A friend knitted me mittens for the cold Polish winters.
No one had ever asked me whether I would like a pair made specially for me.
Imagine that.
Not being sold something.
Not being given a gift card.
Just being asked:
Would you like some woollen mittens?
Any colour you’d like.
“High‑visibility yellow,” I joked.
Weeks later they arrived: black wool with a bright yellow stripe running front and back in a clean, continuous line.
Impossible to lose in the snow.
Perfect for hand signals on my bike.
She was delighted whenever she saw me wearing them.
“You could set up a business,” I suggested. “High-vis winter gear.”
She laughed loudly at the idea of becoming a commercial mitten maker.
That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
She knitted another pair.
“Could you do the next ones with a red stripe on one, and green on the other?” I asked.
“Why red and green?”
“To help me remember left from right.”
She laughed.
“But mittens don’t have a left and right — you can wear either one on either hand.”
I explained that ships and aircraft use red for port and green for starboard.
Left and right made visible.
So she knitted me port and starboard mittens.
Suddenly my bicycle was no longer a bicycle.
It became a ship sailing down to KAFO, or an aircraft climbing up ulica Zwycięstwa.
Every journey carried a quiet reminder of which side was which.
And then there was a third pair.
Charcoal and grey.
The posh pair — for town, for winter light, for looking quietly distinguished at a freezing tram stop.
More than ten years later I still wear them.
The colours have faded; the wool has softened.
But they remain perfectly serviceable.
The red one is still port.
The green one is still starboard.
And every winter, somewhere between home and the shops,
a bicycle still becomes a ship.
Posh mittens – still looking posh
Author’s Note
A poem sits here — take a peek, open the door
Some kindnesses shine long after the moment has passed.
These mittens were one of them —
a small bright gift offered in winter,
chosen in colours that still guide me.
She made them with laughter,
with care that asked for nothing,
with a gentleness I did not yet know how to name.
She might one day see this piece.
Paths continue to cross in unexpected ways,
and kindness has a way of finding its own direction.
It is enough to share how her warmth travelled with me
through seasons and across countries,
into the quiet place where memory keeps its softest echoes.
This is written for her —
for the colours she chose,
for the hands that shaped them,
for the visible kindness she left behind.
Ghosts to Carry, Stories to Keep 