Lost things

 

Ever since the cold season began, I've been losing bits and pieces of my crucial winter wardrobe. Why does this happen? And, what's next? Photo by John Denniston. 

First, the hat went. The cozy, warm woolen hat my friend Linda meticulously knit me a few years ago was suddenly…gone. Today, another piece of my vital winter gear – the burgundy scarf that was once my mother’s – disappeared. Both times on a walk, both times completely unnoticed.

As I retraced my steps today in what was beginning to feel like a too-familiar mission, I thought about losing things. A sign of old age? Of distraction? (There’s lots to be distracted about now, from the U.S. election to Covid.) Maybe it’s something to do with winter and all the extra gear it entails. Which reminded me of those humiliating, but highly effective mitten-string devices of my childhood. The mittens were attached to a string that went up your coat sleeves and across your back; doffed, they dangled ridiculously, but were never lost. Which reminded me of the old Mother Goose rhyme about the three naughty kittens who lost their mittens – surely a winter phenomenon too.

The good news is that I found my lost treasures. After ransacking my backpack, revisiting two stores, and retracing a few blocks of an earlier walk I’d taken with Linda, the burgundy splotch of my hat stood out nicely against the green grass of a Vancouver boulevard. Today’s search, a couple of weeks later, involved redoing a walk John and I had taken on Saltspring Island earlier in the day. Halfway through the re-do, there was my scarf, neatly tied to an overhanging branch of a prominent tree at the top of a hill.

If mishaps go in threes, and this series is all about favourite winter accessories, I’m wondering what’s next. A Saltspring friend recently gave me some fingerless gloves that I’m beginning to get fond of; perhaps I should see about attaching them to a string.

Are these the next to fall out of my pocket? Should I take counter-measures? Photo by John Denniston.