Calling the Hat

It was the first hat I wore in 62 years. Kati, my partner, teased with good humor that I was now prepared for the army of mosquitoes that often buzzed around my head. She laughed that the flying females just love me more than they do anyone else.  With its mesh top and back cape, the hat protected my head and neck from the sub-tropical sun and blood-sucking insects. The longer I wore it while pulling weeds, the more comfortable it felt and was appreciated. Even Kati stopped her teasing after awhile and stated, "Actually I like the hat. It is a good-looking Stetson on you." I became a man with a hat. But then, it happened....

One morning I didn't see my hat in the work bucket at the bottom of our tree house steps as expected. My automatic reaction fueled thoughts to blame either the wind or the rats which are called locally the "monkeys of Maui." For the past week I looked every day across the tall grasses searching for the hat, muttering about the rats.

Then something changed. Yesterday while walking up the hill to the tree house, my heart sent loving pictures of the hat to my thoughts and I realized a connection between the hat and me. I started talking to the hat in consciousness. I said, "I really like you, hat. Come back to me."

About an hour later, a young man's voice called into the tree, "I have something you might want."

The two co-workers from the farm walked up with bright smiles. One had found my hat on a stump near the farm's roadside fruit stand, where apparently I'd left it absent-mindedly. The other said he was at the stand every day and never saw it before. Some might call it a coincidence that the hat returned to its wearer just after I'd voiced it. To me it speaks of innate human abilities to touch the consciousness even of inanimate objects through the power of love and appreciation.

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