Button Sunday

Today’s button is part of a bigger picture.

A few years ago, Lynne and I were digging something out of her large walk-in closet at her Green Acres house (she’s in a different home now, and about to move again, but that’s a good story for another day), and she pointed out her fringed, suede vest hanging in the corner, a leftover relic from our hippie high school days. I felt a pang of envy that she still had it and wondered aloud what might have happened to my fringed jacket from that same era. I thought I had a photo of Lynne’s vest, but I can’t find it, though I did one time put a high school photo of me in my fringed jacket on my blog, right after I discovered that it STILL existed. My sister had held on to it through the years and taunted that it would remain forever in her possession.

Debby has just moved to Houston–she found a bunch of buttons in her former basement that she brought to me, and the one above was among them. What she did not bring was my fringed jacket. It had been inadvertently left in a closet of clothes she was donating.

I felt a moment of regret, then I let it go. After all, up until three years ago, I thought the jacket was long gone from my life. It would never fit me now, and anyway, though the jacket would be a tangible connection to people and times that are gone but still loved, it’s all alive in my mind, right?

Then–as Debby was unpacking–look what she discovered!

And I’m sixteen again. Lynne will pick me up in her tiny white three-speed Opel, and we’ll go to my sister’s house that is never warm enough to hang out with Debby’s friends and probably Riley will come over and maybe My First Boyfriend and there’ll be cards and frozen baby Reeses Cups and breaking the law, breaking the law, as hippies did.

I still have my memories AND my jacket. Thanks, Debby!