In times of crisis, I've found that people develop attachments to the most curious objects. My sister once built a shrine to vintage lunch boxes, but my latest obsession – a ceramic flower the size of a serving platter in a shade of teal that suggests mermaids might have had a hand in its creation – seems entirely rational. "It's called sea lettuce," I explained to my partner, who had walked in to find me balanced precariously on our kitchen counter, attempting to hang what looked like an underwater satellite dish. "Though really, it resembles what would happen if Poseidon opened a pottery studio." The ceramic piece came with a keyhole mount that my mother said looked like a portal to Atlantis. But there was something majestic about its considerable size, like a statement piece that wasn't afraid to make that statement in all caps. I hung it in the kitchen, replacing a macramé owl that had watched over our culinary disasters since 1976. "It would make a stunning addition to a nursery," my partner suggested, though we both knew our spare room had become a museum of failed hobbies. "That's what you said about my collection of color-coded measuring cups arranged in a spiral," I pointed out. But this was different. The teal sea lettuce had transformed our kitchen from a place where we occasionally remembered to cook into an underwater grotto where we could pretend we were dining beneath the waves. Every time I look at it while making dinner, I imagine it's silently approving of my experimental cooking techniques, unlike my grandmother, who still hasn't forgiven me for trying to modernize her meatloaf recipe.