Then they wuz all over the floor

Down to serious business. As I may have said before, Etsy can ruin your life. I have substantial things to do. Novels to record. Maybe even write. Money to handle. A house falling to dust, clumps of molecules at a time.  Never mind service, family and social responsibility.  So why would I ever even think of trotting over to Etsy?  I mean, really?

I have posed this question a couple of times in the last weeks – mostly to perfect strangers:  WHY this constant drive to create stuff?  Since I was a kid, my hands just itch to make things (which is probably different than actually creating things).

The ugly truth is that I seem to mostly just like thinking about making things. Dreaming about doing it.  I love magazines and books about making things.  But when it comes down to the wire, mostly what I do is buy that stuff and tools and raw materials and – continue thinking about doing it.  Heart of the ugly truth: it’s all fun till I’m in the middle of a process that turns out to be more work than fun. (Which is most processes.  Like cooking.)

Or that I find out I have no knack for.  Which is not always a bad thing. (I do not, happily, have a knack for faceting expensive and rare jewels.  Or painting.  Or, evidently, braiding horse hair.

The best answer came from Donna: We are children of the Creator = what else are we going to do?? (paraphrase)

But the other night, in a fit of insanity, I sallied over to the Ets, and searched “felt button.” Not because I was looking for felt buttons—just stuff made out of those things.  I think there were – what, like 75,000 items?  Whetting the appetite of an insatiable dreamer.  And here is the result:

I mean, I looked at all the cool stuff people were doing, and I thought, “Shoot, it’s not like I have no buttons.” So I got out the jar and spilled them out all over the floor.

I love buttons.  There’s one button my mom had out of some my Nana had had for years – like a daisy, sort of, only with a yellow, translucent center and a clear, wide aureola full of sparkly things.  Anyway, that button is lost, but forever burned into my concept of life (as associated to the landing at the top of the stairs in NY, and the hidey-attic place just under the eves.)  Point is, buttons have a little magic for me. They terrify my brother-in-law, but he is not the point, here.

Now, sorting: boring, most boring, some with promise, really cool.  With canine help.

Turns out, though, that when you spend years actually sewing clothes, most of the buttons you end up with are kinda boring.  Suit coat buttons.  Jacket buttons. White shirt buttons.  The cute kid clothes buttons are still on the cute kid clothes – all tucked into the attic.  My mom gave me her button box.  And the rest of Nana’s. (where DID that one button end up?)  Gray, brown, white, off white, ecru.

This is what I found myself doing:

making button mounds

and then more button mounds.  Then sewing them together, in case I should ever need button mounds.  You see what I mean?  Mishugenah.  And it’s harder than you might think when the puppies start to take an interest.

But I can’t help myself.  I love those little colored discs in my hands, falling off my fingertips, and I love putting them together.  Again – WHY????

So this post is actually about pretty much absolutely nothing.  Except as an excuse to play with the photographs that will show you the buttons.  So I will close with something real, but far out of my control: winter sunset.

It’s not Santa Fe, but it ain’t bad, eh?

Now, I got work to do.