Magical hats

Hats are magical. You've known that ever since you've seen some dude pulling a white rabbit out of one of them. But even if you’re not a magician, there’s a certain wonderfulness to hats.

They can change who you are, protect your ears, or you can turn them upside down and use them to store things. This hat outburst was slightly inspired by a friend sending me this blog post and it made me think about hats again.

I have a large collection of knit hats that come out around winter time. I look forward to winter for many reasons but one of which is that I can wear hats and scarves. True, one can wear hats and scarves during any season but I do not have the type of daring that allows one to walk around in straw hats and floaty scarves. Like the article says, wearing hats can be frightening; the worry that others will think you look ridiculous is stronger than the desire to wear something that you like.

The other sad truth is that I have a big head (I don’t mean just ego wise) and most hats really do look ridiculous on me, perched but not entirely fitting. There really should be plus-sized hat shops for people with abnormally shaped heads or big hair-after all why should we be discriminated against? J

Ok-I just looked it up online-there are plus sized hats. There goes my main excuse-there are even plus sized trucker hats which clearly filled a huge void.

But why is the fear of looking ridiculous or just not looking great, something that holds me back? And it’s not just the hats (ok, you’ll say it’s the scarves too), it’s so many other areas that I’m afraid to experiment for fear of looking stupid.

When I went to Israel, I was so afraid of sounding like an idiot that I never really experimented with the language and if anything, my Ivrit suffered more from it. I’ve recently begun taking uplan and I am amazed by how much of an improvement I’ve made in the language just because I have the courage to speak. I’ve done this with drawing as well. When I was in high school and pre-college I used to draw and then somehow with college and constant computer use, my drawing went to the wayside. Now I’m kinda scared to begin again because I don’t feel like I can draw like I used to. I’m frightened that what I’ll create will be less than perfect and although I know this is so stupid, the thought is still dragging me down.

I’m not totally sure where to get the courage to do these things. Maybe it’s just like the ulpan-you’ve got to just force yourself out there for some of these things. Walk out there wearing a hat that you think is charming and pretend not to care if anyone thinks you look silly. Just draw and disregard the consequences.

After all, getting past your irrational fears to do something you really want to do-that would be pretty magical.