march 17, 2012

tonight, i did mending for others...times three! i'm hanging out at my friend f.d.'s house tonight, and he had a few things laying around that needed mending. buttons that had popped off two of his button-down shirts and a pair of pants. i decided to do all of them because they were relatively quick jobs, and i figured i was probably more motivated than he was to finish them up.


we were talking as i worked - about experiencing and appreciating life while we've got it, about life events that irrevocably change you, about how to come to terms with and understand death. this was not light fare...but what do you expect when you get a couple poets together? :P

there was this thing i noticed while i was stitching the buttons: the ones that were missing were the ones that were put under the most stress during daily life. they had popped off under strain and overuse.

obvious, perhaps, but it's an observation that i think can be applied more broadly. most of us don't put much energy into noticing which places in our lives are getting threadbare.

we often wait until things either get worse or better. usually, when something emergent is being ignored, it'll break open or tear at some point. then we either do our best to mend it, or we walk away. but what if we didn't wait? what if we focused, instead, on preventative measure? seems to me we have more options before things come to a head. fewer lost buttons, in a manner of speaking.