There are times that a memory will flood into your mind.

You prepare to make your cup of tea. Carefully selecting the vessel – sometimes a practical mug, like the one in the photo to keep tea warm while working, other times one that allows for a warmer hand-feel. You pick your tea. This often depends on the time of day for me: Early mornings are either matcha or 1,000 mile tea (check out sippingstreams.com – Jenny has excellent teas); “regular” morning is reserved for black tea; afternoons are green, oolong, white, or pu erh; evenings for herbal tisanes. Each tea has a purpose, a function, a flavor, and a particular comfort and familiarity.

Sometimes, when the scent of the morning black tea combined with the warm milk, a particular memory comes flooding in. It is of time spent with my Grandmother. A time spent at her kitchen table. She would prepare Lipton black tea, break honey graham crackers into quarters and spread peanut butter on half, butter on the other half, then sandwiching them into peanut butter graham cracker sandwiches. We would dunk them into our milk infused Lipton tea before savoring each bite. It is this particular smell. The smell of the tea and milk. When it hits my nose, the memory of me with my white-blond hair, kneeling on the kitchen chair, leaning on the table and dunking graham sandwiches into tea with my Grandmother, floods my mind and warms my soul. The memory doesn’t come every time. But when it does, it is savored.

Back then, sharing this simple moment together, didn’t seem to have much significance. But it was sharing this simple time together that still captures me. Chatting about some bird or butterfly we may have seen. The goldfish that the neighbor gave to me (but parents insisted I did not keep – with the exception of one). The peony’s in her yard. The ripe raspberries.

I think she would be proud of me. Who would have known then that I would eventually earn the title “Doctor Nicole Watson”. Me and my dirty bare feet, she and her white sandals. Just spending time together.

In these memories, we are still together.

Now my tea may no longer be Lipton. And I haven’t dunked a graham cracker sandwiches in years. But I still am taken back to that kitchen when the smell hits just right.