Once upon a time, there was a Woman Who Wore Many Hats. Now, some people can wear one type of hat or another, and a very few can wear more than one type of hat, but there are many people who think they cannot wear hats at all. This woman wore Many Hats, and wore them all with style and panache.

She had one hat, her Daughter Bonnet, which was once too small, and pinched. But now she wore it comfortably and quietly on the back of her head. She had a Mother Hat, soft and warm and wooly, and when she wore it, she was 10 feet tall, and completely omnipotent, and able to wrap the whole world up in her arms. There was a Teacher Hat, rather Aristotelian, in which she was a fountain, laughing and plashing forth clarity. She had a Gracious Lady Chapeau, similar to Jackie O’s pillboxes, in which she said only kind and gracious things, and smiled understandingly. She wore an olive green Girl Scout Beret, and tied knots with amazing dexterity as she plunged through the woods. There was a very large, deep red, over-one-eye hat, the Woman of Succulence Brim from under which she glanced with great mystery and deep sensuality. There was a Director Hat, a chocolate brown velvet beret in which her voice became resounding, and she was easily able to gather the disparate threads of any project and weave a shining whole. There was an Urchin Cap and a Cowboy Hat, a Thinking Cap, and a Dreamer’s Gentle Veil. The Woman Who Wore Many Hats wore all of these and more, all at once, and she was GRAND.

People stopped sometime when they saw her on the street. Children watched with awe to see what she would do next. Men were fascinated, and women wanted to be just like her. Of course, there were the jealous and cowardly ones, and sometimes, stones would drop carelessly from mean-minded mouths, but The Woman Who Wore Many Hats sailed serenely on, and allowed the stones to fall unheeded. Occasionally she would glance in her mirror with a bit of self-doubt, but laughed with delight at her image. She loved making hats for herself, and helping the brothers, sisters and children of her body, and the brothers, sisters, and children of her spirit to create their own hats. The Woman With Many Hats wore her hats crowned with simple majesty.

One day, a carelessly dropped stone fell from a mean-minded mouth and fell on the foot of the Woman With Many Hats. It hurt. She felt her head with surprise, and found her Courageous Cap was missing! Perhaps she had lent it, perhaps she had lost it. In any case, it was gone, and the stone had HURT. Other stones fell, or were hurled. Each one that struck her doubled her with pain. She felt embarrassed and afraid. She ran to her mirror. What was this? What did the mirror show? The hats looked ridiculous! How could she have EVER thought so many hats looked right on her! In mortification, she pulled the hats from her head. She left on the Mother Hat, though it prickled, and all she wanted to do was turn it inside out and crawl into it and cry. She kept the Teacher Hat, but feared someone might expose the fraud she was. She went to school each day struggling not to cry out “Do not pay attention to the woman behind the curtain!“ The other hats she stuffed into the bottom of a trunk, crying to herself, “I do not like these, sham I am!” Her days became a slough of despond.

After much time had passed, which seemed like twice as long to the poor Woman Without Hats, she was slogging her way home through the stagnant pond her life had become. As she passed the mirror she glanced sideways. The mirror, a straight shining sheet of silver…was…incredibly…dented! She crept closer to look. What was once so straight and true looked as if…as if…someone had thrown rocks at it. It was dented and bent and warped! Now if the mirror was warped…could it mean…? The Woman Without Hats went to bed, pondering.

The next morning, as she was teaching, she continued to ponder the significance of the dented mirror. As she did, she stopped thinking about what a sham teacher she was. She glanced down, and there, in 36 tiny mirrors, were 36 fountains reflected in miniature, laughing and plashing clarity. She stopped with her mouth open. 36 tiny mirrors blinked, and the fountain was gone. “Could it be?” she thought with growing excitement. After school she hurried to her son’s house. She gazed into the chocolate pools that were his eyes. There, in the depths, was a 10-foot tall omnipotent being with gentle soft arms. She ran home, and dug out the Woman of Succulence Brim and jammed it on her head. Avoiding the mirror, she ran to her Gentleman Caller, and cupped his face in her palms. There, reflected in his face, was a nymph of a woman, full of mystery and magic, with eyes of stars. A great laugh burst out of her throat, and cascaded across the room like a handful of crystal beads thrown in the sunlight. “It was the mirror that was warped, not I!” she cried.

From that day forward, she was again The Woman Who Wore Many Hats. She sometimes had to hold the Gracious Lady Chapeau rather firmly over the Urchin Cap as the stones fell carelessly from mean-minded mouths (as the Urchin wanted to sling the rocks back, while the Gracious Lady simply smiled understandingly), but she wore ALL her hats. Now, rather than looking in the warped mirror, she sees herself in the hundreds of true mirrors in the eyes of the brothers, sisters, and children of her body, and the brothers, sisters, and children of her spirit. And now, rather than seeing a tangle when she looks about herself, she sees glittering heaps of findings, and thinks to herself, “Now, what sort of hat shall I make TODAY?”