Peppermint tea

She’s afraid of losing her memory. I watch her sometimes, sitting in the dim light of her indoor veranda, holding a cup of peppermint tea in her hands, the steam rising in lazy spirals as if trying to write a message in the air. She gazes out the window with that look of someone already somewhere else, doing something else while still holding me close. I ask what she sees out there, but the answer is always a sigh, a half-smile that tries to hide the fear. “What if I forget everything?” she says, in a voice that expects no answer. And I, with my cheap philosophy, always repeat that if she forgets, she’ll forget to be afraid, too. But it’s hard to convince someone who drinks peppermint tea, the future can be simple.

There is wisdom in peppermint. It’s not the tea itself—the ritual, the movement. We both boil the water and drop it in a tea bag, and the fresh aroma fills the kitchen like a breath of life. It’s like a silent conversation with time. The peppermint tea, with its soft green hue and coolness on the tongue, is our way of quieting the world, of holding the hours between our fingers. I watch her lift the cup to her lips, blowing gently as if telling time: “Today, you stay here with me.”

Sometimes, when I start going on about the government, ethics, or whatever philosophical nonsense I’ve picked up from the news that day, she looks like she’s already elsewhere, far away, wrapped in some other thought. And yet, she stays, holding me close, as if to say, “You talk, I’ll listen.” In those moments, with the peppermint’s freshness still lingering in the air, I realize maybe I’m the one who’s forgetting — forgetting to be there with her.

I read a study the other day, one of those you find between one bad news story and another worse one. It said that people who drink tea are less likely to lose their memory. And I thought: whoever wrote that has never seen us with our peppermint tea. Because it isn’t the tea itself, it’s what we make of it. There’s something eternal in how she closes her eyes with the first sip as if entering another dimension—one where things don’t slip away so easily.

I drink my peppermint tea, too, not because I expect to save my neurons but because I like losing myself at the same time she does. Sometimes, we play at guessing what the other thinks while the tea cools. I am always the pragmatic one; I say I’m thinking about the electric bill, the noise of traffic, and how ridiculous it is to fear dementia. She smiles, but I know deep down, the fear hasn’t left. The peppermint comes into play like a peacemaker between us and whatever is to come.

There’s a secret in this ritual. It is a way to trick time and say, “As long as we drink this tea, we are eternal.” Maybe that’s it—a silent pact between us and the universe. Let forgetfulness come if it must; today, we have the tea. And if she doesn’t remember me one day, I’ll be there, in the kitchen, with the kettle on the stove, waiting for the whistle to remind her, once more, that we were together. The taste of peppermint, the warmth on the tongue, the soft breath we blow to cool it—all of it is memory and perhaps the only kind that matters.

And if, even then, we forget? Then let fate take us back to the beginning, to that first cup of peppermint tea, to those first smiles exchanged in the steam. Ultimately, what matters is that as long as there is tea, there is time. As long as there is time, there is us. And if memory fails, may the taste of tea bring us back, even for an instant. Because an instant, sometimes, is all the eternity one needs.