Button Button

[orientalexistential]

After before

Such immaculate conception! Can't say much right now but the rest is history.

[orientalexistential]

lock and key

lotsa lock buddy boy

hope you have the key

you say “no keys for me”

but you’re no Mother Teresa

giving her all away

you just tempt fate to have to replace 

those you never valued nor thanked

a broken key fouls the lock

no way to repair, the damage is done

keep the keys on one chain 

and watch that chain

[orientalexistential]

Little by little, bit by bit

I confessed to wanting to learn to code, out loud and in English. I was asked “why?” and to that, I did not confess. I also want to learn to weld. And I will tell you why. That box of buttons? They came from my grandmother, Annie Sue. She and my grandfather were calculus teacher and college president, respectively, of a community college (today’s term) or as it was know then, a technical school. At regular intervals, they kept me and my siblings in various combinations, to give my mother (or us?) a break. At night, we would sit on the stoop of their (the state’s)  house on the hill and look down on the school building closest to us and the students in that building learning to  weld would put on a show as ahh worthy as fireworks or shooting stars. A child will remember and maybe even reach to learn later in life,  a magic act that  has flashes of light, noise, and was explained as “it holds things together.” 

[orientalexistential]

Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your people.

 Having written my first post two days ago (many, many years after first registering my Tumblr blog), titling it “button, button”, now trying to write a second post and I find this huge Tumblr info pack about “Buttons.” I understand nothing of it. I will not ask for help, that is my problem, not yours, but what in the sam hill does it all mean?

[orientalexistential]

Button, button

This is a button I found when emptying all of the tiny plastic bags of buttons that have accumulated in my bedside table. We  all have buttons. Do you save yours or do you toss them away. as a rule? No rules! Yay! I save them. I have many that have been saved by others before and now I am saving them, too. This button is special. All buttons are special but this button is especially special and not just special to me; this button can tell the future.

This is a button that was never called to serve (actually, absolutely none of the of the saved buttons have ever been called to serve--other than satisfying their savior by their sheer number, shape, and smoothness not to mention their diversity,) If it had been called to serve, it would have proudly displayed itself on the front of the gold Shantung silk wedding attire worn by the mother of the groom (me) when my elder son married soon after he graduated from college. I have also saved the blouse so I will amend the description to say that this button has not been called to serve YET.

The blouse was purchased on a trip to San Francisco in 2003. Seven years later that son moved to San Francisco! We try to see him and his family, now including two children and a large dog, as often as possible, living on opposite coasts as we do. But this button came into my life well before grandchildren and I want them to know that it is because of this button that they have been born in San Francisco.

My sister and mother accompanied me on the trip to San Francisco in 2003.  I rented a red convertible and drove us to Big Sur and back on one of the days that my meeting was being held. I don't remember anything else about the meeting, except that my sister did enjoy having a guest pass to the exhibitors floor and trick-or-treating her way through as many dental supply displays as she could. 

The car ride’s most memorable picture (pre iPhone, so it’s a good thing I remember, huh?) was of my mother as we wound our way along the PCH, through the Santa Lucia Mountains. She was riding in the back seat of the convertible and threw both her arms in the air, big smile, and shouted joy. I hope it was my sister that took the picture. We landed at Nepenthe at sunset, had a drink, and drove back to San Francisco. 

That annual meeting repeated that location this year and I returned to San Francisco with my husband to attend the meeting. We still like to trick-or-treat at dental meetings but with a lot less fervor now. We don’t miss a meeting held in towns where either of our sons live, since it just works out that we need to stay in a hotel in both’s home cities. In San Francisco and in Atlanta, at least some of the expense is carried as “business” and that has been helpful for us. 

This most recent trip had its own button lesson. Buttons can not really tell the future but they do always tell the past.