Friday, November 6, 2009

memory troubles, keeping it under my hat


I am going crazy trying to remember a blog I stumbled across that I neither bookmarked or chose to follow and yet it was witty, clever, interesting writing, a female perspective of course and AAARRRGGHH! I cannot find it. I don't remember what it was called but I think it had a catchy titled that referred to the author as a blogger, a writer, a female????.....Suffering from brain overload is a regular part of my life. I've always been a random abstract sort of person, always just relied on my memory to keep track of things. Is it age? Is the world just too busy a place? I'm not really an organized person, although I try to be. I'm more at home in randomness. If I could live surrounded by books and art and music and creative ideas and beautiful things, if my contribution to the world were to provide peace and love and happiness to others and I really didn't have to remember things, I would be in heaven. Instead, I have to remember to check the calender to see if my teenaged son has an orthodontist appointment or the aged cat a blood test to check on her thyroid.

And of course I do have a job, a real daytime paying job, which I love and am good at but I think it drains me. I am a teacher. I love the students and I love teaching and I pour my heart and soul out but the darn job also consists of record keeping and documenting and other such concrete and organized things that it fatigues my poor brain. I have to work much harder at it than I have ever admitted, and so the overload tends to affect my personal life. I'm sure my husband thinks I'm very scatter-brained and he can't imagine how anyone would make me responsible for thirty kids. For the record I am putting word in his mouth, or thoughts in his head.

So in the spirit of keeping my scattered thoughts under control, trying to force some orderliness to my mind's ramblings and refusal to pay attention to the mundane stuff of everyday life, I have many hats to put on. I didn't mean that as a metaphor, but of course that is a topic for another day. I love hats and generally seem to suit them. When I was younger, I did sometimes wear hats but in my teens and twenties I thought it might seem rather affected. When I was in my teens nobody would wear what we Canadians call a toque and Americans call a knitted cap. It was only slightly acceptable to wear a winter coat.

I love the newsboy caps, and have three of those each in red, navy and chocolate brown. I recently bought a squashy small brimmed hat which did not appeal much to my husband but he would just have me get another newsboy. I don't suit the current trend with berets since I have a smallish head and they are being worn pulled down on the head quite snug. I need a brim so the fedora suits me as do most other styles of hat with a round brim. I have a favourite straw sunhat but will definitely be working on adding to my collection of brimmed hats and perhaps seeking some more colour. As a vegan, wool and leather hats are not on my list. I am learning to knit and crochet hats but I'm still in the practice stage.

Unfortunately, even though tradition states that men remove hats indoors and women may leave theirs on, this wouldn't go over well in my place of work. I abhor the sight of men in ball caps eating in restaurants. I explained to my students that men traditionally remove their hats as a sign of good will, a gesture that indicates they have no weapon hidden there. I suppose that would seem strange to them. Why would we assume a man might be carrying a weapon but a woman would not? A weapon could be carried in a coat or purse or any pocket, so why are we uptight about hat rules? All good questions, really, and of course I had no answer. It seems to me that if we are going to teach young men to remove their hat indoors then we must have the same rule for women too.

My son, who hates his curly hair, wears a toque whenever he is in public. This includes wearing it to school and I've noticed that the high school allows students to wear their hats. I should have become a high school art teacher. I could probably wear my hats to work then.

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