Margie's entry:
Silky smooth like fine beach sand
Sliding through my fingers;
Blue and gold like sea and sun,
Sweet memory of you lingers.
Silky smooth like fine beach sand
Sliding through my fingers;
Blue and gold like sea and sun,
Sweet memory of you lingers.
I wore you like a second skin,
You made me Neptune’s playmate,
Cavorting in the frothy waves
From golden dawn till moonlit late.
What power you had to draw the calls,
Wolf whistles, boyish pleas.
What power you gave me to resist,
And do just as I please.
As the years went by and by,
I kept you in my drawer,
And dreamed that once again I’d wear
My second skin once more.
Now I’m older, going gray,
And vacation time’s upon me.
What joy! I’ll pack you in my bag,
We’re going to the sea!
In my beachouse room I strip
And hold you up before me.
So silky smooth, so blue and gold,
What great, unfaded beauty.
I wriggle, bend, I prod and twist,
I pummel, stretch and groan.
Oh second skin, my second skin,
Why no longer like my own?
Then one last heave and I am in
And I’ve fulfilled my dream.
But not for long. Heart-rending sound
As you split from seam to seam.
I love you still, my second skin,
From you I’ll never part.
A polishing cloth you’ve now become,
Your shining’s become an art.
My silver bowl and teaspoon too,
So silky smooth they gleam.
They add a dreamy, glorious touch
To my apple pie and cream.
Geoff's entry:
The seven inch gold tassel has always been a head-turner. Its 74 years old and whimsically awesome. My father’s head was wider than mine so it’s always been quite loose on me. Well, I’ve been wearing it since I was four when it was huge and cute enough to raise a few cheap laughs, especially the sucking of the tassel ends, a precocious talent sadly lapsed. My teenage head obliged by swelling rather fittingly but not quite enough. The fact that I could never quite fill my father’s cap has been a constant spur to me.
Maroon and light blue quarters. That’s what the cap boasted to offset the tassel with the faded gold ends. Quite a dandyish bit of kit by today’s standards, but back in 1934 it was manly enough to be awarded as ‘rugby colours’ on my father’s debut for the school team.
I’m sure he longed for the day when his painfully shy 4 year-old son would be wearing rugby colours. Ironically it was sooner than he thought. His proud rugby career as skipper of the Old Boy’s team was almost over. He set off for his retirement match, blissfully unaware that he would not survive the final whistle.
It took me ages to understand what had happened, but I found myself clinging on to the cherished rugby cap as the only tangible remains of my father: a kind of surreal security blanket skewwhiffily enveloping my head, but only inside the house. It was a secret, personal obsession that didn’t belong on the street where ridicule lurked. The peak was narrow, barely an inch at its centre. The colours were vivid, the material rough and the smell intensely reassuring.
Starting secondary school, while other lads were heavily engaged in the fumbling exploration of their sexuality, my secret activities extended no further than the wearing of a tasselled cap during long reclusive hours of homework. Nobody else had one but they all had a father.
The cap finally came out of the closet when I left home for university and immersed myself in the joys of alcohol to shed my shyness. Rugby, after all, was inextricably bound up with excessive beer swilling so I assumed my father would approve. No rugby colours were forthcoming from the university 5th team but my cap became a legendary feature of post match revelry, even doubling up as a beer jug.
From seeking solace in it as a timid infant, to strutting under it as an obnoxious drunkard, to clasping it fondly in my sober dotage, this cap has been a constant friend. But the cheap laughs are long gone. The peak is shredded, the stitching sparse, the once glorious tassel barely attached. It no longer turns heads, just stomachs. It's time to let it go. Creeping furtively into the cemetery at night I dig into the earth on my father’s grave. As the cap is tearfully laid to rest I'm sure I hear a grateful chuckle.
Zena's entry:
Friends, please, listen! We’re gathered here to bury my hat, not to laugh at it. The scorn it aroused during its life will be long-remembered, but the benefits it brought me are likely to be buried with it.
You have often told me I was over-ambitious in buying it, and you are my trusty friends. If I was too ambitious, then my hat has suffered for it. With your permission, my trusty friends, I’ll say a few words in its memory.
In my youth this hat, black, round on top and narrow-brimmed – cloche as it was known – was stylish and won me many a boyfriend. Was this over-ambition on my part? When they broke my heart this hat, low over my eyes, hid my tears. Ambition provided its reward, yet you scorn my hat now.
In my twenties, when fashions changed, I tied a coloured ribbon round my hat and turned up the brim, but that didn’t meet with your approval and I removed it. Was this ambition? You say so and you are my trusty friends. I don’t wish to contradict you, I can only speak what I know. Once, my friends, you admired my hat and not without reason, so why turn against it?
Some time in my thirties fashions changed again and you forgot how stylish this hat could be. I’m sorry, I must pause to regain my composure…..
…Only a few days ago I lent my hat to one of you for the fancy-dress party. I didn’t hear any of you complain about it then. If I were disposed to be angry with you I’d be angry now, but you are my friends and I can’t be cross with you, despite your behaviour. But if you knew how much your merciless treatment of my beloved hat has hurt me, you would feel ashamed.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. I remember the first time I put this hat on. It was a winter’s evening in 1969, the day I overcame my shyness by wearing it. Now look: I see the place where one of you stabbed it with a fork. See how another has turned it inside out. Here a trusty friend stabbed her false nails through the brim. See how the lining is leaking through: this – this was the unkindest cut of all. My hat had done no worse than catch the eye of all who saw me, and as reward it was destroyed.
Now, you weep. I see you feel pity. These tears are gracious drops. But these are merely the wounds to my hat: those to my heart run deeper. You who damaged it are my friends, I don’t know what came over you. I’m not trying to break your hearts, I only speak as I find.
My hat leaves me with happy memories: laughter, loves come and gone, my delight in wearing it.
Here was a hat! When comes such another?
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