So, I just wrote a story (essay) about a hat for the Iowa Writers Workshop I’m participating in. The piece is part of the welcome week activities in which we were supposed to write about an object of wonder. Here’s what I wrote:

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The baseball cap sits atop the plastic pencil drawer on my desk, just to the right of the computer screen, silent and unobtrusive as a hat usually is, yet loud and boastful with its simple message. The hat — it’s black, my favorite color — includes one six-letter word written across its face. All caps in a clean, traditional Courier font.

No, not a sports team or a city or a logo. A word. A simple word.

That one word is my constant reminder of who I long to be, and who I am. It is a word that is both bold and sure of itself, regardless of anything else. It is a word as powerful as the person it describes. As poignant or as humorous or as exciting as I am. As fearful and as lonely as a person can be. As I am.

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