Blog: The World Cup That We Didn't Know We Needed

Hiya! How’re we doing?! How’re we feeling today? I can’t hear your response, as this is not interactive, BUT I hope that your answer was nothing short of great! Now, who’s ready to read a blog? Again, rhetorical, this is not a participatory medium. Anyway, today we’re going to talk about the World Cup! Yay, sports! Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’re not here to talk about the actual matches being played, the brackets, the rosters, the predicted outcomes of the tournament, no, no, no. We are here to talk about what has happened around two thirds of the host nations this last two weeks…Canada, you know that you did…

If you haven’t been on the same sides of Instagram, TikTok, Threads, Twitter, Facebook, whatever else that I have been on than you may have missed what’s going on around the North American continent, sans Canada, with all of our global visitors congregated here for the World Cup. No worries, we’ll get you all filled in & up to speed before we talk about why I’ve brought us all here today.

This World Cup has been nothing short of heartwarming. At least most of it has been when you focus solely on the people & not the wannabe tyrannical government involved & the host organization capitulating to it. If you haven’t been privy to the videos & the stories I highly recommend that you look up videos of South Koreans in Guadalajara, the Scots in Boston, the Japanese in Dallas, Curaçao vs Germany, the celebrations of Haiti & Brazil, Algeria in Lawrence, Freddy the German & his trip around The US, & basically any other team/fandom interactions happening around The US & Mexico. In all honesty, the amount of videos that I have seen that have made me tear up or outright cry has been surprising to even me.

But why is that? Why am I getting so emotional over these cultures & peoples from around the world slamming into one another on my phone screen? Because this is what I love about humanity. This is what I love about travel & the fusion of culture, it brings out the best in us. It brings out joy & appreciation & allows people to surrender to something they’ve never seen or experienced with an open mind & an open heart. It’s nothing short of beautiful to witness.

Now there has been a lot of discourse on the internet around this. Around the ‘hopecore’ posts that are flooding our timelines & how much it is reinvigorating the American spirit.

It’s been a rough year & a half here in America. We’ve all felt this pervasive dark cloud over the top of us that seems to get heavier & heavier with every passing day & every passing terribly harmful policy or regression that’s come down the pipeline, we as Americans desperately needed this.

I’m sure most of us would agree that we had no idea just how bad we actually needed the World Cup & the energy of those who came here to follow their country’s respective teams. They have no idea how much their infectious energy, their messages of appreciation, their love for us as a people means to so many of us in what has been an incredibly dark, modern chapter in American history. The kindness, the joy, the acceptance that my fellow countryfolk have shown the people of the world is doing something I never thought I’d see or feel, much less from the FIFA World Cup. It’s making me feel pride in this America.

Not the America of Donald Trump & the ideals of MAGA, but pride in the America that is embracing & celebrating diversity, that is going out of its way to be inclusive & welcoming to those who are different to us. That is the America I can get behind. That is an America that I can love & stand proudly with because that is where our true strengths are found & I think a lot of people are waking up to that. At least I hope they are.

The FOMO has been real & non-stop & I know there has been a large influx of people booking plane tickets to host cities just to be a part of this cultural exchange. People who have little to no interest in soccer itself, but want to be in the cities where these nations have claimed space just so they can feel that joy of what it is that binds us in our humanity being expressed so publicly & joyfully. I honestly looked at ticket prices & hotels myself because I know how rare & absolutely authentic to that which makes us great as a species all of this is. I crave a world that looks like this, where differences are embraced & celebrated, not vilified or made the target of scapegoating. I crave a world where the joy of what makes us different & proud is allowed to flow from us freely so that we can see one another plainly & learn from one another instead of hiding self consciously behind the them.

I hope deep down in my soul that this is not a temporary thing. I hope that more & more Americans see these beautiful moments & begin to see that this is where our strength lies, not with the raising of walls & arms against those who differ from us. I hope the world also takes back the same lesson, that they see this country & these people not so much as the villains any longer, but as honest, welcoming folk.

I hope you’re enjoying The World Cup, if you haven’t had the chance to watch games or anything happening around The US & Mexico around the games themselves I would highly recommend that you take the time to go out & do so. If you are in a city hosting another country, please go to where they’re congregating & engage with them in an openminded, respectful, & heartfelt manner. This is how we heal the world. This is how we make things better for all of us. Not by being afraid of the things that separate us, but by reaching out, engaging, & trying to understand those whose lives look different from your own.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Ponderance & Teacups

Lately I’ve found myself leaning more & more into ponderances & have caught myself marveling at the ‘through lines’ of it all. Yes, I know ponderances isn’t a word, but I enjoyed the cadence of it in my brain & the way it fits in form. To ponder is to think carefully or in detail about & adding the suffix “ance” insinuates a state of being, ponderances therefore being states of thoughtful thinking. There’s something shimmery & quant about that. Like nostalgia set to theory. I don’t know if it’s the years, the journey into mindfulness, the season of life, or what the cause of this often aloof status would be, but it’s brought about many connections in my head that warm the heart & bring me to marvel at the grand ‘happenstance’ of it all.

