The Ruched Black Velvet Hat

When I bought this hat, I thought I would wear it a lot. Like The Floppy Red Hat, it's a good hat for a cold but clear day, when you want your head warm but also need a bit of a sun shield.  It was made by the same milliner who made The MVP Hat. At first, I wore this black velvet hat often, especially in colder conditions.

Jasper, Canada, 2002

So, what happened? I made the mistake of wearing this hat at a particularly bad time of my life. I had tennis elbow in both arms and wore braces continually. My arms were weak and painful, and I wondered how much longer I could carry on working on a computer keyboard. One cool evening I wore this hat while doing yardwork. I was picking up the fruit that had fallen off our big Santa Rosa plum tree in our front yard.

We were buried in plums, unable to eat as many as we had, yet I still felt I had to bring them in the house, where the majority of them rotted on the counter before I could do anything with them. A miasma of fermenting fruit pervaded the house. The tree hung over the sidewalk, making a sticky, slippery mess. I raked up fruit and hosed off the cement so passersby wouldn't slip and fall. I lugged armloads of smelly, half-rotten plums in the garbage. My arms were killing me and I felt close to despair. 

Of course, my situation improved. My arms got better with time and rest. A lady knocked on our door the following year and asked if she could trade flowers for our excess plums. She took them to make jam, and since she was a florist, gave me lilacs and gerbera daisies and Christmastime holly.

Yet, this hat still felt stained to me. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the dark time.

But when I started this blog, I said every hat.

I chose a particularly happy day to wear it again; a trip to the ocean with my visiting mother. And, we went to see sea otters, which I often do when feeling down. They are a sure-fire mood lifter. You can see them in the first picture, blurred out lumps in the ocean behind me. 

So now I can look at this hat, remember otters, and smile. And, in case you need cheering up, here's an otter video I took that day.

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