Tea Time World Wide - Tea With Marie Who's She?

Tea with Marie, Who's She?

When I was a little girl between the ages of six and twelve, my favorite person in the whole world was my grandmother. In fact, at one point, I remember being closer to my grandmother than to my mother. (Everyone knows that mothers are stricter than grandmothers are!) My grandmother was called "Dearie" by everyone, including her daughter, my mother. Hers were the last remnants of the Victorian generation, a time that focused on beauty and gentility.

Every morning when I woke up as a little girl in our summer cottage on Long Island, I would race down the stairs and into Dearie's room for the first of many daily rituals I shared with her. "Bonjour, ma cherie!" she would cheerily sing out to me from beneath the covers of her giant antique bed. And I would climb up onto the high bed and crawl over to give her a big hug and a happy reply, "Bonjour, ma cherie!" My first words in the elegant French language. Then we would settle down to the precious moments of conversation between us as she enjoyed her breakfast in bed and shared little morsels with me before I had my regular breakfast.

Morning rituals were not the only legacies from my grandmother that would influence my own lifetime of keeping important customs. At my grandmother's house my family took afternoon tea. At four o'clock everyone stopped everything they were doing and assembled, along with any guests or relatives visiting, in the drawing room or on the screened porch. Then my tall and stately grandmother with the gentle air would enter the room in her tea-length gown with the long beads around her neck. She would place herself on the sofa and the tea table laden with the family silver tea service would be brought up before her so that she could pour. My grandmother would then commence the ritual of her English fore bearers. My sister and I were on our best behavior and we waited quietly and patiently, yet excitedly for our cups of two- third milk and one-third tea with several lumps of sugar and the special treats such as the Scottish shortbread we loved.

Dearie died when I was thirteen, yet her influence was to last my whole life. My mother and I continued the tea ritual together as an opportunity for quiet time and sharing with each other. I remember coming home from the beach with my mother after a nice long swim in the invigorating bay nearby. The first thing my mother did when we arrived home was to put the kettle on. We didn't even bother to change out of our bathing suits as we sat together having our cup of tea under the grape arbor on the back porch while the late afternoon sun painted a spectacle behind us. There is nothing like the warmth of the hot tea going down inside of you while you are sitting in a wet bathing suit. And there was the special warmth of the sharing time between my mother and me. If I drink tea today in a wet bathing suit I am immediately reminded of my mother.

I have three daughters, Sharon, Dawne and Joy, who are now young adults and mothers. When they were growing up we used to have many tea parties together. Now I see them setting up tea with their own daughters. I started my granddaughters on the tea ritual when they were about two years old. We use diminutive cups and saucers for the girls and we use our best tea manners when we are having tea together. Sometimes we eat the homemade cookies, which we have baked together earlier. When Kayla and Callan, my granddaughters, are playing here, many times they will come up to me and say" Grandma, is it tea time yet?" They look forward to this special sharing time. When I am having tea with my granddaughters I am glad to continue the legacy that my own grandmother, Dearie shared with me, and sometimes I think of her then. Sometimes we will go get the photos of Dearie and my mother (who passed away in 1983) and add them to our tea table so that we can talk about our grandmothers and great grandmothers and great, great grandmothers!

My granddaughter, Kayla, loves tea parties so much and is very polished in her tea table etiquette. A few years ago when I was having my annual Christmas Tea for my friends I looked over and saw four year old Kayla sitting at a table with three of my friends completely at ease and holding conversations! The holiday teas are a present I give to my good friends at Christmas and are really a present I give to myself. People ask me why I go to all the trouble to polish the silver, iron the linens, arrange the centerpieces and bake the goodies? I tell them that I look forward to the holiday tea all season and to me it is a wonderful gift I can give to my friends because their friendship is a wonderful gift to me.

The ritual of tea involves sharing and connecting and taking time in our lives to stop and do something beautiful. A few years ago I decided that I wanted to do something to help the youth in my community, especially the adolescents. I thought that they needed to be honored and I realized that they might not have grandmas as Kayla has to share tea with them. I started to organize community teas for the youngsters and with the help of the local middle school, my wonderful volunteer "Tea Ladies" and local businesses we were able to produce beautiful teas in the local inns for the children and introduce them to new experiences to enhance their lives. I am now looking forward to working with Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island to produce more of these teas for youth in the inner cities.

Out of all these tea experiences, but especially from the memories with my grandmother, grew the concept of "Tea with Marie" for television. I have had experience hosting television talk shows and I wanted to produce my own show with its own flavor and a focus on the beautiful and gentle aspects of life. I felt that we see enough of the other side of life on TV and we need a balance, particularly for the young people. Tea with Marie is a talk show with a Victorian atmosphere that is an actual tea party where I am the host and my guests come to share their thoughts and talents with us. I also invite the audience in their homes to participate as guests by encouraging them to "go put the kettle on, pick out a pretty tea cup and sit down with us as a guest". On Tea with Marie I can use my skills as a former teacher, a family therapist and my creative ideas to produce fascinating shows. On Tea with Marie it doesn't really matter if I am hard of hearing because I can sit near enough to my guests to read their lips or to use assistive technology. But mostly on Tea with Marie, I can be myself, Marie, the tea hostess, trying to make guests feel comfortable and to bring out the best in them as they share their stimulating ideas, just as my grandmother, Dearie did, at her tea parties, when I was a child.

Marie Younkin-Waldman 401-789-4658 teawithmarie@cox.net