Turkish Tea and Patience

Tonight at dinner in Cappadocia, my father burnt his tongue on a hot cup of Turkish Cay (pronounced Chai) and proceeded to add cold water to the tiny glass, perhaps out of the frustration of having a sore tongue and the desire to conquer that which was trying to make him wait (waiting is a sin in America land you know). It reminded me of the land which I was away from for some 3 months now and what I will face when I go back to it on Saturday.

The little cups of cay that I have encountered in Turkey have taught me a patience that I don't think I had back in the states. Ask my younger sister--part of my daily routine was burning my tongue on my black coffee and then spilling it on a black shirt (planning ahead you know). I could never wait for something to cool off. I wanted the rich satisfaction of the bitter blackness on my tongue, even if it meant pain. I had to wake up. I had to go to school. I had to do it and I had to do it NOW.

Something has changed here. After burning my tongue on a cup of cay that was not meant to wake me up, that was meant for me to enjoy (out of hospitality, during conversation, after dinner), I realized---why the hurry? Why can I not have the temperance to simply wait and sip my cay, making the small cup last infinitely longer than a large black coffee from Tazza D'Oro? Something about drinking from that little cup made me enjoy stirring the sugar cube just a little longer, waiting in between sips, taking my time, letting the tea cool. The purpose of the tea was not to slug it down. The purpose of the tea was for the time it passed. It taught me patience and temperance--skills to be had that I never thought could be learned from a cup of tea.

Now that I am going back to the land of the 2 minute cheese burger and the 99 cent chicken nugget, where large coffees can be downed in a minute and people get antsy if they have to wait more than 1 minute for their computers to load, I imagine I will go back to burning my tongue on my large Mexican Peaberry in the morning. However, when I sit down at the end of the day with my cup of tea and begin the night of studying, I think I'll have that patience I have been praying to learn.

I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.