“…and give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
It is ironic that income taxes are due smack in the middle of April. Just as the coming of Spring offers the fragrant promise of warm sunshine and sweet breezes, there is the suffocating prospect of sitting indoors, imprisoned by documents, forms and pages of figures.
This year, the cardboard shoebox overflows with receipts and the calculator refuses to cooperate. It prints a blur of illegible numbers that cascades down along the roll of paper. I long to wriggle out of my miserable skin and abandon it here in a crumpled heap right on top of the dining room table, to fly disembodied through the open window and mingle with the outside air.
I am shivering, so I make a cup of tea and let it steep in the midst of all the mess. The graceful blue and white cup is a quiet, still centre floating within the chaos. Nestled inside the cup, the leaves contained in the little mesh bag are becoming one with the boiling water, merging into the magical mixture, that with a splash of milk will (in the words of my dear English friend) simultaneously lift one up and settle one down.
It would appear optimal to have the tea without the taxes, but life is not like that. You have to take this life rather like a wedding vow: the health and the sickness, the richer and the poorer, the better and the worse, youth and old age, till death do you part.
I lace my fingers through the cup’s slender split handle. It is like grasping a cool, fragile bone. Slowly, I sip and let the heat of the tea seep into my veins.
Tax season, like every season, will soon pass away to other things. In this moment that begs to curse and scream and squirm, it seems wiser to just bless the tea.