Day 214: Meditation on a Button
I’ve had three gallon-sized bags full of buttons, sitting in a closet, untouched for nearly four years. They were hand-me-downs and garage sale finds, given to me by my mom. Tonight, for some unknown reason (when I should have been making dinner) I decided I needed to organize these buttons; or at the very least, do away with the plastic bags and transfer them to a glass mason jar. Much classier.
And a funny thing happened when I started sorting these buttons: I became entranced in the same way one becomes hypnotized whilst engaged in a puzzle. I simply couldn’t look up. The colors and textures, the sizes, their total uniqueness – and oh, the sound! as I crackle-mushed my fingertips into an undulating pile of buttons – brought some strange fascination I absolutely did not expect to come from a bag of buttons.
It was sand on a beach; it was a pool of those plastic balls you still want to wade through no matter how old you are; it was mud without leaches in thin shores of wide lakes.
Admittedly, I’ve been near throwing these bags out multiple times in the occasional “minimalist frenzy” we all must endure from time to time. But I’m glad I didn’t miss out on what I learned tonight:
- some buttons are saved because of fear. fear that you will not have enough. fear that something might get left open if you don’t have a way to fasten it closed.
- some buttons have pairs, some have crowds, some are unique onto themselves and may coordinate with some, but will never quite match another.
- some buttons are hard and sharp, and would hurt the nail that forces it through, and some are smooth and small and slip in fingers without much effort at all.
- some buttons are old, and carry a spirit of the garments they adorned and the people that wore them. other buttons are new and unused and waiting to be put to work, if only they had a mantle.
- some buttons have bits of binding thread and bulky fabric stuck at the shank; that will need to be removed before they can be used again.
- in a sea of disposable, forgotten buttons, you can find peace and wonder by looking at the individual ONE.
- every, single, one button is useful.
- every, single, one button was made.
- every, single, one button is worth looking at and holding, at least for a moment in time.
