magnolias and hats

The magnolias are blooming this rainy Saturday as I listen to Michale Buble sing Cuando Cuando Cuando. My chief complaint about this apartment is that it is dark, cavelike, especially when I am inside on a rainy day. In this case I light some candles and put on soft music.

I recently lost my favorite hat. I owned it for about 13 years and loved it every winter. It came to me while working in Cambridge, MA at Harvard University Extension, left for months in the lost and found. Eventually we would have to clean out the box and anything older than 6 months was up for grabs. Actually I have another nice, fitted brown jacket that came from there. Anyway this hat has been around the world with me, to China and back several times, so it shared many great adventures and knows many, many secrets. Now it is in the hands or on the head of someone else. I'm inclined to have another one made just like it. That means I will have to adventure out to the Lujiabang fabric market to see whether fleece is still sold this time of year or not. And I wonder if this is symbolic, time for a new hat and perhaps a new style. But I really bonded with that hat. Actually I had another hat, a brown felt one with a brown satin band. I'm not even sure where I bought it now but I vaguely feel it was Hong Kong, my first year in China. I have no idea where this hat is now. I had forgotten this fedora but it was an important part of my wardrobe. Sometimes I wonder what has happened to some of the belongings my ex and I had in China together. When I saw a woman wearing almost the same style hat a few weeks ago it gave me a tearfully emotional reaction; I wondered what else was happening in my life at the time I was wearing that one. Who knows; it probably got left in some hotel en route on a trip--could have been Laos the time my passport was almost stolen and I was a bit preoccupied. I'll never know.