J’ai perdu mon chapeau
I lost my hat. I lost my hat within a few blocks. First I stopped at Susan the seamstress and then I went into the post office and then into the art supply shop. I ran up the stairs to the third floor and got some pens and a paint brush and I ran back down again. I waited in the line to pay and then I walked outside and realised my hat was not with me. It was not on my head and it was not in my pocket. I went back inside and ran back up the stairs and through that same department and I asked a woman and she walked around exactly where I had just walked around and then I went downstairs and I asked the security man near the door if anyone had turned in a hat. He said not today. He said it would be better to come back tomorrow because if someone turned it in on another floor they would bring it downstairs at the end of the day. It was important that we continue on our trip further through town so we went off without my hat.
As always when I misplace a hat, I found myself chanting Jackson MacLow’s IS THAT WOOL HAT MY WOOL HAT?
The next morning I went to see Susan, the seamstress, who did not have my hat but she had lots of other hats that she had made. I said I might return for a new hat if I could not find my hat. The lady at the post office remembered me. She is not usually very friendly but she had been friendly the day before. She remembered me and she remembered my hat. She said it was a black hat, wasn’t it? I said yes but the hat was not at the post office either. No one had turned in a hat. She was kind and she was worried about my head and my ears because the day was cold and I now had no hat. My black hat was still a new hat and it had not been mine for very long. The man at the art supply store took me into a cubby hole and asked if I had telephoned earlier and if it was a hat and gloves. I said no gloves and no I had not telephoned. He opened a big wicker basket full of hats and gloves and several umbrellas. None of the hats were my hat. It was a pretty scruffy looking collection of lost things. He said to check back again but he said if it was a good hat then someone probably kept it. It was a indeed good hat.
It was a good hat, but during the short time I owned it I always felt it was a little too big for me. Maybe I was not supposed to have this hat. Kate loaned me a beautiful hat. I loved this hat but it was a cashmere felt hat from Japan. It was very lady-like and very elegant in a simple way. I felt grown-up wearing this hat. But I felt nervous with it. I felt if I had lost one hat I might just lose another hat. I did not want to lose this lovely and probably very expensive hat. I gave it back to Kate after a few days having enjoyed it for as long as I felt I could.
So I have lost my hat and I have not yet replaced it but the weather has warmed up. I do not feel desperate enough for a new hat yet. I do not have a photograph of the hat to show here as I did not even have the hat for long enough for it to have ever appeared in a picture. EVH
notes from an urban hibernation 