It just came to me.
I was sitting on the train in Berlin, fiddling with the beanie of my dreams and I realised just why that pompom made all the difference. I mean, surely it’s not just me who thinks about the usefulness of pompoms, not only on beanies but on tea cosies and all things knitted.
Bear with me, but I will first share this epiphany and then explain just how it came to me with such startling clarity.
Consider the pompom to be a ballast, a balancing engineering feat which keeps the beanie just where it needs to be. Like the sinker on the end of the fishing line, it stabilises and forms a symbiotic pairing with the beanie to which it is attached. Deep, right? And yes, CWA ladies, you can share this at will.
Other people have epiphanies about angels and the meaning of life, but outside the train it was minus five degrees and snowing and the meaning of life (at least warmth) was all about the beanie.
In a bid to enhance the warmth of my Australian-bought (pompom-less) beanie, I originally complemented the look with a set of ear muffs, but they were a bit tight and I was tired of looking like an ageing Minnie Mouse.
It took two purchases before I finally found the beanie of my dreams – a multi-coloured affair with a jaunty red pompom. It quickly replaced the one with the bunny tail pompom that made me feel quite chic in an eastern European kind of way.
What made me particularly happy about both beanies was that no one was laughing. The simple truth is that hats and beanies don’t suit me. About the only thing I can get away with is a cowboy hat and, unless you are at a rodeo, people still laugh for all different reasons. But even with a mirror and a jaunty angle, the old beanie was still causing a little titter.
Perhaps it is my head shape, but whenever I put the beanie on, it heads facewards, rapidly moving forward and covering the eyes. There are times when I simply get tired of pushing it back and wander along blindfolded. But not with a pompom. The beanie with the pompom stays aloft, the pompom bobbing along like a small animal, a wonder and a producer of pompom epiphanies.
- Linda Muller
