I Blog About Tea Parties Because Society Is Hard
It feels incredibly surreal for me to be writing about a tea party I hosted the same weekend that Trump bombed Iran & Gaza continues to suffer. While I know my brain is resilient enough to have the capacity to hold two truths (humans are kind AND humans are cruel) it’s definitely hard. But now, more than ever, I think we need these slow moments, the reminder of the beauty in the world, and more importantly, connection with real humans. And for me, a tea party seemed like a fun way for me to enjoy discussion with other soft hearted humans who want to change the world.
We donned our fanciest outfits (mine is a Selkie!) and sat around the table discussing everything from motherhood, Human Design, setting boundaries, and everyone’s summer plans. I confided in my guests that I had been wanting to host a tea party for sometime, but an inner voice stopped me. Whether it was that “my house was too messy”, “nobody will show up”, or “that’s silly"/not practical” for along time I listened. I love wearing my princess dresses, but feel that I need to have an excuse to wear them…so I created one! (To be honest, I probably would wear it more often if it wasn’t made from organza ~ that shit does NOT breathe.) But because the society we know is falling apart before our eyes, I figured why not just do it!
Why not create the event, wear the thing, tell all the people, and whatever is meant to be will be.
So, for my blog post today I want to show you my tea party, give you some recipes, and share some of the joy that I experienced putting this thing together in an effort to get to know folks in person. If you are someone who is feeling excessively stuck in fear, stress, & anxiety, I want to thank you for getting this far and let you know that by reading & indulging in the imagery here, you are reminder your heart & your brain that MULTIPLE THINGS ARE TRUE AT THE SAME TIME and know that your brain is capable of it. As someone who was full force into activism sans joy, I burnt out pretty quickly and for the next few years to be managed & maintained & for us to have the cognitive ability to dream up a new and better future, we NEED to infuse joy, delight, and whimsy into our daily lives. It’s where we get the light we want to shine for others.
Here’s the menu:
Scones with butter, jam & cream
Sandwiches: maraschino & cream cheese, cucumber & herb and garlic cream cheese, & turkey, cheddar & pickle
Ube Lavender Sugar cookies
Shortbread cookies
Vanilla cupcakes
Strawberries + coconut whipped cream
3 kinds of jam (raspberry, strawberry, mango - peach)
3 kinds of tea (jasmine green, earl gray, & English breakfast)
Lavender Lemonade (brought by one of my guests!)
Here's the recipe for the Ube cookies . Essentially, I just made a standard sugar cookie recipe, added 1 tbsp of Ube powder (I just ordered Ube powder off the internet - that's what gives the cookies the purple hue. But make sure you also buy Ube EXTRACT if you want that flavour!) + 2 tbsp of lavender syrup (which you make by boiling 1 cup of water + 1 cup of white sugar + 2 cups of lavender petals - stir it together and let it sit for 30-45 minutes, pour it into a jar using a cheesecloth to catch the petals) . Once the cookies were cooled, I made some icing using icing sugar + water + lavendar syrup and added a wee bit of food coloring & sprinkled with dried (edible!) lavender. And voila! You have some pretty cookies!
Aside from the sandwich tier, everything was thrifted over the past few months. The vintage teapots, the creamer containers, the sugar pots, the cutlery, the tablecloth, the cupcake tier (it was originally a hideous brown which I spray painted periwinkle), and of course the tea cups and plates. Collecting the items was almost as much fun as the tea party itself!
Now, originally the plan was to hold the tea party outside in the backyard, but alas, Mother Nature had other plans, so I set it up in my little front room studio. It turned out to be quite beautiful because it felt like we were having high tea in a lovely art museum that celebrated all the humans and bodies! It was cozy, bright, & absolutely perfect for us to chat and nibble on the treats.
I had so much fun and it was such a beautiful way to be in community with folks who standardly are caretaking for others, that it was my pleasure to create a space and experience where they got to be taken care of. I’ve decided to call these events The Soft Hearts Society and plan to run the tea parties every second month to make it a bit more accessible and keep it fun for me and then sprinkle additional events throughout there: laid back movie nights where we indulge our inner children, potlucks in the park, craft nights, etc. We need to be building community and for me, I’d rather do it in a way that is in alignment with the life I want to live. Because we can strategize on how to change the world while we wear puff sleeves & eat delicious treats.
