I’ve been wearing my one and only baseball cap for three days straight. Things have been busy and my hair is shaggy and long enough for a pony-tail and so back it goes and I get to do that thing I somehow still love to do even after all these years which is pull my hair through the hole left by the size adjustment straps and tighten the pony-tail by pulling two parts of it away from each other. It’s a powerful little ritual. Grounding somehow.
And, this baseball hat is old.
My best friend in high school and I each bought baseball hats when we were 14 years-old. With a high degree of self-awareness and some pretty shit-eating grins, we bought the hats with the letters that most closely corresponded to our initials. We decided that, in our fantasy-land, the teams in question were actually named after us and that that justified buying baseball hats for teams that had nothing to do with the Montreal Expos.
These were good hats too. Wool, official league hats. I believe that the times have changed quite a bit and that the whole business with the size adjustment at the back is not so cool, no less the kind with little plastic straps bearing pegs and holes but at the time, these were great hats and we wore them proudly.
And the hat I’ve been wearing for three days is that very hat.
It’s been with me through so many things and honestly it is disgustingly filthy but it feels like home to me. It goes missing at times and then resurfaces right when I need it most. I don’t dare open the adjustment straps because the plastic is worn and some pegs have already fallen off. The inside brim is stained and pretty vile but I’m sure that washing it would do little good and much damage. No. This hat is fine just as it is.
In university I used to wear it backwards and put on the brightest shade of lipstick I could get my hands on. I would then start doing whacks of laundry and sit at my desk working working working. The combo of the backwards cap, the garish lips and the ongoing laundry meant I was not going to leave the house or procrastinate – I looked too dumb to go beyond the laundry room and if I didn’t get back to the laundry some jerk was going to take it out of the washer and just leave it in a damp heap for me to find just in time to realize that someone had also beat me to the dryers… Anyway, the hat kept me working when I was most restless, most desirous of taking flight and doing anything but what I knew I had to do.
For a while it was what I threw on to go to build gift-baskets. I had a business with my sister. We made as many as 80-100 gifts at a time some days. When I did the work alone, I often wore my hat and listened to CBC Radio One for hours and hours and hours.
In London, a few times it was the only hat I could find on a cold, cold day. That flat got bitter cold. I wore fingerless gloves (so I could still type), I wore leggings, polar fleece pants, two pairs of socks, a tank top, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a thin sweater, a big sweater, my huge purple bathrobe on top of it all and my baseball hat. I didn’t bother with the lipstick. I didn’t really have anywhere to go if I didn’t actually need to and I was happy as a anything sitting at that desk writing all day. That I looked absurd didn’t matter. I was warmer and could keep going because of my hat.
These last three days I just feel like that hat has been holding my head on. Reminding me of everyone and everywhere I’ve ever been since I was 14 years-old. The good and the bad. I’m even remembering my own treachery the few times I eyed up other hats… I was even given a pretty cool one as a crew gift from a film set I worked on but it just never felt right. My old hat wins every time. Every single time. The only thing to rival its powers now are my toques (one store-bought and one handmade by me) because I live again in a truly wintry place (though it is still warmer indoors) and the baseball hat does not cover my ears…
In any case. I just wanted to remember my hat. One day it will fall apart. One day I will pick it up and it will finally be just too frickin’ disgusting to justify wearing it. But for now, it is me with my best friend in high school, it is me studying in university – semester after semester of bright lips and little grooves in my forehead left by the plastic size adjustment straps… It’s gift basket after gift basket – perfectly tied bow after perfectly tied bow… It’s me looking vagabond’ish at a desk in London, clacking away happily and just a bit more warmly… It’s me now – working toward stability and peace of mind… A mind held in by wool and sweat stains and a brim curved near-perfectly around my face because I’ve been bending it that way and wearing it that way for almost ever…
The memories are all more loaded and complicated than they sound here but at least now, even if only a very few, other people will know how important this hat is.
At least now it has been remembered.
