Mere's Magic Universe and Tea
I went back to work this week, sliding into scrubs for the first time in months. I had to dig my stethoscope and name tag out of a bag I hadn’t opened since May, and along the way found two pens without caps, and a brown paper sack with a desiccated apple core inside.
My father died in mid-October, a blow that came closely on the heels of my return from a fire lookout tower where I’d worked all summer during a break from nursing. When I returned to my home in Missoula, Montana, last week after my dad’s memorial service in Minnesota, I was greeted by all that I hadn’t had time to unpack from the lookout: crates of canned goods, books, hiking boots, and a stack of New Yorker magazines, all folded open to the crossword page. Everything smelled slightly of dust and woodsmoke, and reminded me of summer.
The afternoon I arrived in Ronan, Montana, before my first day of work at the local hospital, I took a little walkabout. When I say little, I do mean little, because after just a few blocks, a person runs out of town to explore there. As a traveling nurse, I make it my practice to get a feel for the place and put my finger on the pulse of the community before I go sticking needles into people's arms. It’s a little bit like listening to an unfamiliar band’s music before seeing them in concert, or trying to pick up at least a few basic phrases in the local language when visiting a foreign country.
Though it’s only 60 miles north of my home in Missoula, I’d never worked in Ronan before, and making the left onto Main Street to get to the hospital was the first time I’d ever veered off of Highway 93 North at the stoplight in the center of town. Like so many other people, I usually zip right through Ronan on the way to Flathead Lake, or Glacier National Park.
On my downtown walk, I paused in front of the local telecommunications company housed in a low brick building that still bears the original sign for the Ronan Phone Company, a relic from landline days. There were two payphones flanking the sidewalk leading to the front door, making it feel even more nostalgic, almost like a museum.
(Source: Author.)
I just couldn’t resist the payphones, so I stood in the falling snow picking up one receiver, then the other, pressing all the buttons, checking the coin return slot. I was disappointed that there were no dial tones, or quarters, and surprised that, for some odd reason, my fingers smelled like cigarettes afterward. I hoped no one walking by would recognize me as the crazy lady at the payphones when they came into the ER with a gaping wound, or a sprained ankle.
(Source: Author.)
A stone’s throw from the payphones was a Book Barn, a befitting rural Montana modification of the Little Free Library. Inside, the treasure trove of oddities made me want to magically shrink myself and hide between the bag of salted peanuts in the shell and a book called Learn to Play the Guitar. I wanted to see the look on people’s faces when they opened the little barn doors to discover that, among the books, were a can of corn, a 500-piece puzzle, two tubs of cake frosting, and a red-haired doll lying prone on a box of Frosted Mini Wheats.
(Source: Author.)
Across the street, a tiny storefront caught my eye: “Mere’s Magic Universe & Tea.” You must know that for a person who can't even walk by payphones without checking for a dial tone, the draw to a place with the word “magic” in the name is irresistible.
(Source: Author.)
A neon “OPEN” sign glowed in the window, but it was dark inside, and the door was locked. I pressed my forehead to the window and peered in. Before I even had a chance to fog up the glass, a voice beside me broke the spell.
“Would you like to come in and check it out?”
I turned to see a woman unlocking the front door, dark hair flecked with snowflakes. When she pushed the door open, I thought I heard the clanging of bells, or maybe chimes, or maybe I’m just making that up, but either way, she gestured for me to enter the Magic Universe.
It’s important to note that Ronan, Montana—a town of around 3,000 inhabitants—has a downtown that, besides the payphones, features a defunct movie theater, a bowling alley, a handful of shops, and a library with its original 1972 sign. It’s the kind of place where you are not surprised to see a functioning barber pole, but a Magic Universe & Tea shop is a different story.
There’s no explaining how or why things work out the way they do; how the moment I was drawn to peer in the window of a tea shop, the owner would be returning for something she’d left behind when she closed up earlier. “I’m making bratwurst potato soup to serve at the brewery tomorrow night,” she said, “and I needed a bigger soup pot.” She gestured toward a large silver pot with a lid on the edge of a counter behind a curtain. Ronan’s brewery, I have to mention, is community owned, and bears the distinction of being Montana’s first co-op brewery.
“I’m Meredith,” she smiled. “I read tea leaves,” she added. She gestured with one arched eyebrow toward a low table with a stool on either side, and mentioned that she’d have time to do a reading for me and still have time to get back to her soup. I had no idea what to expect, but couldn’t say no. Before I knew it, Meredith had the teakettle on.
While the water boiled and the tea steeped, Mere gave me her abbreviated life story in snapshots of life in Alaska, Los Angeles, and Hawaii, of teaching English in Japan and Korea, and singing in a band in New York City, all before returning to Ronan, Montana, the town of her birth, some 40 years later.
Besides reading tea leaves and making soup for the brewery, Mere’s other civic engagements in town include teaching ukulele lessons and serving as a member of the Ronan Revitalization Committee. Also, she sings to you while she pours the tea for the reading. “It’s part of the service,” she winked.
Sipping tea under twinkle lights in the cozy shop with a fire glowing in the little gas fireplace, it was the scene from the inside of a snow globe. While Meredith sang the song “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I looked out the window at snow sifting down from the darkening sky, and I have to admit I might have gotten a little misty.
Swirling the tea leaves left at the bottom of the glass, then turning it upside down on a white napkin revealed the profile of a dog, two saguaro cactuses, and a sea turtle—or was it an eagle? Whatever it was, it was carrying a torch, a magic wand, or a baseball bat. Either way, it made us both laugh.
Peering into the same tea glass from opposite sides of the table, Meredith saw her kitten’s tail with its characteristic crook, where I saw a tree with its top cut off, one branch reaching up. At the bottom of the glass, she saw a kayaker paddling with a tiny dog, or maybe a cat sitting on the bow, and I saw instead an image in the negative space framed by the residual tea leaves: the distinct shape of a tiny, perfect heart.
If there were secret messages to be deciphered, or if all of it was just random blobs of tea leaves, it really didn’t matter. The magic was in the timing, and the connection made between two strangers; the tea leaves were just a bonus.
Read more of our weekly Neighborhood Storyteller columns here!
Karla Theilen is the Neighborhood Storyteller at Strong Towns. Karla is a writer, storyteller, and Registered Nurse based out of Missoula, Montana. Her penchant to explore wild places informed early career choices as a trail builder in the Grand Canyon, and a forest fire lookout in Idaho. Her current writing inspiration comes from a different kind of wilderness, navigating healing journeys with her patients in far-flung places where she works as a travel nurse. Her writing has been featured on NPR, and select stories and essays have been anthologized. She has been Facebook-free since 1972.