In which I tell a story about how ceramic snowmen mugs broke my heart
I'm still thinking about the snowmen.
My mother brought home these two mugs from work that the staff had received from parents (preschool teacher perks). They are those kinda tacky holiday shaped ones, you know, like the ones that are invariably re-gifted right after receiving them?
These two mugs are shaped like the heads of snowmen who have for some reason been dressed in a manner that suggest they somehow feel cold, even though they have physical bodies composed entirely of frozen bits of water. Like even though they are every bit as frozen, temporary, and savage as their environment they can still feel frightened of having to face said environment. So they've put on this armor that is supposed to protect them from feeling the truth of what they are made of.
Tacky ceramic holiday mugs just got deep, eh? Just wait, there's more.
Anyway, my mom brought these mugs home. They had been filled with packets of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate (the kind with marshmallows) and green peppermint candies.
My mom took out the goodies, and then set the mugs on the counter. I walked by, looking for a snack, and stopped. I picked up on of the mugs a looked at it for a long while. “This is cute,” I said. The hot chocolate and candy had been set on the counter next to the second mug.
“Parents from work. Your Aunt ***** gave me the one she got.” She nodded to the second mug. “I'm just gonna put them in the gift box.”
The gift box was the box of odds and ends we collected that could be feasible offered as gifts to loved ones. Soap. Candles. Children's craft sets. That sort of thing. I looked back to the mug in my hand, and then turned the second mug around and looked at them for a while.
While both of them were obvious snowmen, but one of them had been subtly manipulated into taking on a traditionally feminine aspect. And by subtle, I mean that it had large pink circles painted on its cheeks, and its carrot nose had a distinctly soft and feminine up-turned curve. I was looking at a masculine and feminine pair of snowmen mugs.
I looked at them and saw that they were in love.
I looked at them and it occurred to me that the snowmen were what I had to look forward to in life. The tacky ceramic holiday mugs were perfect examples of how the world treats people. The world, other people, look at you and then by fright or might they reach into your mind and claw into your heart then they take away anything they think has value, like taking the candy and discarding the mug you got it in. No matter how armored you've tried to make yourself, no matter how many hats and scarves you bundle on, the cold always gets to you.
And then we turn and look in the mirror and discover that the brutal world we live in, the ice and chill, is what we are. We try to dress it up, and defend against it, but every single one of us is made of cold and frozen snow, as cold and frozen as every other person who has ever hurt you.
I think I broke my heart a little, looking at those snowmen mugs.
Cold as they were though, something about the boy snowmen mug had put a smile on the girl snowmen mugs face, had inspired a little color in her frozen-white cheeks, even though such a biological function is not possible for her because she has no blood to blush with and is made of snow.
There was something about the boy snowmen mug that was worth smiling about and there was something in the girl snowmen mug that was capable of smiling, even though everything that other people had judge worthy and valuable had already been ripped from them by the cold, cruel world, and then scattered about.
I saw them, and my heart broke because they were more true than any other false pretense of warmth and love I had seen this holiday season.
