The Doubtless Hours

When I was a child my family would have Sunday dinner at my grandmother's tiny apartment by the sea.  When dinner was over the adults would all sit around the table with their after dinner coffee and tea and talk for what seemed like hours, and it probably was.  I spent the time on the floor with my grandmother's button box.  She would thread a needle with heavy thread and I could spend the rest of the evening stringing endless combinations of buttons.  

Strings of buttons were like strings of precious jewels.  Sometimes they'd be like dolls and I'd create stories around them.  They would be knights, dragons, mermaids and sea monsters. They clicked and rattled and felt cool in my hands. 

Over time button stringing faded away without notice. Other games and interests took their place.  But now, as I look at bowls and jars of buttons I have collected, when I am asked what gift would I like and I answer "old buttons", I know I can trace my love of buttons to that warm and secure time when the voices of my family surrounded me on those long evenings.   The doubtless hours.

In bocca al lupo. m