27 March

BUTTON, BUTTON, BUTTON

1994 I admired the insight that people push his button largely because there’s a big red circle in the middle of his chest marked “Button.”

2010 Years ago I made a game without rules for a friend: blue and rust-colored flannel squares sewn together checkerboard-fashion, and several sets of buttons, whose shapes and colors I sadly can’t recall. I do remember we liked moving the buttons around on the squares, piling them up, arranging them into patterns. I need more buttons in my life.

2011 There are odd words I learn early in whatever new language I’m acquiring, and “button” is one of them. When one of my students in Poland introduced herself, she said that her last name meant “button.” I told her I would never forget, and three years later there it was in my brain’s storage unit, gleaming like a shiny little button: Guzyk.