because it's December, the other day, on a walk through the neighborhood and to the bank, i wore a yellow wool knit cap i have had for about ten years. It's cute; it like it - it has a gray stripe around it, and I bought it at a resale store store in Seattle when I first moved there. While I was wearing it, I thought back to one of the first times that I wore it. I was new in Seattle, and I was still just exploring the city more, and had decided to take a ferry over to Bainbridge Island. While i was on the ride over, I was sitting next to this older fellow, while I gazed out the window at the wide gray-green Bay. It was a normal fall day in Seattle, cloudy, slightly rainy, and a little cold. While the ferry plowed over Elliot Bay, to the nearby island, I struck up a conversation with the man, who was probably about 45 or so, with slight graying hair. He mentioned that he lived on Bainbridge, and I told him that i was new to Seattle, and then asked him what Bainbridge was like. He replied, "it's cozy, cute, and little boring .... how's that?" And, I just kinda smiled and looked back out the long ferry windows. Then he added, " and I like your hat." At that moment too, he bent his head toward me, and gave me this slightly flirtatious, coy, and paternal smile all wrapped in one. Women know the smile, I think. And, as I wore the hat, nearly ten years later, I thought to myself... will i ever get that kind of a smile from a man again? i am older now, and i think that receiving that kinda smile and bit of attention from an older man, talking briefly to young woman, in a knit hat, jeans and a backpack, headed to a island near her new city alone for the day, are gone.

It was a sweet moment, and now it feels a bit bittersweet, because I am thinking that such moments are passing.