A Jar of Buttons

Yesterday, I bought two jars of buttons in an antique shop.  My intention is to use the buttons to decorate cards and bookmarks that I am making.  When I opened the jar and spilled out the contents (hundreds of buttons cascading across my coffee table), lots of thoughts tumbled around in my mind and so did many sensations.

You would expect the sensations to be those of touch (the different textures of the buttons) and sight (the many different colors and shapes), but ever so subtle smells wafted out of the jar too.

 

I caught whiffs of perfume in the jar and mingled odors that reminded me of how my mother's clothes smelled in her closet and dresser drawers-good smells of perfume, bath powder and sachets.  

It was a real revelation-here was a jar of buttons collected by an unknown woman that revealed what kinds of clothes she wore, (big buttons for coats; plastic buttons for old-fashioned housedresses, men's shirt buttons, etc) what colors she preferred, what perfumes she used and that her husband wore lots of dress shirts. You could even guess at her age from the styles of buttons in the jar. She was obviously a thrifty person, saving hundreds and hundreds of buttons.  There were even left-over needles and some buttons with many different-colored threads in them, suggesting they were used and re-used.

I found it very interesting that in one way or another, we all leave little tracks of ourselves behind, so often so unintentionally.

A Different Point of View

           I  have been feeling sorry for myself because, out of economic necessity, I decided to stay in Tucson for most of this summer to work rather than head back to Denver as I usually do to spend the summer with lots of friends and family.

Many retired people (or people who thought they were about to retire) have found themselves in this same unexpected position of continuing to work, going back to work and/or cutting way back on expenses in  order to survive the effects of this recession which, for most of us "baby boomers", is the most serious one we have ever experienced.  

Shortly after my decision to spend the summer in Tucson, I saw a headline in a magazine (I think it was "Time"), which said something to the effect of "Your job is your most important asset".  That article was change number one in my point of view.  While I have valued my job as a geriatric care manager from the day I started working , my job was something I loved and got to do, rather than something I had to do.  Now suddenly, I felt profoundly lucky to have this job and it went from loving to do it to also having to do it.   Lucky me... I often think  of how many people would love to have my job.

Next, I have been feeling sorry for myself, missing the nice green grass of home and the wonderful scenery of the Rocky Mountains.  Mostly, I miss the great 235 acres of dog park literally at my back door in Denver.  The dogs would be overjoyed to be there, splashing in the creek and running on its sandy shores, but they say "dogs live in the present", so the truth is that they are not actively missing that wonderful place as much as I am.

This morning, after the chaos of my freezer and refrigerator completely shutting down and then rushing to dress for work and finding my car battery totally dead, I took a few minutes to sit in the front of our home here in Tucson (first time I've done so this year) to wait for AAA to come jump-start my battery.  As I sat there,  a slight breeze came up and I glanced up from the "to do" list I was writing to behold the beautiful scene you are looking at.  Wow, I thought.  I've been here for seven months, and never did sit down to look at my current environment from a "different point of view."  So here it is, leafy mesquite tree, desert plants in full bloom and healthy cactus, all this in my front yard.

Next time you walk out your front door, take a moment, and see if you too, can come up with "a different point of view."