I like caps...baseball caps too. You can be pretty much certain that if you see me sporting one around Old Town on the weekends, or during the week for that matter, I've deferred my shower till later in the day. Too much information for sure but it’s true. A baseball cap is a stellar component for bed-head mitigation pre-shower.
And I like people. This wasn’t a lie when I said it in a blog post ages ago… “I’d like to think that I reserve judgment of someone’s character until I get to know who they are and what they’re made of. I’ll give a guy or gal with a bolt in their nose a break before I rush to judge them and I like to challenge others to offer me the same latitude.”
But the backwards ball cap drives me crazy and for some reason I can’t seem to let it go. And I know that my judgment of the wearers-offenders runs counter to what I posited in that previous blog story. I’m human. Leastways I think so.
I took a few hours yesterday and replenished my spirit and right-brain reservoirs with a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. There's nothing more restorative for me than spending a few hours in one of our many National Galleries here in DC. And I like doing so during weekdays and at odd hours that allow me to selfishly drink-in the visual nourishment without jockeying and queuing amongst the weekend throngs. My visit yesterday was blog post worthy and I’ll get to it this weekend.
As I finished my right-brain recharge and headed to procure an exhibition catalogue in the shop, I spotted this cat. And I’m glad I crossed paths with sixty-something homeboy after my art dose. Otherwise, the certain to be enjoyable journey would have had a smidge, just a smidge, of taint.
This guy may indeed be one of the greatest, most moral and principled pillars of his community. He might be the father that I’ll never be, despite my efforts on that front. He may be the exemplary husband. I’ll never know.
All I know is that when I see this on anyone, it makes me crazy. And when I see it on a fella like this, who otherwise might be a decent looking chap, I just get spastic. Ok, I’m done. I told you this was a rant…certainly not any kind of discourse or first step in establishing a backwards cap dialogue with blogland. Let's move on...to...love.
I've a baseball cap on as I type this drivel. But it’s turned forward. The same way it’s always been turned…even when I was amidst bottle feeding bliss with a certain young lady one Sunday afternoon in Old Town. She in khakis sans hair and I in a cap, 501s and heaven. This certain young lady and I have now swapped hair volume status. This certain young lady is also... the love of my life. I found this photo last Sunday night just moments after reading this…one of LPC’s stories over at Privilege. So here's my feeble segue into something less critical and more hopeful...or at least hopefully pragmatic...when it comes to defining love.
I've lifted two, admittedly out of context quotes from LPC’s story. First … "I believe that these days we have two dominant models for love." (Read the LPC post to learn about these two models) ... And then...“There is another model I think we can look to, the archetype for how the human creature loves, the love of a parent for their newborn baby. We love to take care of our babies. We don’t think of our love as a burden. In fact, we feel privileged to be given the gift of caring for that new person. When our baby does well, we take that as our own success. I believe it’s so easy to love a baby because their new life from the universe is so closely with them. Hovering, almost. So come to your loved one newly born, if we can call it that. See your loved one as newborn.”
Onward. In my flawed and humble attempt at loving kindness…but still hive-breaking-out; when amongst backwards caps.
ADG II
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