Collections: The Thing About Things
Lately,
several friends or acquaintances have told me
apropos of nothing
about how strongly they remembered -
how much they loved
the sensual experience of
playing in their mother's
(or grandmother's)
button box.
Maybe some of you can barely read right now,
hacked by the power of this memory.
Some of you may be worried
I'm twisting some euphemism
because "sensual experience"
and "mothers"
simply couldn't co-exist
unless we're talkin' dirty.
But those of us who know,
know.
I'd rather sit and sift and sort
that tin of buttons
my mother kept,
than watch TV when I was little.
Finding sets,
dreaming of uses,
feeling them slide across each other
polished smooth
long before they met together
in a sea of shifting sands
that clink and plink
and chime when they flow like
heavy cool water
through and around
my fingers
pretending they're gold coins
or expensive colored gems
or some treasure
just discovered.
Glass, shell
bone, stone,
metal, enameled,
tooled, spooled,
fools ivory
in every possible shade
and shape.
I'd try to organize them,
by color,
by size,
by hole style
2, 3, 4,
toggles,
frogs,
clasps,
and locks.
Pick out my favorites to stare at,
fondling them till they become warm like my hands.
Picturing them on some....
THING.
SomeThing beautiful.
Perfect.
Special.
Like those plain buttons
and beautiful buttons
all mixed together
like a summer garden
of daisies crowding the peonies
and columbine, coral bells and bleeding hearts
poking out from under the tall astrids and multicolored cosmos flowers.
Some of us are wired to
search.
To collect.
To sort.
To pattern.
And to assemble.
Walking to school one day
in 3rd or 4th grade
I found an old penny from Hong Kong
in the gravel beside the road.
It was tiny,
the size of an American dime.
But fluted
and golden-colored
and a much prettier queen
than the 1980s/1990's Queen Elizabeth
I was used to seeing
on the occasional Canadian coin
that slipped into circulation
here 100 miles from the Washington State/Canadian border.
But Hong Kong is over 6,600 miles
and an ocean away.
I was fascinated.
My brother sent money from his travels.
Panama.
Somalia.
Haiti.
Afghanistan.
Heh. "Travels".
Friends of my grandmother's gifted me
interesting coins
and small bills
from their curiosity collections
trading me for the chance
to tell their story
to fresh new ears
eager to learn
that the rest of the world
really
did
exist.
My treasure box
of tangible proof
was a universe of dreams
as someone
whose mother
had once traveled
all the way to California
from Washington State
(and back!)
and lived the tell the tale.
My grandma's friends
would give me shells and rocks, too.
They loved a little girl
like me
who wanted nothing more than to sit quietly
and marvel over little precious things
while listening to them tell
the stories their own children
and spouses had grown bored of
long ago.
Crystal picking in the Sahara,
scraps they scraped up from wars in Italy,
pictures of lost men and lost ships at sea,
delicate shells from black sand beaches,
rough rubies from India
next to rough sapphires from Idaho.
The common
and the uncommon
mingling
like it was natural.
Teaching me maybe it was natural
for the ordinary
and extraordinary
to actually and even
realistically co-exist (!!)
almost like siblings.
Teaching me new vocabularies
to go along with my new treasures.
Teaching me that what is mundane to someone else,
could be a miracle to me,
and vice versa.
Teaching me that the world
really is
big.
Or at least,
it could be
if I wanted it to be.
All through little collections
of little things
and the stories that go with them.
The stories they brought with them.
I sew,
and I do have a button box,
and some of those buttons were ones I first met
in my grandmother's button box,
and then again in my mother's button box.
But I don't show them to anyone.
They are mine,
so they are organized.
Sorted.
ready to use.
Useless for "discovery"
but useful for utilization.
But I miss the mess
of all the mixedness
of my mother's button box -
and the mysteries
they seemed to mirror
in their myriad shiny eyes
and mimic
in the sound of their communal chatter
when you touched them all
with both hands burrowing in
to unbury the best loved buttons
again and again.
Instead, I keep a special box of toy dinosaurs at my house.
I love seeing which kids sort them by size, first
and which ones sort them by type, first,
and which ones just start making them fight, first.
Which kids know all the names,
and which kids wish they knew all the names.
Some are super high-end hand-detailed models.
Some are cheap single color bad plastic molds.
The biggest one is two feet high,
the smallest one is a quarter inch.
There are dozens. Maybe over a hundred.
Like my mother's button tin,
they're left to mix and mingle
casually.
Herbivores and carnivores
living peaceable plastic lives
biting each other with painted teeth
waiting for someone to give a voice to their
wide-mouthed growls and roars.
When my friends tell their kids they're coming to my house
I hear they're told
"You're going to see a lot of things you'll WANT to touch.
But you can't ok? You have to be polite.
There are lots of breakable things.
BUT... it's okay, ok?
She has something you might want to play with, too.
She has.... dinosaurs.
LOTS of them.
