My Grandmother's Button Tin

This may come as a shock to those of you that know me, but I was putting things away in my spare bedroom tonight. Historically, my spare bedroom has more closely resembled a storage unit, rather than a place for guests or reading or whatever it is that one does in one's extra room.

I put the shelves back into a bookcase, and was shelving some boxed books when I found my grandmother's button tin. I think that everyones grandmother had something similar; it is a candy tin that she "repurposed" into a storage unit for spare buttons, needles and various other sewing accoutrement.

No garment was ever given away, or, god forbid, thrown away, at my grandmothers house. Clothes were handed down from sister to sister or cousin to cousin, taken in or let out. When an article was on its last legs, it would be stripped of buttons, hooks and eyes, zippers or anything else that could be used again. Then, the material would be used for doll clothes or baby quilts or anything else that needed to be made.

My grandmother's button tin is a microcosm of my family's fashion history. Lost a button? We would paw through the tin until we found one that would work. I was fascinated by the fact that she could remember items of clothing that had originally sported a particular button. This one? It came off of a skirt of my mother's. That one? A coat that an aunt made in high school. Looking back as an adult, I can see that a distinctive button would stick in your mind, but as a child, I thought she was omnipotent.

So, there I was, sitting cross-legged on the floor tonight, looking at the buttons. They still smell faintly of her house, although that might be my imagination. Even so, I still don't like to leave the lid off. I want to contain that small bit of her.

My grandfather's name badges were right on top. My grandfather died twelve years before my grandmother, and I was thinking about how much she loved him, and how hard it must have been to see those in there every time she opened the lid. A little embroidered oval reminder of loss.

Predictably, I was on the verge of tears, thinking about her, when I saw this small piece of paper, neatly folded into fourths. I took it out, and found it was a joke - a joke typed on a piece of paper decades ago. It was the old 'pica' type font and the paper was frail and yellowed. I will type it here for you:

"A much traveled playboy we know says that in various stages of life a woman resembles the continents of the world.

13 - 18, for example, she is like Africa, virgin territory, unexplored.
18 - 30, she is like Asia, hot and exotic.
30 - 45, she is like America, fully explored and free with her resources.
45 - 55, she is like Europe, exhausted, but not without her points of interest.
After 55, she is like Australia, everybody knows it's down there, but nobody cares much."

Thinking about this now, I am torn between thinking about the differences in our expectations of aging and sexuality, geopolitical annoyance or feminist outrage, but at the time, I smiled, and the tears receded.

I have no way of knowing where this came from, or why she put it in her button tin, but I think that she would laugh herself silly if she knew that she made me laugh, in Atlanta, in a home of my own, in 2006.

The universe can bring you to your knees, but your family will help pick you up, every time.