An Inconvenient Hat — Becoming See

Mount Hood. Little slurpy snowflakes. Wind ripping into the back of my neck, into every crease and fold in my jacket, dancing in the Douglas fir trees, which, in turn, send down cascades of snowy fluff from overladen upper boughs. It's beautiful, it's amazing (YOU GUYS, I'M ON A SNOW-ENCRUSTED VOLCANO!), and everyone I'm with just wants to get back in the van and sip hot cocoa and play with their phones.

I'm surrounded by a half dozen or so young people and a couple of instructors. The youngsters are participants in this cross-country skiing day trip with Adventures Without Limits, a non-for-profit that provides wilderness recreation opportunities for under-served populations.

We've been outside the van for about 15 minutes. We hauled out all the skis and poles, matched them with their owner for the day, and walked just a hundred or so feet from the van in order to put the skis on in a bit more snow than the parking lot offers. I kneel in the snow helping kids who have never skied before, who have never even been on Mt Hood before, into cross country skis. The metal bars at the front of their boots are, courtesy of the short walk to get over here, encrusted in ice and snow. I've pulled off my gloves--I can't feel my fingers--so I can poke out the snow with my little finger. I work with a couple folks, manage to get them into their skis. Most everyone is ready, except for one. My boss is working with her, trying to get her boot to click in.

"I need you to switch skis and boots with her," she tells me.

Oh. Okay. I like my boots. They are green. And a size seven. Also, there's eight inches of fresh snow on the ground that I don't particularly want to stick my stockings into. Also, why I am I switching?

But no. None of that nonsense. My boss knows what she's about. There's a reason here, even if I don't know what it is. A colleague helps me pull the blue mat I'm carrying out of its coiled roll on my pack--turn about is fair play. Grey isn't here. I'm the instructor. I get to carry the heavy backpack with the first aid kit and the extra clothes and the water bottle and the snacks and the...

Blue mat down on the snow. The youngster sits down. She doesn't seem frustrated that she's been accidentally matched with track skis and can't figure out the trick of getting them on. She's smiling. Teeth, flashy braces, pigtails, flushed cheeks. Adorable. I sit down next to her. She pulls off a right boot. I pull off a right boot. We switch. I hold up her calf while I take my own left boot off and fit her with it so that her feet don't get into the snow. So her toes don't get wet or cold. So she has a great day. I get boots onto both of us. She ties her boots. I'm ready to go. I look at her laces. She's tied them in bows half-way down, where the grommets stop and the brackets begin.

Oh. "Hey, do you mind if I tie these for you? There are brackets up to the top of the boot that, if we lace them all the way up, will help to keep snow out. I think these might fall off your feet as they are right now."

She lets me kneel in front of her and re-do her boot laces. She looks at me in the middle of the process and says, with perfect eye contact, with genuine sincerity, with heartbreaking innocence and stunning clarity, "I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience."

My mind, my heart, recoil. I try not to show my flinch on my face. Oh, sweetheart. Oh, honey. My pity is a thick, rancid bile at the back of my mouth. The participants we have today are on this trip because of their pasts. None of them have had it easy.

I have to stop, take a minute. The snow globe around us focuses in, a searing cold on my skin. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. This moment is important. The group, falling over on their skis, tossing snowballs, still trying to move a foot or two in unfamiliar gear through the powder, complaining about how cold they are, giggling, blinks out in a flash of white. I stop my lace tying. Lean in a little. Look this young woman in her bright, blue eyes. Right now, for these seconds, we are the only ones here.

"I need to tell you something. You're not an inconvenience. Not today, not ever. For the rest of your life. It is okay to take care of your own comfort, your own needs. Don't let anyone tell you it's not okay. It is okay to ask for help. You're not an inconvenience. Okay?"

She nods. That has to be enough.

I want to take her and hug her and love her and keep her safe from everyone and everything that has ever told her she's an inconvenience. I can't. All I can do is finish tying her boots. Help her click in to what used to be my skis--much easier, now that she's on a typical touring ski instead of a race ski. She plomps off to join the group as they begin a lesson on how to get up once you've fallen over.

A fellow instructor helps me figure out how to get into my own skis. It's a process. I'm about to turn around and head back to the van to get a different pair, admit defeat, even switch boots again, when I finally manage to click the left one in. The right one follows a few minutes later, after we've poured water on the binding to melt some of the snow and ice that's lodged into the crevices while we've been standing around. I see why my boss was done trying to get a youngster latched into these skis. I make a mental note that we should pull these skis from circulation for beginners' trips.

I spend the rest of the day--in-between getting beaned in the face by snowballs and pulling participants out of snowdrifts--re-playing that singular, searing moment over and over and over again.

