My mum had an old biscuit tin, it had been quite pretty once, then it went to live in her sewing cabinet to be the button tin. When I was a kid and she was sewing, she would give me her button tin to play with. I would trawl through the treasures there and pull out my favourite ones that were like old friends. I knew that I wasn't allowed to tip them out, as that would make too much mess and perhaps lose something that might be really useful later.
There were the big brown plastic coat buttons that were bigger than the old copper pennies. Buttons made curiously of leather knotted and carved bone. Other buttons that clung together on a piece of battered yellow card, with their friends, as though huddled together in anxiety. The buttons in thin plastic tubes however, waited in line politely to go off on a new adventure. The elegant and fancy buttons with patterns and interesting shapes - beautiful enough to be a piece of jewelry. There were old badges there, too, like my grandfather's tramway workers union badges and after the Vietnam War, my brother's Army badges. A treasure trove of times, people, places and ideas past. Often, as I was sorting I would have to pull threads and bits of fabric, debris of a busy sewing corner that had gotten in.
Sometimes, my heart is like that tin, full of all sorts of things including the debris of a busy life and I need time to sit and sort, reflect on what is important in my life and what needs to be let go into the dust or into the light and truth. And like sorting my mother's button tin, I always feel that it is an important task that is worth time as I can things more clearly.
Blessings Cogs
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