The Pitcher

There’s a pitcher that used to sit in my living room, holding an arrangement of tiger lilies. It was an odd coupling, to be sure. The beautiful bouquets contrasted horribly with their vase—arguably the ugliest pitcher ever made. Looking back, I’m not sure why I used it at the time.

Well, still used it.

That brow-crinkling piece of pottery—a mosaic of different earth-toned fruits and flowers—was a gift. Endearing at the time but painful as time passed, I remember fighting the desire to throw the pitcher up against the wall in hopes it would shatter and cease to exist. However, breaking the pitcher wouldn’t have solved my problems (though it would have relieved my living room of the eyesore).

See, there was this guy. (You knew we’d get there sometime, right?) He gave me the pitcher—the ugly, chipped, thrift store pitcher—and though he exited from my life, the pitcher hung around.

That’s the problem with break-ups – the person is gone but their stuff is still with you. The least they could have done is taken their crap with them when they left, like all those blasted memories… But you have them, their stuff and those memories, and are left with the arduous task of figuring out what to do with all of it. For some, that “stuff” is a house, or a dog, or books and movies, or an old sweatshirt you keep hidden but secretly wear at night because it still smells like them. For me, that “stuff” was an ugly pitcher.

It was so grade school when he gave it to me. We were “friends” at the time. He was browsing the shelves of a thrift shop one day when he came upon the pitcher and immediately thought of me. Cute, right? Ugly pitcher, Gloria. Ugly pitcher, Gloria. It was hard for me to get the connection at first. He explained it by saying it was the ugliest pitcher he had ever seen, and that he thought I would laugh if he gave it to me. It should have a home, he said. It worked. I laughed. I loved it. Then he left to go spend the weekend with his long-distance girlfriend.

This is how our relationship—our “friendship”—was for a long time, really. He had a girlfriend and was unavailable, but for having a girlfriend and being “unavailable,” he was awfully available to me. So when we finally started dating for real it seemed right.

Wrong. Take note: relationships involving an exchange of hideous pottery are not any more likely to succeed than relationships in which pottery has not played a role. Endearing gestures a relationship do not make.

I have moved twice since the pitcher came into my life, and I can’t seem to remember what happened to it. I’m not a very sentimental mover – the less I have to pack, move, and unpack the better. The pitcher probably ended up in a box marked for Goodwill.

I think that’s how it is with relationships.. They come and they go. When they come, we do crazy things like buy ugly pottery. When they go, we want to throw the pottery against the wall. We want to keep whatever pieces we still have with us. We want to get it out of our life. We want to figure out how to keep it in our life. Time passes, and then one day you can’t remember what happened to it. It’s gone. It disappeared, and you hadn’t even noticed.

I have been ugly-pottery free for quite some time now. I think perhaps it might be time to go and find some more.