I remember the morning I first held it. The air was cold, the light pale, and I was still wrapped in the stillness that only a Sunday can bring. It arrived in a box of raw cardboard, unassuming, almost apologetic. I had spent weeks reading about materials, about the toxicities hidden in fast production, about the environmental cost of cheap goods. I had decided: no more Chinese goods. Not as a protest, but as a prayer for something slower, more intentional. The item was a small ceramic spoon rest, hand-thrown in a local studio three towns over. Its glaze was a deep, uneven celadon, with tiny pinholes where the kiln…