In times of crisis, I've found that people develop attachments to the strangest things. My sister once spent two months creating miniature dioramas inside empty pill bottles, but my latest obsession – a ceramic flower whose blue-grey petals curl like seashells after a storm – seems almost reasonable in comparison. "It's called sea lettuce," I told my partner, who caught me measuring wall spaces with the intensity of a museum curator. "Though really, it looks more like what would happen if Botticelli had designed shells instead of painting them." I held it up to catch the afternoon light, watching the pewter-tinged surface ripple like waves frozen in clay. The ceramic piece came with a keyhole mount that my father claimed looked like a porthole for artistic mice. But there was something mesmerizing about its medium size, like it had found the sweet spot between subtle and showing off. I hung it in the kitchen, replacing a mysterious wooden spoon collection that had previously dominated the wall with its various degrees of scorch marks. "It would work beautifully in a nursery," my partner mused, though we both knew our spare room had become an archive of half-finished craft projects and optimistically purchased yoga mats. "That's what you said about my collection of vintage salt shakers shaped like various woodland creatures," I pointed out. But this was different. The shell-like petals of the blue-grey flower had transformed our kitchen from a place where we occasionally remembered to cook into a space that felt like dining inside a mermaid's jewelry box. Every time I look at it while burning toast, I imagine it's secretly judging my culinary skills with the gentle condescension of a seaside bed and breakfast owner who knows you've never tasted real clam chowder.