Letting Life Pour As It Will

There’s always a cup somewhere waiting to be filled. Might be the chipped mug in my my mom’s cupboard, that carries the memories of countless teas that’s been served us and numerous other visitors or maybe it’s the plastic cup from my preschool days that still smells faintly of Milo. My mom still keeps those cups from our childhood. She says she wants us to see them when we’re really advanced in age. Those cups she keeps may look like mere vessels but really, they are silent witnesses of my childhood. One time, when she took me to the cupboard where she stores them, I wished the one she said was mine could speak and remind me of my days at preschool.

Looking at the cup in my kitchen, I think of how it has held both warmth and cold, and how it’s trusted to carry what my hands cannot.

When life feels heavy, I remember the phrase “my cup runneth over,” but the truth is, there are days when my cup feels empty, patiently waiting for me to pour something into it. Writing this, I can only imagine if it sometimes feels useless when it’s not been in use for days.

Well, the thing about cups is they remind us of proportion. You can’t drink the whole ocean, but you can sip from a cup. You can’t fix everything at once, but you can hold one moment, one breath, one act of kindness. A cup teaches patience all you have to do is sip, refill and sip again.

This is actually why I love tea rituals. Although I do it seldomly, the way the steam curls feels magical and the warmth of the cup against my bare hands is healing. And, another thing the cup doesn’t do is rush. All it does is simply hold whatever liquid you want it to. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s what I need to be too. Be less of a rushing river and more of being steady like a cup. Carrying only what I can and letting life pour as it will.

This is my response to the freewriter’s daily prompt

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