Though the pandemic has slowed it, I feel as if it’s a growing-to-be-known fact that I am amassing a fairly decent collection of mugs. There is no collective pattern to their designs except that they are all very applicable to me. (The same has been appropriately said about my home too.) A lesser known fact is that there is a particular order in which I use them. It can vary slightly, but it always follows this one rule. The mugs used first are always the ones given by loved ones. Picking one up is picking up a piece of a friend.
There are phrases I say a certain way because a friend says them that way. I take my tea the way I do because a friend took his that way when I’d never had tea before. Sometimes if I’m awake late enough I start thinking about making peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches. I fold straw wrappers in zig zags. I sing through my music even when its not for voice to find the phrasing. If I see the full moon, I have to say, ‘she beautiful, she gay’. The way I move, the way I laugh, the way I play music, the way I am me, is an amalgamation of who I love.
Christmas is about small things happening in small places that mean big things. A baby is born to common people in a barn in a tiny town. I drink hot chocolate and look at Dolly Parton, or ducklings, or rainbows, or a dog, on my mug. Both of these are Love.
As Christmas Day comes to an end, take the last few moments to find the parts of you that are not you, but are the Love of others in you. There will be more than you realize, and more than you discover, because there is more Love around you, and more Love in you, than you know.
Peace to all. Merry Christmas.
