Tea Time
I woke up on Friday, October the 13th talking to my friend Kathleen Pyeatt like she was still alive. I don't remember exactly how long ago it was she died, and I don't care to; time doesn't mean anything anymore anyway.
The day I met her the cancer was already at stage 4, but I didn't know that when I sat down and joined her for a smoke break on her porch. Next to the front door of the almost purple, infamously named “Witch Hause,” there was a hand painted sign that said, “Y'all Motherfuckers Need Some Jesus!” I laughed until I peed a little, and we'd been friends ever since. People went back and forth between calling her a green witch and a kitchen witch, but that just means she was really good with plants and was a straight up BOSS at whipping up food so good it made me cry.
Inside this old, rickety house built around 1920-ish, I'm guessing, and falling apart at *every* seam, every wall was painted Fun House colors - chartreuse, fuchsia, tangerine, sunshine – every table had a book I wanted to read or something fun to look at and touch. She'd done something magical in that house with original art, Goodwill treasures, and a few not-quite-empty buckets of paint. It was as enchanting as it was drafty. This was the house that would become my second home while I was trying to get us moved from Texas to Arkansas. I wouldn't have made it here without Kathleen.
The last time I saw her before her meat suit gave out on us, she gave me a deck of tarot cards and two books. They've been sitting in the corner of my living room under a big, ceramic sugar skull mom got me one year around Halloween. Every day I'd go to that window to check on my plants, it felt a little like Kathleen was over there, talking shit about my soil mixture, or how the snake plant was blocking her tea time light. I finally started talking back to her out loud, “Fine, bitch, I'm brangin' you some gotdamn water,” and it feels like we're still laughing together. I know she knows when I'm having a rough time, and I can hear her hollering at me, “Snap the fuck out of it, bitch, we got shit to do!” And I did.
We sat down Friday for our old morning tea time, and got her all painted up. We laughed and talked shit ALL day. It mighta been a day we both needed. Now she's up on a shelf so I can talk to her more often, and she can still keep an eye on my plants.