#18: Ellie’s Favourite Mug

E is for Ellie’s favourite mug: Do not use unless you wish to witness me flapping round the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, and failing to make coffee because no other receptacle will do.

As you may have noticed, this week Katie and I decided to choose the same object. We weren’t running out of objects (our lives are full of them); we simply thought it would be interesting to see how similar objects can have very different associations for different people.

So when I sat down to write this in the Students’ Union, sad paper coffee cup in hand, I thought about mine and Katie’s favourite mugs and what made them different and what made them the same.

They are both filled with coffee, but Katie’s is black whereas I like a splash of milk. They were both bought for us by family members — a piece of home we can cling to at university. They are both also, Katie’s more than mine, of a rounded design — soft curves our hands can cup.

But mine has my initial proudly printed on its surface. Black authoritative font. Like the labels sewn by mums into gym shorts, like the name scrawled on the top of an exam paper.

Because when you claim something as a favourite, you are possessing it, owning it, investing in it, accepting it as part of yourself.

This is why I hate being asked what my favourite anything is. Favourites are a commitment that does not allow the fluctuations of everyday existence. I have a favourite song for the brutal march to 9am lectures, a favourite song for oscillating wildly to in bars, a favourite song for singing wistfully while washing up. But I don’t have one song to rule them all.

Favourites possess you as much as you possess them. In those early moments of meeting someone, you exchange names and occupations, home towns and family situations, and if you do not enter the flow of natural conversation, you take hesitant steps from ‘Favourite Film’ to ‘Favourite Book’. These facts suddenly define you.

But this fear of commitment apparently does not extend to mugs. At home, at university, in the afternoon, in the evening, in bed, on the sofa, chatting in the kitchen, my fingers wrap around the familiar shape and I barely register it is there.

Perhaps it is because having a favourite physical object is not the same as having an intangible favourite, something you cannot hold. A physical favourite gets better with time. It becomes more familiar, more homely, more hygge, more you.

Holding my favourite mug is like holding the hand of a friend: a friend that is always there, a friend that knows me, and a hand that is comfortingly warm.