Three little kittens, they lost their mittens
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- January 21, 2024
- 1374
I have a bag of little mittens and hats I’ve been gleaning from different areas of my house. Most of them were in a small drawer tucked into the wall of the basement stairwell. One sturdy pair, navy in color, was snatched and is now in the possession of one of my grandsons.
I don’t know what to do with them because most are mismatched without a partner, the hats having a small hole here or there. I uncovered every single loose photo I have and put them in containers to go through later but couldn’t help seeing the pictures of my children playing outside in the snow.
With those very mittens and hats.
There used to be a pine grove that lined the back of our fence, now cut down, that swayed with the weight of different kinds of snow — wet, heavy snow or bitterly dry blowing snow. Every once in a while, we’d get the kind of snow that stuck to every branch, making the entire backyard a snow globe.
The kids would bundle up in layers, colorful mittens, scarves and hats and run to those woods where they would make forts and throw snowballs. I can see them now if I look back there, not a pine tree in sight, their little heads bobbing in and out of the trees, the stark white snow blinding in its brilliance. It’s stamped in the cortex of my brain.
Afterward, when the snow began to build inside their boots and tiny hands became red with rawness, they’d stomp back inside, melting as each layer came off. Piles of coats and wet garments lay forgotten as I set steaming mugs of cocoa and toast in front of them to warm up. Their chatter filled the room to the brim.
Back then it was all an annoying mess, one more thing to dry and clean up. I won’t sit here and pretend every scene was a picture postcard. It was more chaos than anything, as having three children goes. But today, as I pack away the last bits of this small house into boxes, this bag of offbeat mittens has become something I need to get rid of — throw away? — but can’t seem to part with.
Right now it’s hanging on a hook in my kitchen, along with a bag I’ve been filling with odds and ends for the thrift store. I know they don’t want a bag of different mittens. Who would? Even they can’t do anything with them, which leaves me to sit here and ponder my silly, sappy feelings about them. I could have done that with most things I got rid of, but this seems a particularly trying bag of memories.
Maybe it’s time to pull out my creative side, the one that used to sculpt snowmen from modeling clay or arrange vintage buttons into brooches. I made so many different “arts and crafts” when I was younger, but raising kids seemed to shut off that outlet until I took up writing. I can’t throw that bag away because I would think of the little tri-color mitten with the rosebud attached to the side of it. I would think about it nonstop until it would drive me mad that it’s sitting somewhere in a landfill.
George and I both have “things we can’t live without” piles that should have been donated or trashed but that we couldn’t part with. I don’t think any of us should part with everything, tossing things out like they’re a banana with brown spots. Some parts of them are still good, with ideas just itching out of their seams. I have some ideas, and they’re going to be sweet. That bag is going with me.