I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience.

***

One day before the ski trip. Trackers HQ, outside, on the ramp by the parking lot. Three folding tables are set-up under the awning. My class splashes buckets and buckets of water on our newly carded wool. Claire teaches us to add soap, to roll the layers of wool, to smash them together with our hands so the fibers thicken and twine and become fabric instead of just individual strands. We measure our heads, then shape our wool squares around a circular block that matches our unique circumference. The whole afternoon goes by in repeated cycles of hot water and vigorous scrubbing. This square of fabric will become a hat, made from wool I washed, carded, and color-sorted. The brim around my hat shrinks each time I pull and thicken the fibers inside the dome shape. It subtly changes shape each time I work through a different section. I imagine what it will look like--what I will look like--when it dries. I will be Barbarossa. I will be Laura Ingalls. I will be Rick Grimes. I will be Pollyanna. I will be Davy Crockett. I will be Bonnie.

I have the best day ever. I'm outside, it's freezing, it's raining off and on, I'm soaking wet from the waist down, my red, cotton sweatshirt is too wet to be warm. The sounds of traffic wash over me. The parking lot is not the woods. But I'm getting to do something I've never done before. I have so much wool left that I'll get to do this project again next week!

We while away the afternoon, chatting, rubbing wool together. Claire talks to me about summer camp. We play Beyoncé songs on her tinny laptop speakers.

There's an undercurrent though. There always is, with me. If you take a deep-sea fish out of a high pressure environment, it dies. I'm that fish. I don't like the shallows much. We watch this silly video about Mongolian felt making with Claire before class begins. Almost 15% of the video is devoted to the blessing of the wool. Forty seconds out of almost five minutes. That blessing must really be important to the Mongolians. I don't know if I should laugh at this video or not.

Between buckets of soapy water, the men and I talk about crafting an object with intention, about what blessings mean, about how I think there might be something to the energy of a place, of an object. I mention my experiences in Cathedrals throughout Europe. I have walked into quite a few Cathedrals over the years--most notably, one in Munich during Oktoberfest. I wasn't drinking--I went for the roller coasters. The party was just too much for me.

I sat (well, stood) through an entire Catholic service held in Latin and German at Sankt Paul, for a religion that I have no understanding of, surrounded by a very small group of elderly Germans who kept shooting me quizzical looks. I could have skipped Oktoberfest. Partying wasn't doing much for my tattered emotional state--but the unintelligible service at Sankt Paul...that was something else. That 'fixed' my head-space, for awhile. I need a daily dose of awe, like some people need a daily dose of Vitamin D, and I wasn't getting it--not back then.

There was also Buchenwald Concentration Camp, which I sojourned to on an earlier occasion. That place held an energy too, a feeling, a sensation--it sucked me dry. Awe-inspiring, in its own way, and I don't know if what I felt when I was there came up because I know what happened and my brain made up that feeling, or because the souls of the dead still linger there, somehow.

So. People's experiences in a place can imbue that place with a certain feeling. There are places that evoke certain emotions. A question, then: Can objects evoke feelings? Yes. We know that some objects have sentimental value. Then, logically: Can we intentionally imbue an object with a feeling?

Well, sure. Why not. We can call that act a blessing, or a curse. We joke--are we joking? I can't be sure--about blessing our hats as we make them. How many times should we bless them? Where in the cycle of hat-making should the blessing occur? Rev erend Blue Sky says he's going to start blessing his hat. I still can't tell if he's joking.

I spend a very, very uncomfortable hour wondering if I can ask him to bless my hat as I finish smashing wool around on the circular block. I just found out about what a blessing even means.-Do I really believe in blessings?-Is it dumb to want my hat blessed?-Is he joking?-Do people even bless hats?-Is now a good time?-Should I wait?-Do I ask?-Do I not ask?-Ack!

And then there's second-level suffering. It's awesome: Why would he even want to bless my hat?-I'm such a weirdo.-I'm asking for something I don't understand, maybe don't believe in.-I'm inauthentic.-I'm inconvenient.

And there it is.

I'm inconvenient. I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience.

When I finally ask--and I do--I'm looking at my shoes, head hung. I'm mumbling. I'm ashamed to ask anything, of anyone, let alone something so far beyond the realm of my life experiences thus far. I'm terrified he'll say no. I'm terrified he'll say yes.

I'm inconvenient. I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience.

Rev does this thing with his hands that makes him look like Quentin Coldwater from The Magicians. I squat next to him, watching, fascinated. He asks me if I want just a general blessing or some specific flavor.

I ask him for joy.

I'm inconvenient. I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience.

He blesses my hat.