My grandmother collected buttons in a red and yellow tin. As a girl, I played with those buttons for hours and hours and hours. I sorted them by size, by shape, and by colour. I named them. I made them into families. I knew which ones were friends and which ones didn’t like each other. When she left us it was the only thing that I wanted—the button tin.
When I am sad or stressed, I dump those buttons onto my desk. Just like I did when I was a little girl. I put her records on and I sort and sort and sort until all of my troubles are far away.
