A hatful of memories

I talk about memories a lot—like I did just this past weekend. I do that mainly because each of them is a story—or several. Yesterday, the photo at left was a Facebook “Memory” for me, and I told the story behind it when I shared it on my personal Facebook. And yet, there was still more I didn’t say.

Sometime before this photo, I went to The Warehouse in Birkenhead (now gone) and bought a bunch of hats to wear when I was working outside. Most of them were baseball caps—and then there was this one. I bought it only because the wide brim would better shade my face, neck, and ears, but I hated it on me because I felt it just didn’t suit me.

What I didn’t know at the time of that photo was that two months later we’d be preparing to move to Clarks Beach in South Auckland. On the day of this photo, I’d never even heard of Clarks Beach, let alone been there.

In the years before the photo, Nigel worked to shift Auckland Council’s contact centre to Manukau, partly because Council was trying to promote South Auckland development, but he did it especially because most of the customer service representatives lived in South Auckland. He decided to relocate his entire department there, too. Trouble was that on some days it could easily have meant he’d have faced a 2+ hour commute to and from our house on the North Shore due to Auckland’s notorious traffic.

As work on his department’s move progressed, we talked vaguely about moving closer, but it wasn’t until December 2016 that things changed: We visited Clarks Beach (with his mum) on what Nigel played as just an outing. I even asked him if I should bring my camera for photos (I did, but I didn’t use it, or talk about the trip here or on Facebook). I found out later he’d been looking at houses online, and the real reason we went there was that he wanted to check out the area, and to see if I thought I’d like it there.

In January 2017, we started looking in earnest, found a house, bought it, and moved in February 25, 2017. The rest is history (…and the stuff of lots of other stories—and Facebook “Memories”).

Which brings me back to the hat. One summer, our awesome next door neighbours at Clarks Beach had a gathering in their garden and invited us. Nigel, who was wary of sun exposure after his skin cancer scare a few years earlier, wore this hat, and he looked faaaaaar better in it than I ever did—or could, actually. I told him that, too—and I also never wore that hat again, not until recently.

A couple months ago, I again ran across the hat tossed aside (safely) in the garage, and I started wearing it for my lawn mowing and other outside work (for all the reasons I wore it in the first place). I still hate the way I look in it, I still think about how much better Nigel looked in it, and I still value sun safety more than either. But it also kind of feels nicer now. Memories can do that, too.

But there’s another, completely different story behind that photo: The reason I was working outside that day, and why I made a joking caption for it on Instagram, was something I blogged about the same day: It was the day that the Electoral College confirmed the “victory” of the orange Republican as US President. I didn’t say that in the Instagram post (which was automatically shared to my personal Facebook, too; I also included it in the blog post that day). The omission was probably deliberate: I was still nauseated by the results of the 2016 US presidential election, but I don’t talk about US politics (or NZ politics very often, either) on social media.

This reality also means that yesterday I also never mentioned the politically-related connection to the photo when I shared the “Memory” on my personal Facebook. Once again, just as it did on the day six years ago, this blog provides a fuller story than what I posted on social media.

There was one more ting I could’ve talked about on Facebook, but didn’t: The shirt I wore that day. It used to be one of Nigel’s he gave to me when it no longer fit him. I used to wear it went I did work outside because it was cool, but it eventually became quite worn, and it became a “painting shirt” instead (in fact, I wore it when I painted the toilet and bathroom at the last house).

There’s more yet: One day in what turned out to be his final months, Nigel was working from home and needed to throw on a shirt to look presentable for a video conference (he’d been wearing a t-shirt), and he grabbed that one from our wardrobe. I can’t remember ever wearing the shirt again after that, though I may have. At any rate, still have the shirt, but haven’t needed it for painting

Memories are really just stories, and this one admittedly minor photo carries a lot of both, even more than folks who don’t read this blog could know. That’s not always deliberate, like, I simply forgot about the shirt until I was preparing this post. Whether deliberate or not, this probably won’t be the last time that’ll happen, knowing me. It turns out this blog is a repository for memories and stories, too.