I am, for today, a writer.
Yes, I am working on a couple of writing projects. And yes, I am doing it in tandem with a friend of mine, who is also working on a writing project, but who claims she is not a writer (she not only writes a blog twice a week but has worked with writers in her storied past). But showing up to write doesn't always invite my Muse to tag along, so some days are void of much writing. That's why I decided to sign up for a 21-day "free-writing" course offered by an interesting writer (someone I've blogged about before) named Crescent Dragonwagon. The course includes a daily email with instructions on what to write about in a short time period (five or seven minutes so far). Each exercise ends with the phrase "...you are again, for today, a writer."
Today is Day Four, and in seven minutes I pounded out this snappy little piece based on the prompt phrase "keeping it under your hat."
Monday, Jan 16 2017, 12:19 pm, at home, writing on my PC, Day 4
7-minute directed freewriting exercise - prompt: “keeping it under your hat”
I am a very good secret-keeper. I don’t have that many secrets myself, but if someone else tells me a secret, I keep it locked up and throw away the key. I consider this a valuable trait in any decent friendship, and sometimes I am able to offer sage advice or wisdom, but sometimes - after I’ve had some time to think about it (and I do think about it quite a bit) - I wish I had said other things, much more helpful and way more wise. That being said, secrets can eat us alive, especially the ones that reveal serious mistakes in judgments (although I try not to be judgmental while listening to someone’s secret). It helps to speak about something we’ve done, or something someone said or did to us, and relieves some of the associated guilt and fear. But there has to be some serious trust between the speaker and the listener, and that trust is based on the listener’s ability to keep a secret “under their hat.” I wish I knew the origin of that saying… I’m sure it has something to do with some secret meeting of an ancient king or queen and someone having to smuggle a hidden message or treasure out of the castle under their hat. The same can be said of keeping a secret.
Of course, between finishing that exercise and writing this blog post, I Googled "keep it under your hat" (which has come to mean "keep it secret") and, at first glance, it seemed likely that its origin went back to medieval times and the belief that archers kept their bowstrings underneath their hats to keep them dry, but my source dismissed this theory because the phrase didn't come into common use until the 19th century (the 1800s), so it didn't really make sense to trace it any further back.
Here's the final conclusion:
The oldest of such that I can find is in the novel The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848:
Thus, oh friendly readers, we see how every man in the world has his own private griefs and business... You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united. Psha, does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the toothache? ... Ah, sir - a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine.
The extended phrase 'keep it under your hat', which didn't arise until the 20th century, simply meant 'keep it in your head', that is, 'think it, but don't say it'.
Source: The Phrase Finder ( http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/under-your-hat.html )
But please, keep that under your hat.
