The Story of a Mug

JASON C WOLBACH

The object that has special meaning to me is a personal belonging. After a visit to La Paz, Mexico I acquired, as it might be described by Jules David Prown, this “device.” This particular item is hand-held, fairly rough on its exterior and in sharp contrast, smoothly polished on the inside. I have affection for this Mexican mug that I am describing. The interior of the mug can hold twice the amount of liquid as a normal mug and its outside has a painting of a man in a sombrero resting next to a cactus.

Although the mug was not very pretty or particularly special, I decided to purchase the assumedly hand-made item from an apparently poor woman selling various trinkets. People buy souvenirs frequently when visiting foreign places and often lose them within months of possession. Acquiring this kitchen item was fairly significant and not having to relinquish it has only increased its importance to me. I had been working on cruise ships for a few years by the time I had made my visit to La Paz. Bringing home novelties for family and friends during my vacation time had become commonplace. However, I never bothered to purchase any souvenirs for myself.

Up until this ship tour through different Mexican ports, there was no desire for material items that I might be able to have as mementos. I had gained friends and memorable experiences from my work travel abroad. However, my time on ships was coming to a close and since I knew that I would never be back to visit La Paz, the purchase seemed appropriate. Mexico has the most inviting people I have ever encountered and having something tangible to remind me of its wonderful culture was very important to me. I did do one more contract on ships that took me to other parts of the Caribbean after I had left the mug in the safe care of my mother. After returning to the U.S. and while in the process of settling into an apartment, I had a reconnecting conversation with my mother that included her admission to accidently breaking my mug into small pieces. She did manage to glue it back together but I was never able to drink out of it again. The mug was briefly used as a container for dishwashing utensils in my apartment but now it just sits empty next to a dish rack.

The seams where the glue had been applied are quite obvious but I cannot part with having the mug in my home. Since I have been back in the U.S., the mug from La Paz has moved with me to two different homes over the past three years. The longer that its existence is present around me, the more I feel personal attachment to it. “Old things” have meaning because of the events that surrounded and continue to occur in their presence. There is nostalgia involved with this mug for me but that does not apply to all objects that hold meaning to others. My grandfather contemplated purchasing a piece of the Berlin Wall when it fell. The rock he would receive was a piece of history that symbolized moving forward and not looking back. Significant events surrounded that wall. However, those events gave the pieces of the wall power just as my experiences in Mexico and on ships did for my mug. There were several similar mugs just like it in the woman’s small store. Although my mug was not very discernible from the others in the Mexican shop, the journeys that I experienced to get me to the mug and the journeys the mug went through after I became its owner turned it into more than just an ordinary drinking device.

I believe that meaningful objects always have some kind of story. If there is no personal connection between an object and myself, I believe that there could still be significant meaning to the object anyway. An object could be representative of a culture or significant event without a person ever realizing the importance that it holds unless they were actively made aware by someone else. For obvious reasons, objects made with rare or expensive materials could also hold some form of value. Giving an object value or meaning is both an objective and subjective matter that cannot be finitely quantified.