The Mug

Editor’s Note: This piece includes mentions of historical Japanese ceramics and the Iroha, a Japanese poem.

Picture this. 

I’m sitting on the couch at midnight, wrapping up a project that’s left me feeling exhausted and exhilarated. Even better, it’s earlier than usual for me — I can get to bed before my typical 1:30am. Success. The tea in my mug has long since cooled, my laptop’s battery is nearing its end, and my body is ready to melt into my covers. That’s when it happens. 

I close the screen and somehow — maybe the laptop, maybe my hand — brushes the mug, topples it off the coffee table. Falling, falling. 

Splinter, crack. Black tea stains the rug.

If it had been any other mug, I wouldn’t have cared. Sure, I’d be annoyed. It would push back my bedtime yet again, proving that no matter how hard I try, it’s really the universe that delays my rest.

This mug, however, was different. Is different. I’m staring at the fractured pieces as I write. Blue camellias against porcelain snow, a delicate structure. Last night, I learned in my panicked state, as I searched for the manufacturer, that it’s a Mino ware ceramic, a style from the Gifu prefecture of Japan. I also learned that there’s a blogger who catalogs stamps and signatures on Japanese ceramics; there are several Japanese ceramic stores in New York, and iroha is like the “ABC’s” of harigama. Needless to say, my bedtime was after 2:30am.

Now, like all good literature majors, I am something of a dramatist. So, there I sat, reading through the history of Mino ware ceramics, connecting with translators on reddit, writing to pottery studios, and dreaming of a tale in the making, one with adventure and a very important mug. I laid, wide awake, in bed that night, unable to take my mind off of this mug and the carelessness that had led to its demise. I couldn’t understand why it upset me.

It wasn’t until the morning, when I was awoken by a blaring alarm, that I realized it wasn’t just the mug. It was about the many stories it’s held over the years.

2019

I’ve landed my first job in NYC — my dream come true. I’ve signed the lease for my first city apartment — a small, cramped space in Bushwick, where the high ceilings almost make up for the lack of horizontal space. I’ve met a man who will eventually become my husband. And one day, that man brings me to a small Japanese store near Madison Square Park. He introduces me to plum and shiso onigiri, and we spot two beautiful blue, floral mugs on sale. He buys them. 

Two mugs, for the two of us.

2020

My now-fiancé and I are moving into our first apartment together during the height of the pandemic. We’ve weathered two months living with his mother in Connecticut. It’s the first time we’ll be allowed to sleep in the same room, and we have no furniture aside from a mattress, a bookshelf, and a floor lamp. That first night, we don’t finish unloading our belongings until 3 am. We drink lukewarm tap water in the two blue mugs we’ve unpacked. Before the end of the year, those mugs will see us through an unexpected surgery, my starting a master’s program, the loss of a job — and of a beloved pet rabbit. They’ll also see a new addition to the family — another bunny named Luna.

2021

I choose to go no contact with my family — a decision not taken lightly. The only family that I allow to remain in my life are my sister and my father, who has just experienced two strokes that leave him permanently disabled. My mug remains full of peppermint tea to calm my stomach as the anxiety over my liminal decision, and my father’s well-being, increases. It’s a warmth in my hand as I feel more alone, and freer, than ever. It’ll sit next to me on the floor as I play video games, and be repeatedly tipped over by two curious bunnies — yes, two — who must inspect its contents. One of the two mugs will break — an incident that my husband still insists was my fault (it wasn’t). An attempt at repairing the mug with kintsugi will be abandoned shortly after.

2022

I’m about to start my last semester of my graduate program. Somehow, my fiance gets COVID. One morning while I’m preparing him a mug of tea, one of the bunnies — Glen — becomes ill. Within twelve hours, I’ll have taken him to the emergency vet, headed home just to pack Luna up, and returned to the vet’s clinic with her.

Only Luna and I will leave the vet that night. 

I’ll finally understand how characters in movies vomit after stressful events, a trope I believed until this moment was fake. The vet will provide me with canine anti-nausea medication while I lay on the floor. The next day, I test positive for COVID and am unable to think about anything due to the severity of the illness. Glen’s ashes will soon arrive in a wooden box, carved with flowers, like my mug, and I’ll cry over them on the floor, Luna squished against my leg and a forgotten cup of coffee nearby. 

That same mug will see me through my final semester of grad school, a medical emergency that resulted in my fiance’s liver almost failing, and a faculty strike that almost prevented my graduation.

2023

I’ve just returned home from a visit to a former instructor who will, in one week’s time, die from pancreatic cancer. Shortly after, events occur that fracture my understanding of the world.

This is the liminal point: before the fall and after the fall. Splinter, crack.

It’s like I’m walking through a field covered in snow. But then the snow gives way — it was never a field… it was a lake, iced over — and I’m sinking into the cold, drowning. I’ll leave a half-drunk mug of tea on the coffee table one night as I struggle to regain internal stability and find refuge in my friends’ apartment. I’ll melt into those friends’ arms as soon as they open the door. 

The mug will still be there, half full, when I return the next day.

2024

I’ve left a shit job, one where I had long since stopped crying and instead become numb. I take a massive pay cut to join a company in England with the agreement that I’ll be flown over a few times a year. Over the months, I grow frustrated for several reasons, but mostly from the refusal to hear my concerns about the American economy’s increasing unsteadiness. I become fully disillusioned when a few colleagues make entirely unprofessional comments towards me. 

Days later, I’ll get raving drunk at the company party — partially a result of trying to forget my colleagues’ comments, and partially a result of my forgetting that I’m on medication with which I, according to my doctor, “absolutely should not be mixing alcohol.” I’ll be sick the next day and wishing my husband were there to bring me a ginger ale in my favorite mug.

2025

I’ve been laid off. I attempt to pay my bills through dog walking, and I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs. No offers. I down four to five cups of coffee a day. My mug will see me through application after application, in between dog walks, before interviews. It’ll hold chamomile tea while I recover from another surgery. It’ll also hide beer while I talk with my father over video calls so I can withstand his insistence that Trump is the best.

2026

It’s been a year since I was laid off. I’ve started my own business, quiet and clientless as it is. My mug is always full, with either coffee or tea — day or night. I’m juggling several projects, including editing a podcast for the first time. And the night I finally finish it, the mug falls. 

Splinter, crack.

I’ve finally found the manufacturer for this mug; they’re out of stock. Who knows if they still make it — but I’ve emailed them, and about seven other companies that have listed the mug (all out of stock) on their websites. In the meantime, though, I’ve purchased a kintsugi kit to repair this stupid mug, and I will be successful this time. I need to be. It won’t be the same, but it’ll be whole again.

And when it is, it’ll hold even more stories of our family.