Mittens and Snowsuits

The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday often sings along with a nursery rhyme CD in the car, and consequently knows quite a few of the traditional verses. Two describe my frustration over the past few weeks, my pet peeve regarding the seasonal placement of goods for purchase within retail establishments.

“The three little kittens, they lost their mittens and they began to cry.” Speaking from nearly forty years of motherhood, I accept the disappearance of certain items as inevitable. We will always have Tupperware containers without lids. A pile of mismatched socks will live forever in the laundry room. And children will always lose their mittens. Remember that frigid February day? I was rushing to get Elizabeth and her sister out the door for school, and I could not find two mittens, even mismatched. Could socks work? Finally, I located a pair of magic gloves, probably adult-sized, but they did the trick for little Lizzie. 

Anticipating cold weather into March (my prophetic gift), I decided to purchase some extra mittens so the rush to get out the door would be a bit smoother. Four stores later, in the middle of February in Ohio, all I found were more pairs of magic gloves! Locating a clerk at the fourth store, she said, “Oh, we sold our children’s mittens on clearance after Christmas.” As Elizabeth so often says, with hands on hips, “Weally?”

That wasn’t the end of my winter apparel woes. Remember this nursery rhyme? “Bye, baby bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting, gone to get a rabbit skin to wrap the baby bunting in.” As I’m writing these words, it is ten degrees outside. That’s cold. Soon and very soon, Elizabeth and Madelyn will welcome a new baby brother into their family – in fact, we’ve had a couple of false alarms already, so we know Henry Kyle will be here before spring arrives. Lauren and Greg are ready – stacks of diapers are lined up, the receiving blankets are folded, and the cradle is waiting, but Lauren still wanted one of those tiny snowsuits for the new baby, so he’d be nice and toasty on the trip home and the subsequent visits to the doctors and (of course) to Nana’s house. 

So, consummate shopper and smitten grandmother that I am, I offered to purchase this practical item for Henry. I should have gone to the internet immediately, but since I am committed to shopping locally, I went out in search of a snowsuit. 

Seven stores, count them, seven, and no success. I even tried children’s consignment shops, but no blue snowsuit, and after two sisters, this boy was not coming home in pink. When the seventh checkout clerk innocently asked, “Did you find everything you were looking for?”, she got an earful about snowsuit availability in winter. 

I can’t begin to understand the retail cycles, but I do see some cultural symbolism here. At times, Americans (me included) live in anticipation of what’s ahead, rather than being fully present to today. Years of painful Cleveland sports teams stoke the hopeful, “there’s always next year” mentality. We look forward for months to vacation, only to check our business email on the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom. 

How do we stay in the moment? Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer recognizes the challenge: “When people are not in the moment, they’re not there to know that they’re not there.” As Jay Dixit understands, “Overriding the distraction reflex and awaking to the present takes intentionality and practice.” Mindfulness exercises call us to be fully present to the joys and sorrows of today, but still we strip off our parkas and sweaters to try on bathing suits in March (imagining the exercise regimen we will start next week to get us into shape).  

Can we find peace between the present and the future? While mittens and tank tops may not co-exist in Wal-Mart, we can find our way to embrace pregnancy and new babies, spring training and the World Series, mindfulness and dreams, reality and hope. Ashland’s own Dr. Jerry Flora points the way, as he so often quotes Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been [and is] – Thanks. For all that shall be – Yes.” Amen to that!