whether it is green or herbal or black depends on whether I want free radical protection, calmness or a nice good morning kick in the pants. I seek the warmness as well. I'm always cold; with socks on my feet and blankets wrapped around me like Pocahontas I'm never warm enough. Lately aromas of jasmine and sandalwood have been most appropriate or let it be foreign like murr or antiseptic like camphor. Camphor probably being one of the most calming scents, unlike the traditional tea imbibers who choose lavender or chamomile to ease their nerves, camphor for me calms me because of its antiseptic and menthol properties. Antiseptic because lately I can never be clean enough and my choice of menthol because it helps me breathe, like Vicks vapor-rub did when I was younger and sick and my chest would close up and Mummy would rub the Vicks on my belly and chest then I could sleep better. The camphor cleanses me and helps me breathe on those days when my breathing is labored and contrite. My lungs on a constant stick up robbery of oxygen, somewhere in there are vagabond air stealers stuffing my O into burlap sacks and smuggling it over the Oregon border to California, mostly L.A, so they can breathe better but meanwhile I am wasting away. It makes sense, to steal my air – they must have been watching me for a while these air stealer smugglers, seeing my frequent deep sighs and intakes of ten second inhalations and not exhaling as often as I should they figured I've got some air to spare but air is not like roll over minutes. Not for me at least. The air will begin to grow colder as this storm continues to roll in. Seeing snow on the ocean is like watching Swan Lake on a football field. They won't be around for much longer, the air smugglers, they'll grow tired and feeble from the cold and realize the intake has started to decrease so slightly every minute. I'll sit in this bay window, and drink my full cup of jasmine tea until the leaves back up against my teeth. Which reminds me to brush them after I've drank this cup, tea stains teeth. I can never be clean enough. I should shower too, a hot shower before I drift off with the driftwood. The lumber being pushed back out to sea with the undertow and I'll be pushed back out to face my dreams. I'll sleep for eight hours maximum; these are my rules so that I'll wake when the sun is rising. There'll be no one to roll over and touch me in the morning but I can always wake up, make a pot of tea in my cast iron tea pot, let the leaves brew as my dreams slowly dissipate with the morning fog and with the sun barely in the sky I'll savor a large cup of early grey. A slightly sweeter black tea choice then English breakfast but still a rigid royal wake up as only the Brits know how. The snow will have reached the beach by morning, covering up the sand, a cold cover up. I'm always cold. Camphor tea baths are not enough to restore the sensation of fluidity to cessation that a person experiences when they are touching another. I am always cold. A cold cover up is to be defrosted when the seasons change and not by a hand held dryer. The nerves are frozen into remission. ....

There's a frog in some forest somewhere that freezes to the point of near death, it's literally dead, and it will stay that way until the ground starts to unthaw around it and slowly it raises from the icy depths of it's underground soma state and becomes alive again, heart beating, neuron receptors firing and muscles flexing to face another spring, summer and fall. It's called hibernation. Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernation conserves energy, especially during winter. There are many research projects currently investigating how to achieve "induced hibernation" in humans. The ability for humans to hibernate would be useful for a number of reasons, such as saving the lives of seriously ill or injured people by temporarily putting them in a state of hibernation until treatment can be given (compare induced coma). Nasa is also interested in possibly putting astronauts in hibernation when going on very long space journeys, making it possible one day to visit far away stars.....

In October 2006, a Japenese man, Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, was believed to have been in a "denning"-like state for three weeks. He had fallen asleep on a snowy mountain and claimed he had only woken up after being discovered 23 days later; doctors who treated him believed his internal body temperature had fallen to 22°C (71°F) during that period.....

You can mull over many things when drinking a cup of tea. From the beginning when the water is steaming and the aromas are just opening up to the middle when the temperature is most comfortable and the sweetness has reached it's peak and then by the end when the taste has grown overly pungent and the lukewarm liquid isn't so much savored as it is just needing to be quickly swigged down. You can mull many things over. However, no matter how much tea I drink, even if it is camphor I am always cold and there is never enough air to go around between the two of us. The two of us being my hound and I encased in my Pocahontas blanket to keep the cold at bay. The snow will thaw on the beach; when I do not know but the cold cover up right now is a bewildering sight to behold and yet so familiar. A drastic difference in states kept together by environmental adaptations. The beachy vegetation will withdraw in horror from the cold; the plants will grow mushy and sink into the ground turning brown. The sand will be covered up with cold, white, sterile snow. No mars will be made to its surface because who wants to go walking on a cold beach. The beach will be left alone, untouched to endure its icy reservation. My tea is running out. Very soon I will make another cup. Just one last cup before I go to bed. Maybe Mexican Chili this time, I can with stand the hottest and spiciest teas. No matter I will still be cold. A cold reservation, a cold cover up. No air, between me and you anymore. Not enough tea to bring me back to life. Locked up at this bay window, staring out into the ocean I'm beginning to see the truth. No air, so cold, my constant cold. I'm starting to understand the bitterness I feel. I never got the truth at the time when I was growing up when it could have been put to good use. When it could have helped me most instead I covered it coldly up and kept myself company with lots of tea cups. If this storm settles in for good I'll have nothing left to share and I'll never be understood.....