A Tale of Two Cups
All that’s left is the sorrow of losing something as silly as absurd cups, the shock of how they came to ruin, and the joy in having owned them at all.
Once upon a time, my husband and I found ourselves without any cups that could hold hot beverages1. We had just moved, and the process had involved putting all but the barest of bare essentials into storage. We were supposed to survive for several months on the few short term provisions I packed. Except I forgot to pack cups.
The morning after this oversight was discovered, my husband had to go to work so the kids and I set out to the local grocery store, hoping to find cups and explore our neighborhood.
A small selection of kitchenware was thankfully tucked away in a random aisle, and as luck would have it, I found what I was looking for. Two cups, one design for him and a complimentary design for me. They were silly, goofy, cheap, gaudy, kitschy, and they even had a misspelled word on them. They made me laugh. Perfect. I could not wait to present my husband with his new cup.
These cups served us well (we even drank martinis out of them one time) and they continued to be in regular use over the next few years. They were completely endearing in their absurdity.
In those years, our life came at us in waves, as lives do, and some of the waves were very hard and tumultuous. But we survived it, as people do most of the time— by leaning on each other and sharing our burdens over a hot cup of comfort. Our ridiculous cups reminded us that life is not always hard and dreary. We shared many a hot cup in the glorious good times, too.
Eventually, we moved into our current house and got to work unpacking and settling in. After my husband had gone to work one morning, his cup got knocked to the floor and it broke. I was sadder than I should have been over a broken cup. Picking up the wreckage, I looked up forlornly at my cup, sitting on the counter above me, still full of coffee. I wondered if I would continue to use it— how sad it seemed without its partner in crime.
I sipped at my coffee ruefully before returning to cleaning and unpacking. A few minutes later, a loud CRASH sounded behind me. My cup full of coffee, without warning or provocation, had fallen (jumped?) from the counter and was shattered on the floor, near the first crash site. Hot and bitter coffee tears were splattered and dripping down the cabinets, drenching the whole scene in a brown bath of sorrow and lament.
In disbelief and—almost—relief I gathered up and dumped the shattered fragments on top of the remains of the other cup already in the garbage bin, their shards mingling and tinkling like music. They belonged to each other, and always had. And so it was together that these two odd cups exited our lives forever, as dramatically as anything Euripides or Shakespeare could dream up.
How much of my life is lived in the presence of a cup! I carry a cup of coffee or tea around the house with me most of the day—life happens around cups of warmth. So, with gratitude, I continue to fondly remember those funny cups. They bore silent witness to some of our greatest triumphs and our darkest tragedies in that handful of years—weekend dramas acted out with my husband on our couch. They patiently steamed while tears were streamed into their contents. They listened to countless hopes and dreams, plans, laughter, jokes, and rolled their silly eyes at a million stolen, caffeinated kisses. How much greater to be a coffee cup upon a coffee table than a fly upon a wall!
Tomorrow is the weekend, and my husband will be home. If you’ve read this far, then you can already guess that we’ll be taking our usual spots on our couch, coffee in hand as is our tradition. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.
But first! Today in school we are learning about primarily James McNeil Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Charles M. Russell, and Frederic Remington. I let the kids pick out an inexpensive bouquet of flowers to add to our still life drawing, so they’re pretty excited about that.
Have a great weekend, thank you so much for giving generous space in your inbox for these scribbled thoughts and sketches.
-Jenn
If you’d like to browse my art, the best place to start is probably here:
At this time in our lives we were only tea drinkers; we were young enough and arrogant enough to believe we could get through the day without coffee. By the end of this tale, we graduated to coffee.
Wow such a beautiful story of life within these cups. As you read you get exactly what you are feeling within your life in these cups. It is not silly or crazy it is true these cups were paired up as in a marriage also. Everything is energy as l am learning so much about the planet. It’s like a living older couple where one passes away and the other cannot live without each other. I had this happen to a great great aunt and uncle l met 1 time in my early life. The woman passed away and a few days later the husband did also of heartbreak without his wife near him. So l loved this so much thank you for posting this.
How did I miss this one?! I can understand why you are proud of this piece. Yes we do get attached to "silly things" like tea/coffee mugs don't we? I think you are right, that we subliminally involve them in all our plans, wishes and sometimes conspiracies (haha!). Also, as part of a still-life sketch or painting, they have that visual draw, as does a wine or beer glass for the same reason. They are so much more a part of someone's person than the furniture or other surroundings, because we interact with them in (I suppose) somehow a more personal way. What a lovely piece and beautiful sketches. Thank you for re-posting it. And have a great Summer!