I used to be amused by the idea of people having a favourite cup.
In 2010, I was working at ABC’s Ultimo headquarters when I went to the tea room to make myself a tea. Standing at the bench, dunking his tea bag into a cup, was an iconic ABC presenter. I walked past him and reached up to the shelf to get a cup. I picked one out and started lowering it towards me when I heard an “Uh uh” sound coming from the presenter’s mouth. It was the sound you make when a child who has had too many cookies reaches for the last one. I turned and looked at him. He just closed his eyes and shook his head. So I put the cup back on the shelf. I then reached for another cup and, as I brought it down, I turned to the presenter. Again, he closed his eyes and he shook his head. So I put the cup back. I reached for a third cup and tentatively brought it down while maintaining eye contact with the presenter. This time, his eyes remained open and his head didn’t shake. He wasn’t saying “Yes”, but he wasn’t saying “No”, either. At school, I studied the play, A Man For All Seasons, and remembered the bit where Sir Thomas More says: "Qui tacet consentire": "Silence gives consent". So I took the presenter’s silence to mean I could use the cup. When I went back to the production office, I may have spoken derisively about how some people think beverages taste better out of specific cups.
For the next six years I successfully bustled through life drinking hot beverages from random cups. Then I went to America and everything got hard. It’s all relative. I still had food on the table and a roof over my head. But I was unemployed. Also, my friends and family were back in Australia and I only had Marc Maron and CNN for company. That’s when I saw this mug at Whole Foods on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Fairfax Ave.
It was love at first sight. I bought it. Took it home. And for some reason, hot drinks tasted better when they were inside it. It’s red. But not too red. (That photo makes it look redder than it actually is.) I liked it because it can contain a lot of liquid. And the act of drinking out of it reduced my anxiety.
So now I had a favourite cup, which meant I had to choose a second favourite for when my favourite was out of action.
That was easy. In 2012, I hosted a show during the London Paralympic Games with Stef Brantz, Sam Pang and Lawrence Mooney and this was the cup that sat in front of me during the show.
At the time, I felt incredibly lucky to be there. When I drink out of the cup today, it doesn’t necessarily make me feel lucky - but it reminds me that I have had a lot of luck in my life and to stop feeling sorry for myself.
I actually use my third favourite cup more regularly than my second favourite. And that’s this one.
It’s story with me started when I arrived in in London last year to visit Amanda, who was working over there, and we heard our cat had died in the boarding house I’d settled her into just days before. We were devastated. Amanda had to go to work, and I did the only thing I knew would make me feel marginally better and bought myself a cup from Marks and Spencer. It was from a collection of cups, each bearing a letter of the alphabet. There were only “Zs” left by the time I got there, which was fine for me. Strangely, the cup doesn’t bring back memories of grief. It just reminds me of London. And when I drink out of it, I feel about 15 percent calmer.
If you got this far, thank you for your indulgence. Maybe I’m alone in finding comfort in cups. But I don’t think so. They help pour life into you when you’re empty and top you up when you’re nearly full. And if I lost any of my favourites, I’d miss them forever.
Mugs given by cherished family or friends become sentimental favourites, and used every day, no matter how impractical the mugs are - wait til a square TARDIS mug becomes your new fave, it makes one savour one's morning coffee, carefully and awkwardly heheheh