Chaji

Yesterday, like many of my Saturdays I woke up early and did some errands with Gabs, this weeks errands were these, lovely cream gloves for the traditional Ball on the 23rd of this month. The local vintage store had a lovely gold pair however they were just a tad too tight. These will go perfectly with my rich crimson dress (which I still have barely to start on)

And then the afternoon. I ventured to my Tea Ceremony teacher's house where there was a a couple of fantastic surprises, not only were Sara, Zelly, Tony, Roy and Mike there, the wonderful Christy先生 from the San Francisco tea group was there and we were all dressed to the nines in kimono. It was a wonderful experience to practice the most formal tea gathering a Chaji together. It was something I had never experienced before and while it was a dry run so all of our lovely meal was effortless and invisible I still found much to look forward too. My eyes were opened to lacquerware and how extensive the amount is needed for this event, and all new ettiquete even two different types of chopsticks.

It is always a magical experience learning under my teacher and then the added treat of Christy先生's overflowing knowledge practically astounds me. She has the perfect answer for almost any situation and there is always an exciting story to go with what we are doing. Not to mention how involved she is with tea, she's met people in the tea world that I can only hope to sneak a peek at. Doing tea with her makes me want set everything aside and apply for the Midori Kai Tea School, maybe I will save for a couple of years and then apply... it seems like such a wonderful way to put a solid foundation to my tea studies. I miss basking in the knowledge of others.

The practice while knowledgeable was exhausting as well. I have little bruises (battle wounds) from sitting seiza, but that is part of the territory and the aches afterwards are always worth it. Yesterday I also had a wonderful suprise, a member from our group Tom recently spent a few days in Kyoto, and Mike先生 presented me with a Kobukusa that Tom had selected (Tom couldn't be there yesterday) It was beautiful I actually teared up it was so suprising to be given such a lovely gift when I felt I did nothing to deserve it. It is overwhelming the amount of kindess and respect that people in tea have, I can only hope to gain some of that and bring it into my own life. I need to research the name of the gorgeous pattern 先生offered to tell me but it will be more meaningful to me I think if I look it up myself, my group has done so much for me already