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| Coronado Island |
My favorite coffee mug is broken. Even. There's a line on the inside, snaking from top to bottom that I saw afterward. When I poured the coffee into it I thought I'd missed, a pool of pale brown seeping out from under. The blue gazelle bled brown drops and no matter how many times I wiped, the blue bloomed brown. The mushrooms, the perfect green curlicues, all stained. I am tempted toward sad, the tears for the mug, my favorite, for blue and green bled brown. No matter. A slice of glass in the dishwasher, too, jagged and a chunk of ceramic hacked off the sink, a black scuff on the edge of the counter. Chairs were thrown while I slept by the ocean.
We have a rat in the shed and the rat man is here with bait. It's like a granola bar, he says. His bald head gleams. He has three squares of plastic clover glued onto black boxes. They go off to die.
This was the perfect thing to read on a grey Monday morning - rain outside and the tea kettle hustling next to me. My favorite mug is in the dishwasher, so I'm going with second best this morning.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written. Dreamscape and exquisite detail.
ReplyDeleteOh my dear friend. The bleeding brown. The broken pieces. The disturbance in the small and peaceful which is a huge whole world.
ReplyDeleteLoving you.
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ReplyDeleteloss, and more loss. Keeping the vermin at bay. this too shall pass. xo
ReplyDeleteI think all the house shows on tv have be wishing for a pristine house, but a house dinged by life, a house that shows it has been lived in, laughed in, wept in, chairs thrown, that's what's real and far more moving (sort of the like the difference between mary moon's house now, and the manicured place she used to live in that is currently for sale).
ReplyDeleteMy friend recently broke her favourite mug that made her tea taste 10% better ... it was a retro reindeer one, apparently. I suggested a google search, and she found it again in minutes... happy again. Don't cry - there's another one out there waiting for you. I'm a firm believer in replacing beloved broken things.
ReplyDeleteIt's not much comfort to the rat, though. Poison's an evil death.
My husband would tell you this would never happen to me because I have about a dozen favorite mugs!! Some people just don't realize how important that is to many imbibers!! I hope you soon have another favorite mug.
ReplyDeleteBest,
Bonnie
Beautifully written. I could feel the heat of the coffee as it leaked through the crack.
ReplyDeleteLove these words, hate the loss.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough I had a had tremble and poured coffee all over my stove top, but that was a different sort of WTF? and not nearly as artful a sort of demise; my brown did not blossom, it erupted! The moment of confusion, "How'd that coffee get out?" might have been similar though ;)
I hope your love finds a new mug in good time. <3
A chunk of ceramic hacked off the sink? That was some serious chair-throwing. Seriously, I'm sorry about your mug. Coffee mugs can be oddly personal things. I've had my favorite mug for about 25 years and I would hate to lose it.
ReplyDeleteYour writing, of course, is fabulous. The poetry of everyday life.
Something about coffee mugs, they just become old friends. I try not to get too attached to inanimate objects as i break pretty much everything, but certainly, when my favorite blue and green mug breaks, i'll be mourning it's demise.
ReplyDeleteI love that photo. Reminds me of this article. (You probably saw it, but on the off chance you haven't!...)