The Cup That Holds More Than Tea
I have a cup I reach for when I’m tired in the way that coffee can’t fix — the kind of tired that seeps into your bones, the kind that comes from carrying too many invisible things.
It’s not the most beautiful cup I’ve made. The glaze is uneven at the rim, and there’s a tiny imperfection at the base from when I shifted it before firing. But it’s the one I always choose. Because when I wrap my hands around it, I feel something shift inside me.
This cup isn’t just holding tea. It’s holding my grandmother’s outdoor courtyard kitchen, where the open fire in the mud stove cracked just right— the clink of steel spoons against glass tumblers, the warm, sweet smell of cardamom milk rising in the pan. It’s holding the afternoons when friends made me tea without asking, sliding it across the table wordlessly, knowing that was all I needed. It’s holding the early winter mornings in this farmhouse, where I sit alone in the quiet, watching the fog swallow the paddocks.
Pottery is never just about clay. It’s about what it carries for us. Some pieces become vessels for memory, for comfort, for grief. This is why no two cups can ever truly be the same. Not because I can’t replicate them — but because what they hold is as unique as the person cradling them.
We’re like that, too. We carry stories no one else will ever fully see. We hold moments like tea holds warmth, close and quiet. We chip. We weather. We stain after being used. And still, we hold.
When my hands curl around this cup, I’m reminded that sometimes, the thing we’re holding is holding us right back.
Until next time,
Nawsheen, your friendly homebody artist from Murrumbateman.
