Not a professional one. Not certified or trained or selling tinctures at the farmers' market. Just someone who grew plants and made tea and maybe understood what my grandmother meant when she said certain herbs could "help with things." Anxiety. Insomnia. The knot in my stomach that my doctor couldn't find a cause for.

The mint was supposed to be foolproof. Everyone said so. "You can't kill mint," they said. "It grows like a weed." Turns out you absolutely can kill mint if you panic and water it three times a day because you're terrified it's dying.

I live in Parkersburg, in an 1892 Italianate cottage on Market Street with a narrow side yard that gets decent sun. The yard came with overgrown hostas and a crumbling brick path and nothing remotely useful unless you count the violets that show up uninvited every spring. I dug up a ten-by-six patch in April, right after the mint incident, and planted everything the garden center had labeled "medicinal": chamomile, lemon balm, sage, lavender, more mint.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Sam Rivera found me kneeling in the dirt on a Saturday morning at 7:15 AM, reading the back of a seed packet for the fourth time, trying to understand what "full sun to partial shade" actually meant. —  Iris Yamamoto

Sam lives two streets over and works as an accountant. I've seen him around—quiet guy who's always learning something new. He stopped on the sidewalk and just watched me for a minute.

"That chamomile needs more space," he finally said. "They'll choke each other out."

I looked at my cramped seedlings, planted exactly three inches apart like the packet said, and felt my face get hot. "The instructions said—"

"Instructions assume you have perfect soil and perfect weather. You have clay and Ohio." He stepped into my yard without asking, knelt beside me, and started gently loosening roots. "Give them room to breathe. Plants know what to do if you don't suffocate them."

He helped me replant everything. Didn't lecture. Didn't take over. Just showed me how to feel if soil was actually dry or if I was imagining it, how to pinch back the lemon balm so it wouldn't get leggy, where to put the lavender so it wouldn't compete with the chamomile for water.

"You making tea?" Sam asked.

"Trying to. I have anxiety. My doctor suggested herbal remedies alongside medication, but store-bought tea feels... fake somehow."

Sam nodded like this made perfect sense. "Come to my place Wednesday evening. I make blends. You can see."

The first harvest was in July. The chamomile had actually flowered—tiny white daisies that smelled like apples when I crushed them between my fingers. I stood in my side yard at 6:30 on a Tuesday morning and cried. —  Iris Yamamoto

Sam taught me to harvest in the morning after dew dries but before noon heat. I hung bundles upside down from the curtain rod in my kitchen—the one window that gets cross-breeze but no direct sun. Chamomile, lemon balm, mint that had finally forgiven me and grown back aggressively. The cottage smelled like a garden for three weeks while they dried.

My first batch of tea was terrible. I used too much chamomile and it tasted bitter and medicinal. I tried again with just mint and it was bland. Third attempt: chamomile, lemon balm, a tiny bit of lavender. I steeped it too long and it turned grayish-green.

"You're overthinking," Sam said when I showed up at his place Wednesday evening frustrated and carrying a jar of failed tea. "Tea isn't chemistry. It's attention."

He showed me his blends—small mason jars lined up on a kitchen shelf in his own Victorian cottage, each labeled in careful handwriting: "Sleep," "Digestion," "Calm," "Morning." He opened the "Calm" jar and let me smell it: chamomile, lemon balm, a hint of rose petals he'd dried from his landlord's garden.

"One teaspoon per cup. Boiling water, but let it cool thirty seconds first. Five minutes steep. Not seven. Not three. Five." He measured it into a chipped teacup—not a perfect ceramic thing, but one with a chip on the rim and a faded gold pattern. "Perfection isn't the point. Consistency is."

I've been making tea for six months now. I have four blends that work: morning mint-lemon balm, afternoon chamomile, evening lavender-chamomile, and the one I call "3 AM" that's mostly lemon balm because that's when anxiety wakes me up. —  Iris Yamamoto

I'm not cured. I still take medication. I still wake up at 3 AM sometimes with my heart racing. But I also get up, go downstairs to my kitchen with its 1890s radiator that clanks and hisses, and make tea from plants I grew myself in a side yard I didn't think could grow anything.

Last week Maya Chen from over in Ravenswood knocked on my door at 8 PM after a Wednesday meditation session. She stood on my porch looking exhausted and said, "Sam mentioned you make tea. I'm not sleeping. Can you spare some?"

I gave her a small jar of my evening blend. Told her five-minute steep, not seven. Warned her it wouldn't fix anything but might help. She came back three days later with an empty jar and a bag of fresh zucchini from her garden.

"Slept six hours straight," she said. "First time in two months."

I think that's what my grandmother meant about herbs helping with things. Not magic. Not cure. Just... help. Attention in a jar. The patience of watching mint leaves dry, of learning to trust that five minutes is actually long enough, of accepting that sometimes the best thing you can make is something imperfect that still works.

My garden is sleeping now under December frost. The dried herbs hang in my kitchen, waiting. In March I'll plant again—more chamomile, lemon balm that spreads like gossip, mint that I've finally learned to trust with just enough water. Maybe some tulsi if Sam has seeds to spare. Maybe rose petals if I'm brave enough.

For now, it's 7:15 AM on a Thursday morning, and I'm making tea. One teaspoon per cup. Five-minute steep. No longer, no shorter. The exact amount of patience it takes to grow something from seed, kill it, start over, and finally get it right.

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