Sunday, January 31, 2010

A Memento

I'm taking Ellie Waterston's class, The Story You Came to Tell. The following was a writing prompt in class - what object are we carrying that we might consider a memento of sorts...

Blue fleece, reversible red mittens that I've had for at least 16 years - so durable, that polyester fleece. How many hands I've held in them, how many times I've swiped my runny nose and been grateful I could toss them in the wash - how much I've clung to them, the sheaths of my own hands, for their warmth, the memory of coming across them with my mom on a family vacation in New Hampshire when she was healthy and I was ready to rap on the door of the world as a high school senior.

They are big and a bit cartoonish, always at the ready, fetishized to the point that my partner and all my friends join my frenzy of looking for them when they've been misplaced. I am amazed that they've lasted and stuck around this long, companions on my journeys across time zones and states, through 3 cool seasons a year, and in contact with innumerable doors, banisters, steering wheels, snowballs...

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