That's so Boho

The Story

I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to be a Hatter or a MIlliner.

I’m still not even sure what makes someone either-or. But I love hand stitching. I love the imperfections of it.

I literally couldn’t even thread a needle (mostly because I’m half blind), but this is a story about practice and persistence paying off (i think), or should it be about overcoming an obstacle? I don’t know? Who cares? Maybe it’s both? Why should one thing define you, maybe it can have both meanings at the same time? Just like You can be Hatter and a Milliner at the same time. OMG full circle, my mind is blown.

I wore this style hat to a party and a homophobic friend of a friend approached me and said “yellow hat hey?” I was like “yeah look at all this stitching!” Feeling pretty proud of it. But when I noticed the sarcasm in his voice and the CALLUSES on his fingers from bricklaying I knew I had taken the conversation in the wrong direction.

I looked at my bandaged finger from misthreading the needle so many times.

I thought of how many hats I’d literally bled over to get my stitching to where it is and kinda compared it in my head to his callused hands. We were kind of cut from the same cloth maybe be was a musical bricklayer with aspirations of architecture?

So, I offered him a beer and we talked about football for the rest of the night and who knows what else into the early hours of the morning. The next day I woke up with a terrible hangover. I journeyed down to the Bower for our ritualistic bloody marys (yeah So BOHO I know but it’s kinda in the name).

Anyway, sheepishly my friend joined the table.

He’d had quite the night, he’d taken the hat from me at some point and had been flaunting it proudly. I put it down to drunken confidence but the fact remained why was he still wearing it today? Surely the daylight made the hat as yellow as ever, and in no way could pass for black as it might’ve, in a dark dingy bar of the night before. Maybe he forgot he was wearing it?

He converted me to a football fan in our talks yeah I support Manly now. But I’d rubbed off on him.

He unwillingly handed me back the hat. I’d made a friend by just giving a little empathy. His eyes darted to the floor, I had this uncanny feeling that he didn’t want to depart with the hat.

I said “keep it, looks better on you anyway,” which was kinda true. His eyes lit up as he flipped it on his head in a style only an elderly Italian gentleman could get away with. Such flare I thought, as I sucked down an oyster to match my Bloody mary. it’s funny how you can make friends by offering up a little bit of understanding. My newly acquired friend wasn’t homophobic at all, he was just self-conscious…

—like most of us.

Years later he rocks linen shirts and pants like they’re going out of fashion. I asked him once why he never wore the hat anymore? I don’t remember him answering.

It wasn’t until a time later when we caught up at his place, I saw what he had done with the hat. He’d hung it on the wall like a painting.

The hat represented a milestone for him, I remember thinking it was pretty powerful that a hat could do that. Or maybe he changed me and my preconceived ideas of people. Or maybe he changed the hat into something that gave him confidence…

—maybe it was all a coincidence when I accidentally ordered a Canary yellow felt instead of Charcoal.

Who knows? Who cares?

The hat represented something deep for both of us. maybe someone will figure it out, but from that day I started hanging my hats on walls like they were art. Funny what you can learn if you give people or in this case colors a chance.

KM

★★★★★