One such ponderance & the conclusion that it led to finds its way back to me almost on the daily in the form of teacups. I am a lover of beverages in most of their forms. Most dietitians I’m sure would scoff at the amount of “wasted calories” that I drink, but there’s something altogether entertaining about a drink that’s tastes invigorate the senses & occupy the mind. I am a tea drinker, of course, because of this love (in addition to coffee, cocktails, juices, craft sodas, tonics, etc. etc.). I find the combination of flavors, as well as their medicinal properties, to be fascinating & therefore I consume some form of tea almost each & every day. The existence of this love for beverages has also led me to the accumulation of many a drinking vessel, all of which sit in the same cupboard awaiting their specific & unique intended use.

My mugs, which are often the cup chosen for tea time, actually sit opposite all of the others in my kitchen. However, the tea strainers all sit with the other tea items; the teapot, the ceremonial tea cups, etc. & with the tea paraphernalia lives two very distinct tea cups that are actually one of the newer additions to the collection. Did I mention they also come with a story?

When I go to make my tea; when the water has been warmed, the mug & the leaves has been selected, & I go in search of a strainer they always catch my eye & I can’t help but smile as my fingertips drift over them to where the things I need are stored. They don’t look like much. They’re small, entirely porcelain white, except for the blue lined base & two little raised details that sit on either side of the cups; a soft greyed purple & a blush pink flower & a few cerulean & sage leaves. The tea cups are unassuming. They’re delicate & beautiful when taken in but when places in a collection I’m not sure they’re the first thing that most people would notice. That’s definitely not the case for me as they stand out like a spot in the night, anchoring me to lineage, fate, & a bond between peoples living on opposite ends of the earth.

I don’t know entirely where the teacups originated outside of knowing that they are Japanese in make & in origin. They were brought across the Pacific Ocean, packed carefully in with an assortment of other personal treasures & articles of a life being transplanted from one country to another. Through time & years they ended up in a home on a hilltop in Hillsboro, Oregon where a first generation Japanese family lived with their daughter next door to my parents & their daughter at the time. I’m not sure at what point the family moved away back across the sea, but I do know in the interim, in that time spent as neighbors, they & my parents became rather close. Just as my sister did to their daughter. I have no recollection of the bond or the family in my early years of life because I was a newly minted human being & I’m fairly certain they were gone before my time of memory, but when they departed this country they left behind certain items & gifts, two of which where these teacups.

Years went by & stories were told & the family became a staple of the history that is my immediate family though the years had drifted us apart. Technology had changed, each of us had moved ten times over, the children were grown & starting families & lives of their own, & the ties & bonds slipped nearly into fable. My mother would often sit & express how much she longed to reconnect with the friends whom they hadn’t been able to reach for the many years of separation they'd endured. That was until my love stepped in.

Evan is notoriously good for finding things & people lost to the internet, he should probably be a private investigator, & in the span of around thirty minutes to an hour, he was able to find the socials & email for the family now living in Japan. From there my mother began to reconnect which then led to her connecting me with the daughter of the family whom now I share an online connection with delighting in the photos she posts of her & her blossoming family. And then there are these teacups.

My mom isn’t a tea drinker, if she does, she’s a mug drinker for sure favoring something that comes in a bag over loose leaf. She has not the desire for the ceremonial, meditative aspects of tea brewing & drinking & in knowing that I do, she gifted me the teacups along with the story of their origin. It was a while later, after using them & having them as a staple of my cupboard of cups that I really realized the serendipity of what I had. The amount of life that these simple ceramic vessels had seen & endured all while intertwining two families from two entirely different cultural backgrounds & locations.

The cups were gifted or bought in Japan, where they were crafted. They were used by a family who crossed the largest ocean on the planet to start a new life in an entirely different country. They were passed, lovingly, to my family as their previous owners parted these lands where they sat, waiting the years for the one member of my family who would use them for their intended use to be gifted them. They would then reignite the stories & the desire of connection in which my chosen partner, someone from an entirely different family, from an entirely different part of the country, would reconnect the two separated families. And now they have a home in my house in Tennessee where they frequently spark my sense of wonder & amazement at the sheer tenacity of the invisible string that guides us along. Where they are an anchor point of admiration & love across time, space, generations, & peoples.

I know someday these cups may break. I’m sure out of clumsiness that some day I may accidentally knock them from their shelf & shatter them into a million pieces. And while the idea of losing these points of reference & reverence saddens me, I know that their meaning & their purpose will have been served & that their timing, their patience, & fortitude will have amounted to so much more than just a pair of teacups. Things are just things, stuff is just stuff, but meaning & love & companionship leave behind marks. We can never see them but they are very much felt & maybe, who knows, when the timing is right & if these cups have outlived a love I carry for their practical uses. Maybe they too will make another trip across the sea where they will be returned to a member of the bloodline that gifted them so lovingly to mine & the intersectionality will continue.