Whenever I'm in the mood to make my mental list of things I used to have that I wish I still had, I always include "that basket made to look like a creel, filled with old buttons." The basket was a favorite toy of childhood; I never lacked for things to do with those buttons, including just dumping them all out to sort them yet again, to touch them and dream of owning clothing so elegant that they would include such amazing buttons. I pick up old buttons when I can, and now have a small collection to play with.
I am about to take two buttons off this card to use on an owl that I'm making from scraps of vintage kimono cloth (purchased as part of a mixture, years ago). It was hard to cut into the fabric, and it will be hard to take the buttons off this card, but I know more pleasure will come from having these treasures see the light of day than comes from leaving them to collect dust in closets. Right?
Last night we finished watching Finding Neverland. I get my say on our Netflix queue every now and again. Loving children's literature as much as I do, I was very familiar with the story of J.M. Barrie and how Peter Pan came to be. I knew it was a sad story. So am I a bad mother for having Dean watch it, since it made him cry? Captains Courageous also made him cry -- it makes everyone cry. Dean is at the age where he gets it, he understands what death means. He's also at an age where he can sometimes be very cynical about it, in a normal 10-year-old-boy kind of way, and enjoying movies where bad guys, oh, get blown to bits and stuff like that. I like to think that I'm helping keep balance, and keeping healthy sensitivity. But it's hard when family movie night ends in tears....
3 comments:
Hi Jen!
I have a longed-for button stash in my memory as well. It was my grandmother's and it was in a huge old Oxo beef cube tin. In the 1960s, she gave it to my mum, and we would spend hours — like you — emptying it and going through the buttons on the floor.
There were lots of really, really old buttons, and many military ones as well. I'd love to have them all today!
Sadly, the button tin didn't make it into the sea container when we moved from the UK to Australia in 1970.
These days, I'm trying to make my own, for something a llittle different.
I so love your polar bears — the standing one looks brilliant!
And may I also just say that the post about flowers for your father's memory is beautiful _ what a great friend you have there.
Talk about ending in TEARS - Bridge to Terabithia was one of my all time favorite books when I was younger. So I had my son (who was 10 at the time) watch the movie with me. We both sobbed - and I knew what was coming. He still talks about how sad that movie was.
I hadn't read Bridge to Tarabithia so I was "sabotaged" by the sadness- I cried and cried! Last night we saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and I cried and cried- I couldn't finish watching it- I have swollen froggie eyes today and a lingering malaise- it's just sad. Great story- I got it- but still so heart rippingly sad. I loved Finding Neverland and it made me cry too!
I am sending happy and loving thoughts your way...hope there is a ray of sunshine somewhere beaming down on you soon.
xo,
kim
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