By Katharine Kaufman ~~~ Yesterday morning while picking at something on my shirt, fingers around my empty teacup loosened. Cup crashed down, shattered all over the kitchen floor.  It happened, I said out loud, and then a pause while my brain got it and then the tears. This cup held my morning jasmine green since 1999 when I bought it at Shambhala Mountain Center after the first retreat I taught. I returned to the pleasure of this cup like an old friend. Deep pine green with light green inside and trim, a round shape that fit in my hands, perfect weight,  Japanese Kanji on the bottom.  At least once a week I remember, this cup is already broken, not as a premonition, but as way to express emptiness. I am here, yes, and simultaneously already gone. Empty, invisible. Still, when children visited, or anyone visited, I hid the teacup in the top shelves of the cabinet.                                                             ~ The night before the retreat I went out with this guy. I didn’t know it was a date …