What Mug Will You Drink From Today?

I refuse to create a world for myself where I can't dream or remember.

We hear a lot about action, productivity, moving, progressing, advancing, doing, getting, achieving, having, wanting, needing, goals, targets....

Yes, all these help us know where were going.

And slowing down and breathing, closing your eyes, feeling, observing, watching all help us live in the present.

But in the never ending push to be better, we're often told that the past is a place to avoid like the plague.

‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’

This infamous first line of L. P. Hartley’s novel "The Go-Between" points out one of the reasons why it feels so different: our memory.

This brings me onto my “Mug Of The Week.”

I have mugs from Arizona, Canada, Graceland, KCRW, Texas, The Jesus & Mary Chain.

When I pull down one of these mugs in the morning, I think it must be for a reason: I want to remember what I felt when I first picked that mug up in the store.

The joy or the struggle of road trip to get there. The person I was with and the smell of the store I bought it in.

Today's mug is Arsenal. They're my North London football (soccer) team, the place I was born and lived until I was 9.

So I brew my pot of coffee. Pour my unsweetened almond & coconut milk into the gleaming red mug. Add a few drops of vanilla stevia.

I heat it on the Mr. Coffee mug warmer that Tanya bought me one Christmas. I swirl the milk to warm it through.

The coffee pot hisses, bubbles, gargles as the hot water seeps through the La Corona De Chiapas coffee.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The gargles and hisses slow. The last of the steaming water drips into the pot.

Then the beautiful alchemy as the steaming coffee with hints of cocoa, almond and lemons turns the warmed milk golden brown.

As I inhale the aroma from the filled mug, I wonder what made me choose that one today?

Mainly because Arsenal are playing Crystal Palace this evening.

I'll also wear my Arsenal tracksuit top and I'll sing along with the fans on TV.

But it's not just about tonight's game. Drinking from this mug, as the sweet coffee warms my throat, my body remembers all the games that came before.

When I went to my very first live game aged 7 and declared to my Mum that “this is the best day of my life.”

The FA Cup Final a few months later when Arsenal lost to West Ham and I squeaked slowly and dramatically in the garden swing, drenched in disbelief and grief.

That February 2006 Champions League Quarter Final when Mum, Dad, Rhoda & I watched Thierry Henry score a wonder goal against the mighty Real Madrid of Beckham, Ronaldo and Zidane.

Try as we might to work past, push beyond, deadline-rush our past from us, we carry it with us in our bodies.

Yes it can drag us down in the form of guilt, shame, excess weight, addictions.

But the past can also nourish.

And I find that once I acknowledge the moment, feeling or thought that needed attention, it passes through my body and starts to release.

Even the most intense emotional joy or pain will start to diffuse once you allow it first to rise.

After the first piercing sting, the joy or pain lessens as your body now knows what to expect.

Sit long enough in the joy of the remembered moment, and it may give way to a sadness at its passing.

Sit long enough with that sadness, and it may pass into relief.

Relief that you've had the strength to move beyond it and taken a lesson from it.

Now I rarely have just one cup of coffee. In some ways I've moved from one set of addictions to another... My beloved diners offering endless refills certainly fueled that!

But just like a diner will eventually want you to leave, we must know when the reliving of a moment is done too.

So when my Arsenal mug of coffee is finished and the game is over, I know I will have created new memories for future coffees.

I handwash the mug carefully, dry it, and place it back in its place on the shelf.

As I close the cupboard door I ask you:

What coffee mug will call you to drink from it tomorrow?

What story is it asking you to look at once again?