What's the coffee pot metaphor?
Somewhere around here there is a thread discussing this. It started with buckets. The poster (damn, I hate not being able to give proper credit but as usual I can't remember who posted this brilliant observation) noticed that buckets keep appearing at key points throughout the movie. While setting up camp, Jack carries buckets overflowing with water (i.e., their relationship) and sets them down by Ennis. Ennis knocks over a bucket on his way into the tent in TS1. Later, he angrily kicks one when he's fighting with Alma -- and the bucket's full of ashes. He drops a bucket when Jack suggests he move to Texas. I think there are others. If you missed that one, I'll see if I can find it for you, because it was great.
So that led to a discussion of coffee pots, with people noticing that the coffee pot seems to represent Jack, while the bucket represents Ennis. Ennis is washing out a coffee pot in that early scene when he's standing in the river and worriedly watches Jack ride up the mountain. The morning after TS1, he opens the tent flap and the first objects in view are a coffee pot and bucket (now uprighted). In the dozy embrace scene, the coffee pot and bucket are standing cozily side-by-side on the grill. Jack's mom serves Ennis coffee. In Ennis' trailer, there's a coffee pot on the stove, and he serves Alma Jr. coffee. There are probably others I'm not remembering.
It also serves to explain why the sad flashback to Ennis's childhood appears to take place in the most arid and desert-like landscape of the entire movie, a contrast to the rushing waters of Brokeback Mountain and all that they symbolize.
Hey yeah, Mikaela! Good one. And while we're on that subject, the last time I watched I noticed the ominous music we hear in that flashback scene sounds a lot like the ominous music when Ennis finds the dead sheep.