The ceramics cup conundrum
someone buy me a fcking ceramics cup already
If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I love a hot beverage and I love supporting women in the arts. I feel like if you know a little bit about me, you will know this. This is why the perfect present for me is a handmade ceramics cup. Yet no one has ever gifted me one.
I have been dropping hints for years. Ceramics shops are everywhere ; if you have ever walked next to me in any city in Europe you have heard me say “omg this cup is amazing this is my dream cup”. If you’ve been to my home you know that I own a lot of cups and mugs, that I cherish them and than no cramped kitchen or cross-country move will make me give them up. My best friend gave me a mug for my 10th birthday and I use it every other day (and no one else is allowed to drink from it). Every time anyone I know has a birthday, I will suggest ceramics in the secret gift group chat.
More than anything, I want to be given the gift of a ceramics cup; but I don’t want to explicitly ask for one.
Love is in filling the gap
The politics of gift-giving are complicated and rooted in class/gender/power dynamics that I won’t get into here. I will say however that I hate the question “what do you want?”. I don’t ask it and I don’t respond to it. I also dislike being given a wishlist. It’s the thought that counts! The effort and time put into finding a nice, appropriate gift based on what you know and love about a person, that’s where the whole value of a gift lies in my world (of course there are exceptions to this rule, especially with expensive things that one might need/can’t afford).
I don’t want to ask for a ceramics cup because it will lose its value. (I understand that I’m writing it now, that some loved ones will see it and that I will either get 3 ceramics cups for my next birthday or never ever receive one – and I have made my peace with that, because my art comes first). What is a gift if not a demonstration of love?
I am haunted by the words of my former therapist: if you have a hole in the shape of a square, love is not filling it with a square. Love is filling it with a circle. What it means is that if you have a list of expectations or demands and someone simply fulfills them, the relationship becomes merely transactional. You could go to some kind of love-ATM and get exactly what you ordered. On paper, anyone who met those needs exactly like you want them met would be an adequate companion. That is not what love is. It’s letting yourself be surprised by how the other person responds to you and your needs. I’m not talking about speaking completely different languages and not getting anything you need; I am talking about letting the other decide how they want to respond to you and your needs. That is when they actually become a full-fledged human to you, and not just someone who ticks some boxes that you needed ticked.
Love is creativity. Love is filling the gap between what you verbalize, and what your heart wants deep down.
Wtf is “emotional maturity”?
As I was writing this, I got mad at myself and thought “but isn’t ‘figuring out what I want and asking for it’ all I’ve been trying to do for the past 7 years??”. And reader, it is. It absofuckinglutely is. I googled “what is emotional maturity” and the first answer was “recognizing emotions and expressing them appropriately, even in challenging situations (Jobson, 2020)”. And isn’t a “good relationship” good communication? It feels like I’ve spent my formative years learning and relearning, in many shapes, the lesson that You can’t be mad at someone for not giving you what you did not ask for. And I truly believe that. Then why do I want to receive the cup without asking for the cup?!
I have received a lot of great gifts in my life. There are two that made my cry. Want to know what they were? CUPS! Specifically, Moomin cups. I cried because in the moment that I received them (two separate occasions), I felt so loved. I had truly been longing for them and finally, as I turned thirty, people heard my heart’s desire that I hadn’t really dared saying out loud.
I guess knowing what you need and want is useful in establishing boundaries and making sure that the relationships you are in (romantic and otherwise) are healthy; that the people around you respect you and contribute to your well-being and your happiness. So there are things that you ask for, and the other person listens and works hard to give you. Sometimes, that is a long process, because they have to change something about themselves to be able to give you that thing. When someone does that, it makes you feel seen and valued.
But the things you don’t ask for, when they are given to you, they make you feel like this is your person. This is someone who knew what you needed, through magic or some cosmic twist, and the gift they are giving you feels like the most amazing surprise you’ve ever gotten. You didn’t ask for it, and somehow you are lucky enough to receive it. It’s worth a celebration, it’s worth tears of joy.
The first one is a necessity in any good relationship, whether we’re talking love, family, friends. The second one is really nice in a friend, and it definitely happens (you know those friends that feel like soulmates?, but to me it’s really a necessity in a romantic partner. Maybe I’m too dramatic, maybe it only matters to have someone willing to do the work you need for you, but you have to admit – isn’t it nice to have a ceramics cup?
Bises,
Lolo
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