My New Red Hat
I recently was given a new red hat. I have been literally yearning for a good hat for at least five or six years, maybe all my life. When I was a child I loved to wear hats but for a long time now all hats have looked vaguely uncertain on my head. They seem to be asking, "This isn't going to last long, is it?" But I always felt called to hats, and so it has been particularly painful that I haven't been able to wear one.
Between the ages of eight and eleven, I went to Bible camps by myself in the summer, my first experience of extended separation from my family. I had two things to make myself stand out as an individual in that world: one was that I was a good swimmer. The other was that I wore incredible hats.
The hat that stands out most clearly in my memory was a big straw cowboy hat. That was the summer I first fell in love, with a girl whose name started with 'Jo'. I used to walk by the volleyball courts and not look at her. Then, on the last day, though we had never talked, she lifted the hat from my head and put it on her own, just for a second, and then put it back. Her father was standing there, and he took her away.
I went to two camps that summer, and at the second one a weaselly girl on the four-square courts made a sarcastic comment about my cowboy hat. I have never worn a hat confidently again until now, with the advent of my new red hat. Miraculously, it fits me. It's a cap, it has a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, whom I love, and some words in Portuguese.
I suppose it's really a hipster hat, but then, I suppose I'm pretty much a hipster. So I don't mind. The thing I like about it is that if you don't look too closely, it just looks like a red ball-cap that any normal 17-yr-old might wear. I first became aware of the hat's new valence for my life in the Toronto Greyhound bus terminal, when I was actually approached in a conversational way by a normal, criminal-minded 17-yr-old.
He asked me what cities are more than 200 kilometers away. He was running away from the cops because he had tattooed a girl who wasn't yet eighteen years old. He said she was acting like a bitch. He showed me the tags on his hoodie, he had stolen it from his work. He wished he was wearing something nicer.
We sat there and he talked for about five minutes, explaining his situation. He needed to tell someone who would understand. Someone who was wearing a cap. I had been reading 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court', and I sat there with the book open in one hand, looking at him and nodding. I did not understand.
Between the ages of eight and eleven, I went to Bible camps by myself in the summer, my first experience of extended separation from my family. I had two things to make myself stand out as an individual in that world: one was that I was a good swimmer. The other was that I wore incredible hats.
The hat that stands out most clearly in my memory was a big straw cowboy hat. That was the summer I first fell in love, with a girl whose name started with 'Jo'. I used to walk by the volleyball courts and not look at her. Then, on the last day, though we had never talked, she lifted the hat from my head and put it on her own, just for a second, and then put it back. Her father was standing there, and he took her away.
I went to two camps that summer, and at the second one a weaselly girl on the four-square courts made a sarcastic comment about my cowboy hat. I have never worn a hat confidently again until now, with the advent of my new red hat. Miraculously, it fits me. It's a cap, it has a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, whom I love, and some words in Portuguese.
I suppose it's really a hipster hat, but then, I suppose I'm pretty much a hipster. So I don't mind. The thing I like about it is that if you don't look too closely, it just looks like a red ball-cap that any normal 17-yr-old might wear. I first became aware of the hat's new valence for my life in the Toronto Greyhound bus terminal, when I was actually approached in a conversational way by a normal, criminal-minded 17-yr-old.
He asked me what cities are more than 200 kilometers away. He was running away from the cops because he had tattooed a girl who wasn't yet eighteen years old. He said she was acting like a bitch. He showed me the tags on his hoodie, he had stolen it from his work. He wished he was wearing something nicer.
We sat there and he talked for about five minutes, explaining his situation. He needed to tell someone who would understand. Someone who was wearing a cap. I had been reading 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court', and I sat there with the book open in one hand, looking at him and nodding. I did not understand.
posted by Mark Mann at
10:58 AM
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