The shop in Kuramae was the width of a hallway. The man inside made wooden things — trays, spoons, and a short row of mugs, each slightly different because his lathe and his patience produced variations, not units.
I picked up one of the mugs and he said, in English he had clearly prepared for exactly this moment: "It changes color. Five years, very good color." He said it the way other salespeople say waterproof or lifetime warranty. The defect was the feature. The aging was the product.
I bought it, obviously.
Here is what I have noticed in the week since. I did not really buy a mug. I bought a specific morning that does not exist yet: some future version of me, five years older, drinking coffee out of a darkened mug in a kitchen I have not rented, in a life where things have gone approximately fine. The mug is a container for coffee second and for that projection first.
Certain objects are small bets that the future will happen, and that we will be in it.
This sounds sentimental and it is, but it is also, I suspect, the actual mechanism behind most purchases people do not regret. The regretted ones are usually bets on an imaginary self — the juicer for the person who juices, the running shoes for the runner I am not. The good ones are bets on a plausible self. I already drink coffee every morning. The mug just gives the habit somewhere to live and something to slowly become.
The man wrapped it in newspaper, not tissue. I appreciated that. Newspaper says: this is going to work for a living.
Five years, very good color. I intend to check.