I Once Saved a Broken Mug for Eight Years

I dropped the mug on a Tuesday. Handle snapped clean off, tea all over the floor. Any normal person would’ve tossed it. I rinsed it, dried it, and set it on the shelf like it had earned a retirement. I told myself I'd glue it back. I never did.

But over time, it turned into something else. It held dried flowers one month, paperclips the next. A place to toss spare buttons. It changed shape without changing shape. And somewhere in that slow re-use, I realized I’d started treating my whole home that way.

It’s not about being precious—it’s about refusing to believe that broken means useless. A chair leg can be a trellis. A ruined sweater can wrap a planter. Most days I don’t even plan these things. They just happen when I stop thinking about how something *should* be used.

I used to believe sustainability meant buying beeswax wraps and worrying about plastic. Now I think it’s also a kind of mindset. A visual rhythm. Letting things live longer, look stranger, serve again. Like compost, but for objects.

That mug? It finally cracked all the way last spring. I buried it in the garden under a rosemary bush. I like to think it's still holding something.