Too Many Cups of Tea — A Love Story
He wants to stay for a month, but a month is a long time to spend with a complete stranger, and my recent experience with a BnB guest who had to be forcefully evicted by my beefy next-door neighbor hasn’t left me in a trusting state of mind.
“OK…but we’ll reevaluate after two weeks,” I tell him, and he agrees.
I clean the house thoroughly, even going so far as to smudge the spare bedroom and the shared areas with sweet-grass and sage to dispel the unquiet spirit of my last house-guest.
But now that Mehmet is pulling up in an Uber, I try to open the door with an open mind.
My dog, Amarillo, bounds outside, jumps up to rest his enormous paws on my new guest’s shoulders and licks his face. Mehmet lets go of his suitcase and drops to his knees, and welcomes this giant ball of happy into his arms, laughing. After that, we all proceed down the tiled hallway into the living room, and I start to relax a little.. Since it’s a chilly evening and he’s spent all day traveling from the East Coast, I decide to welcome him with a cup of tea,
Chamomile
Mehmet tells me, in halting English, that his wife has recently died after a long illness. After selling their home, which held too many painful memories, he has decided to travel, with no particular destination in mind. He…
