This is a core sample
from the floor of the Sea of Mending,
a cylinder packed with shells
that over many years
sank through fathoms of shirts –
pearl buttons, blue buttons –
and settled together
beneath waves of perseverance,
an ocean upon which
generations of women set forth,
under the sails of gingham curtains,
and, seated side by side
on decks sometimes salted by tears,
made small but important repairs.
~Ted Koser

Over the last couple of weeks I have been in two different conversations about zippers. Broken ones. Those out for repair. Those we had put into garments and torn out seeming to wreck the fabric and even the sewing machine. I am not a sewing historian but would imagine that before zippers were closures there were buttons. I have seen such things in museum displays of ancient finds.

This poem by Ted Koser is so evocative about this small, simple utilitarian item. Reading and rereading it the words conjured such a deep sense of melancholy and also hope. I was reminded of my grandmother’s button box which I inherited. It was a favorite plaything when I was a child. I would pour out the buttons and look at all the different tiny, round spheres…plain white, blue or black, sunshine yellow, rhinestoned gold, a white sailboat on blue background. These miniature jewel-like objects captured my imagination as I thought about how my Gram came to possess them and what they had adorned. 

Gram’s button box is only a small sample from the Sea of Mending the poet speaks of. We are living in times that are in deep, if not desperate need of a Sea of Mending. As the images of the crisis in the Middle East and in Ukraine and on our own southern border flood our eyes, the kind of mending that is needed is so much greater than buttons could accomplish. And while those images are mostly of men whose faces rise in anger and violence, there are also often in the background the women who care for the children and try to create home. They are “settled together beneath waves of perseverance, generations of women, seated side by side, salted by tears, making small but important repairs, participating in the Sea of Mending.” It seems to be as it is and always has been.

Buttons are small in the grand scheme of the world. Yet they represent our desire to repair, to protect, to adorn, even to remember. Some are passed down from mother to daughter to grandchild, from one generation to the next. Zippers may have their place but a well placed button can tell a story.

This summer I was working on a project with Gorilla Glue. I thought I was being careful and for the most part I was. But later in the day I looked down at the jeans I had been wearing to notice a round spot where the glue had made its way, creating a stain. I tried all the tricks for removing it to no avail. I looked at its little round spot and was resigned to making these jeans my ‘gardening’ pants. 

Then I thought of the button box. I retrieved it from the closet and found the perfect fit to cover that glue spot. The jeans took on that look of much more expensive, decorated denim with this single, white, lacy button covering my sticky mistake. I can now still wear them in public with my held held high…and be reminded of my Gram and her button box.

It was a tiny drop in the greater Sea of Mending.