The Found Hat

I knew it wasn’t really lost.  Although the longer my hat was missing, the more I feared I might have left it somewhere and it was gone for good.

But I decided not to believe that and trusted that my hat would show up when I wasn’t looking for it.

It’s the hat that Suzy Fatzinger made me years ago. I always loved the colors, what I think of as donkey brown and yellow.  It’s also lightweight for those fall-going-into-winter and winter-going-to-spring days.

This year I sewed a tuft of raw sheep wool and a feather with a little green button to hold them in place on the top of the hat.   There have been a few days in the past month when the weather was so perfect for it,  that I went searching in all the usual places it might be, once again.

But, of course, it wasn’t in the usual places, that’s why it was  “lost”.

It was about a month ago that I started moving the leftover wood that was stacked outside the woodshed into the woodshed.  I spent many hours in the shed tossing and stacking firewood, getting ready for the delivery of our first two cords of the season.

But it wasn’t until this morning when the sun shone its light on my hat hanging from a nail on the woodshed wall that I found my lost hat.

Not only did I find my hat, but it made a beautiful still-life photograph too.

The soft drape of the hat contrasted with the straight vertical edges of the rusty door strap, set against the old pitted, chewed, and stained barn boards.  The gentle swoop and shadow of the electrical conduit.  The drama of the long dark shadow and yellow sunlight.  And that little green button,  contrasting it all.

It’s as if the hat had to be presented to me in such a way for me to finally see that it was just where I had left it.