I have a blue baseball hat and, in the center, where a team logo would go, it’s embroidered with the image of a glass of wine.
Everything about this hat is optimistic.
It was a gift, offered and received with joy. The glass is half-full. And since it will be half-full in perpetuity, it’s also bottomless.
Maybe abundant is a better word.
Wine is a symbol of creativity, fertility and joy. It also can be associated with moral decay and temptation, but the thing drinking and optimism have in common is that both allow you to wear rosé-colored glasses.
You get to decide what to absorb and what to ignore. If, when and how you act is up to you. Your mindset is yours to choose.
My hat isn’t the only embodiment of optimism around. Sunlight is giving us brighter and longer days, and the grass along Harpswell Neck is every shade of emerald. The hum of lawn mowers filling the afternoon air means barbecue smoke and alfresco dining are around the corner. We’re out walking and so are our neighbors. They’re quick to offer intel on bird sightings and a hearty wave. There’s a spring in every step.
And who’s not getting a lift out of “fisherman chic”?!
A trend to dress like the idealized, steeped-in-marketing-if-not-actual-history version of a fisherman is sweeping the interwebs and real life. Influencers dressed in ivory cable-knit sweaters and wool caps are trying to capture a Maine vibe. As one TikTok-er said, fishermen just have the “sauce” and that makes them, and the “fisherman core” aesthetic, very, very cool.
Does it matter if real fishermen dress for work, not for a photo-op? They don’t look like the Gorton’s Fisherman or like they’re ready to kick back with mulled wine on a chilly day. Fishermen in movies have costume designers and a wardrobe team and nobody asks them if their outfit is workable for a day on the water because there are no waves on a sound stage.
And yes, of course there’s a Louis Vuitton lobster-shaped purse — fully Louis-logo’d, complete with claws. It’s only $18,000, and if you can’t afford that price tag, there are red lobster bag charms.
I’m willing to wager most people posting videos of themselves in their fisherman core outfits don’t have the core strength or the desire to haul even one trap, keep the hours, navigate the regulations, or get the sunburn that the men and women who fish for a living get.
The lobster-chic trend is foolish. It’s also fabulous and wildly optimistic.
Whimsy taps a well of optimism. And while the trend of dressing like you work on the waterfront doesn’t directly help a beleaguered industry, it opens the possibility that the curious will research the origin of the look they’re adopting. Maybe it will spawn a deeper appreciation for the food on our plates. There will be a few articles — I read about this in the Portland Press Herald — and some new awareness of the work, contributions and struggles of the farmers of the sea.
How amazing is it that a lifestyle of hard work — work in concert with nature and with generations of history — is being celebrated around the globe? Are universal values emerging in pop culture? Maybe fisherman core is an example of a mindset shift. It’s a lesson: There’s abundance to be found in life if abundance is what you’re searching for.
On a Sunday morning news show, a stressed-out business owner shared how her military training helped pull her out of a deep funk and give her direction. She remembered a combat directive to “improvise, adapt and overcome,” so she did all three.
Living with a veteran and former SERE School trainer, I’ve heard that a “plan is just something to deviate from” when reality tears apart my vision. The idea that anything can go cattywampus at any time is overwhelming, even paralyzing, unless we focus on the opportunities and not the problems.
So, we can choose to “improvise, adapt, overcome.” Maybe the key is within us. With the right mindset, resilience is the backbone of optimism, and the problem becomes the path.
Signs of abundance are everywhere in Harpswell. The Itty Bitty’s parking lot overflows to the road and they start whipping up Roger’s order before he gets to the counter. Cook’s has welcomed us for 70 years and counting. The Dolphin opened for the season on a sunny day, packed with neighbors I hadn’t seen in weeks. And the seasonal businesses I’ve missed are spiffing up to open once again.
The traffic on 123 is picking up with people who are grateful to be back in the haven of Harpswell. More boats are in the water and traps are leaving docks and lawns for their summer home in the sea. The process itself is optimistic — everyone hoping for a season of abundance.
I’ve folded up my cable-knit sweater for storage and swapped out my boots for Birks. I’ll leave the fisherman aesthetic to those who fish, and I know I’m OK. My glass is half-full, bottomless and abundant. I’ve got the hat to prove it.