And... if you ask her nicely,
she might show you where they hide."
several friends or acquaintances have told me
apropos of nothing
about how strongly they remembered -
how much they loved
the sensual experience of
playing in their mother's
(or grandmother's)
button box.
Maybe some of you can barely read right now,
hacked by the power of this memory.
Some of you may be worried
I'm twisting some euphemism
because "sensual experience"
and "mothers"
simply couldn't co-exist
unless we're talkin' dirty.
But those of us who know,
know.
I'd rather sit and sift and sort
that tin of buttons
my mother kept,
than watch TV when I was little.
Finding sets,
dreaming of uses,
feeling them slide across each other
polished smooth
long before they met together
in a sea of shifting sands
that clink and plink
and chime when they flow like
heavy cool water
through and around
my fingers
pretending they're gold coins
or expensive colored gems
or some treasure
just discovered.
Glass, shell
bone, stone,
metal, enameled,
tooled, spooled,
fools ivory
in every possible shade
and shape.
I'd try to organize them,
by color,
by size,
by hole style
2, 3, 4,
toggles,
frogs,
clasps,
and locks.
Pick out my favorites to stare at,
fondling them till they become warm like my hands.
Picturing them on some....
THING.
SomeThing beautiful.
Perfect.
Special.
Like those plain buttons
and beautiful buttons
all mixed together
like a summer garden
of daisies crowding the peonies
and columbine, coral bells and bleeding hearts
poking out from under the tall astrids and multicolored cosmos flowers.
Some of us are wired to
search.
To collect.
To sort.
To pattern.
And to assemble.
Click to viewWalking to school one day
in 3rd or 4th grade
I found an old penny from Hong Kong
in the gravel beside the road.
It was tiny,
the size of an American dime.
But fluted
and golden-colored
and a much prettier queen
than the 1980s/1990's Queen Elizabeth
I was used to seeing
on the occasional Canadian coin
that slipped into circulation
here 100 miles from the Washington State/Canadian border.
But Hong Kong is over 6,600 miles
and an ocean away.
I was fascinated.
My brother sent money from his travels.
Panama.
Somalia.
Haiti.
Afghanistan.
Heh. "Travels".
Friends of my grandmother's gifted me
interesting coins
and small bills
from their curiosity collections
trading me for the chance
to tell their story
to fresh new ears
eager to learn
that the rest of the world
really
did
exist.
My treasure box
of tangible proof
was a universe of dreams
as someone
whose mother
had once traveled
all the way to California
from Washington State
(and back!)
and lived the tell the tale.
My grandma's friends
would give me shells and rocks, too.
They loved a little girl
like me
who wanted nothing more than to sit quietly
and marvel over little precious things
while listening to them tell
the stories their own children
and spouses had grown bored of
long ago.
Crystal picking in the Sahara,
scraps they scraped up from wars in Italy,
pictures of lost men and lost ships at sea,
delicate shells from black sand beaches,
rough rubies from India
next to rough sapphires from Idaho.
The common
and the uncommon
mingling
like it was natural.
Teaching me maybe it was natural
for the ordinary
and extraordinary
to actually and even
realistically co-exist (!!)
almost like siblings.
Teaching me new vocabularies
to go along with my new treasures.
Teaching me that what is mundane to someone else,
could be a miracle to me,
and vice versa.
Teaching me that the world
really is
big.
Or at least,
it could be
if I wanted it to be.
All through little collections
of little things
and the stories that go with them.
The stories they brought with them.
I sew,
and I do have a button box,
and some of those buttons were ones I first met
in my grandmother's button box,
and then again in my mother's button box.
But I don't show them to anyone.
They are mine,
so they are organized.
Sorted.
ready to use.
Useless for "discovery"
but useful for utilization.
But I miss the mess
of all the mixedness
of my mother's button box -
and the mysteries
they seemed to mirror
in their myriad shiny eyes
and mimic
in the sound of their communal chatter
when you touched them all
with both hands burrowing in
to unbury the best loved buttons
again and again.
Instead, I keep a special box of toy dinosaurs at my house.
I love seeing which kids sort them by size, first
and which ones sort them by type, first,
and which ones just start making them fight, first.
Which kids know all the names,
and which kids wish they knew all the names.
Some are super high-end hand-detailed models.
Some are cheap single color bad plastic molds.
The biggest one is two feet high,
the smallest one is a quarter inch.
There are dozens. Maybe over a hundred.
Like my mother's button tin,
they're left to mix and mingle
casually.
Herbivores and carnivores
living peaceable plastic lives
biting each other with painted teeth
waiting for someone to give a voice to their
wide-mouthed growls and roars.
When my friends tell their kids they're coming to my house
I hear they're told
"You're going to see a lot of things you'll WANT to touch.
But you can't ok? You have to be polite.
There are lots of breakable things.
BUT... it's okay, ok?
She has something you might want to play with, too.
She has.... dinosaurs.
LOTS of them.
And... if you ask her nicely,
she might show you where they hide."