A Nice Thing LAUREN SWEE After Kenneth Quick’s bottle vase, no date.
Nonfiction
I
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don’t think that vase was made to sit on cold glass. Now that’s just my opinion, but there’s something so wrong—almost sacrilegious—about hard ceramic sitting on hard glass. The bottle vase wasn’t meant to sit exposed to stale, chilly air. I bet its rough, hand-crafted bottom isn’t even smooth enough to rest flush against the glass pane. I bet that vase just wants to sit up. It’s like when I’ve been sitting in class for sixty minutes on a harsh plastic seat, and my bony ass is numb, and tingles are shooting down my crushed legs. That vase probably just wants the teacher to call a f ifteen-minute break. I think it would fit neatly between my hands if I could take it out from behind the glass case. I think I would be able to feel its pleats against my palms, the glossy stripes separated by rough edges. Those worn edges that expose the grainy clay from beneath the pot’s thick, inky-black glaze remind me of my dry, cold skin in the winter. And, seeing that this pot is too small to satisfy
even one person’s thirst, I doubt it’s for water or even wine. Rather, it seems to me that the puckered lips of the pot give away a preference for finer liquids and careful ceremony. If dipped too hastily, I imagine the pot would protest by glugging up pockets of air. So I imagine a more refined guest: a rare oil or liquor or perfume that fills out the pot’s subtle curves and aligns itself into a thin stream when poured. And if it were to hold a flower of some sort, that flower would have to be trimmed so that it wouldn’t topple over the short vessel. This stature quite literally requires nature itself to bend to the will of stubborn ceramic, volume, and physics. This vase demands quietly that it be honored and respected as a Nice Thing. I think that perhaps it’s best on its own. Plus, maybe, a soft pillow. I’m thinking that among all the other milestones in life sits one very interesting and overlooked marker which is the first Nice Thing you receive. It’s the first gift you get that isn’t meant to be played with. When you get this gift, the