In Praise of My Coffee Mugs

Last spring, I had a tragic loss: I dropped my beloved coffee mug on our kitchen floor, and it shattered. I had had that mug since college, when I bought it at the State College Arts Festival, and for a moment I just stared at the pieces on the floor, as if there must be a way to put them back together.

The mug was handmade, and it was glazed in beautiful hues of blue and maroon. I liked that the colors swirled and seemed to form patterns; my favorite part looked like a cliff and a falling star. It was the kind of mug you could look at every day and still find interesting. I drank coffee from it every morning in England, and then it sat on my desk when I taught high school in North Carolina. In Philadelphia, it sat on a shelf in my windowless cubicle, taken down every morning for my tea break. But then it shattered.

Of course, I had other mugs. One says PBS, and another says American College of Radiology. I bought a blue flowered mug for $1.99 at Target, and it was pretty, but it lacked that je ne sais quoi.

Then, as a going-away present, Kaela gave me a mug. It was bigger than my last one, and not as colorful. I wasn't sure about it at first; I still missed my other one. But now, it's growing on me. I drink coffee from it every morning, and I'm starting to appreciate the way the glaze turns from gray to blue inside. On the inside, you can see the lines of the handbuilt pottery; the outside is more roughly textured, almost like stone. Both outside and inside have vertical lines of glaze dripping down, with a motion similar to my old mug. It has a solid weight to it, and the handle has a thumb-sized indentation at the top. In short, it's a mug with character.

As I sit and drink my coffee, I've been thinking about how few of our objects really have character. Mass-produced objects can be pretty, or useful, but not many of them are interesting like my mugs.

For Christmas, my friend Alia gave me a new mug. This one is more whimsical--it has a big sheep on it, an allusion to a joke that goes back to our high school days--but just as solid. I'm excited to have a mug for my afternoon coffee too.

Now I just have to be careful not to drop either one.