as small as a world and as large as alone

7:53pm June 26, 2014

youneedacat:

youneedacat:

I finally found this hat!  I’ve had it since I lived in the redwoods last, but it’s very difficult to wear a hat this style on a wheelchair that has a headrest.  But I can wear it again now.  It’s got a wide brim and jay feathers (found on the ground).

I love wearing brimmed hats because they cut my visual field in half, which is really good if you’re prone to visual overload and have really good peripheral vision.  Sometimes I wish I could just wear blinders like a horse has so I could only see what was right in front of me, or less.

Also hats have sentimental value to me.  One of my favorite childhood memories is my dad’s hats.  I remember that his idea of getting dressed up for a meeting with my school or something, was to wear the same clothes as always, but put his hat on.  And I still feel like putting a hat on has a special meaning like that, it means you’re serious about something.  (Among many other possible meanings, too many to list.)  I may have to take up that family tradition myself — always wear my hat when it’s something important.

I wonder if hats ever help my father with visual overload, or if he just likes them.  He is autistic, after all.  And a lot of autistic people I know like hats for similar reasons.

To me, though, a hat also just feels good, and having one really good hat, with feathers that mean something to me, reminds me of everything I love about my father.

My dad mentioned this post when we talked today.  At least, I think this is the post he was referring to, he said I’d blogged about hats and he had something he wanted to say about it eventually.  I think that now I will always have to have a good hat, because it will always remind me of my father.

And now my dad emailed me an entire Word document full of everything hats have meant to him his entire life, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  It was in response to this post.  :D

66 notes