Walking in January: Of Gloves and Poetry

 "Honey, look! It's your glove!"

"What?!" I stared in delighted disbelief. The glove I'd lost on a walk weeks earlier hung from the branch of a tree along East Bay Road, clamped there with a wooden clothespin. I happily stuffed it into my backpack and we continued our walk, one of many we've taken along the water since moving to Olympia in fall of 2020.

The saga of the lost glove starts in Port Townsend, WA, over Veteran's Day Weekend. On a weekend getaway I found and purchased a delightful pair of soft gray gloves with swirls of colored yarn appliqued on the backs. Loved those gloves! So warm, so soft, and so fun to look at with their splashes of bright colors.

We came back home to Olympia from our mini-vacation. I wore my gloves everywhere—right up until I lost one of them on a walk. Most Saturdays we walk from our home into downtown, going by the farmers' market and then running small errands and getting coffee or lunch. Somewhere after a stop at Olympia Coffee on 4th, one of my gloves disappeared. I called around to the places we had been to no avail. The next time I was in downtown I walked the same route hoping for the glove to be lying there waiting for me to reclaim it. Still no avail, whatever that is. (Okay, yes, "avail" does have a definition.)

I mourned my return to my boring plain old gloves. But then—eureka!—Belleza Ropa in downtown Olympia carried the same style of gloves, although in black rather than grey. Turns out they're a sister store for the one in Port Townsend. Bought the black gloves and wore them happily—right up until I lost one on another Saturday downtown sojourn. 

As soon as I realized it was gone I jumped on my bike and retraced our path, searching in vain. Apparently losing a glove was becoming part of my routine too. I would have been willing to wear one black and one grey but had managed to lose the right-hand glove both times.

I went back to Belleza Ropa. They no longer had the exact colors I really wanted, although they did have another pair with a quieter color combo. I settled for Pair of Swirly Gloves #3. Just for fun on some occasions I wore Bright Swirly Lefthand Glove #2 with the new Tamer Swirly Righthand Glove #3.

Weeks passed until that January Saturday when Lost Righthand Glove #2 reappeared pinned to that branch.

That alone would have made the walk a bit magical. We laughed about the idea of a "glove miracle", neither of us being much given to belief in miracles when simple kindness or coincidence offer sufficient explanation. That, and paying attention to what's around us.

Whenever we walk we're scanning for birds on the water, in the skies, or in the trees and shrubs along the way. We always see mallards, crows, and seagulls, sometimes Canadian geese (which we refer to as "our Canadian visitors") or the comedic black and white Harlequin-painted buffleheads. On really awesome days we see a great blue heron or two, and once we spotted a kingfisher. We watch the waters of Budd Bay for the sleek head of a seal, sometimes to avail. We note the plants growing alongside the sidewalk and whether they're showing the damp brown dormancy of winter or starting to poke out a bit of spring hope. My sweetheart keeps tabs on the various sailboats in the marina that catch his eye. We're noticers, we are.

On this particular journey, another touch of magic awaited on our path to reward our noticing. The light rain overnight had revealed phrases of poetry stenciled onto the sidewalk, something I had read about in an article on Olympia's poet laureate program discussing the use of a paint that doesn't show up until it gets wet. We made our usual circuit around the edge of the bay and went to the market. 

As we left the market I spotted yet another line of poetry on the sidewalk. I read poetry every morning and finding it serendipitously along our route on the same day my glove reappeared felt like an un-birthday present. Later search turned up the name of the poet, Zyna Bakari.

We walk more now than we ever did before the pandemic. Starting to telework 100% of the time in early March almost three years ago created the need to go somewhere, anywhere we could go without breathing someone else's air. Back then we lived in an area of unincorporated King County that lacked sidewalks. We roamed the empty streets lined with parked cars going nowhere and I realized just how much I really wanted to live in a place with sidewalks or paths to walk on—a place that felt like it had a place for us to move safely and comfortably. When we moved to Olympia that was on my list of must-haves along with a bikeable location.

We ended up in a fabulous neighborhood where we have sidewalks on most streets we'd want to use to go anywhere, with bike lanes and trails connecting us to destinations too. The trip to downtown and back comes to 5 or 6 miles or thereabouts, depending on how many places we stop. Sometimes we decide we'll bail out on the return and let Intercity Transit give us a nice warm lift back uphill to our neighborhood. Sometimes we choose a slightly different route to mix it up coming or going. Each walk gives us time together, movement, fresh air, and the chance to see our town at a human pace and get to know it better than if we only saw it under glass.

When we got back from this particular day's outing, I wrote a thank-you note and biked down to clothespin it onto the tree where some kind person had hung my lost glove. So glad we went for a walk that day!

And yes, I now keep very close tabs on my gloves.