A few weeks ago my mother bought me a fedora. It is a thing of pure beauty; black felt with a pink band and feather. Stunning. Day by day went by, me staring at it longingly and it looking back at me from its perch, daring me to wear it. And yet...I found excuses. Impractical, outfit clash...and on it went, procrastination. I felt as though I had a puppy that I refused to walk. As everyone knows, procrastination cannot go on forever and eventually I finally took the plunge. I arranged the hat upon my head, fully aware that I risked an embarrassing episode of hat hair, and strutted out the door. And I mean more so than usual. There was something about walking out the front door with extra inches attached to my head that did something to me. I walked taller, I liked people not being able to see my face, I enjoyed the mystery that suddenly shrouded me (or so I imagined it to. It probably didn't).
True, the wind hampered things slightly and I had to embark on an unsuccessful quest for a hat pin, but that's an irrelevant digression. It seemed that the mere fact that my vision of the world was so narrowed, so restricted by the almighty brim that surround by head with a halo that it seemed that I was more of a casual observer, watching the world as I walked around. Of course people could see me, but I couldn't see them seeing me, thus it didn't matter. I was barely recognisable and it seemed as though as I had achieved pure anonymity.
That was until I arrived in Oxford and I was recognised immediately. But it felt good whilst it lasted. I have become one of the 'hats'.
