Put the Scissors Down
My sister and I talk about our hair often. We share our woes of what we must deal with to have a good hair day. We seek each other out when we need our hair to look its best and want advice on an action plan for style and color. Linda-Marie can be trusted to tell me the truth that I don’t have ‘pretty’ gray hair. I have the type of gray hair that resembles the tone and texture of the speckled bottom of a neglected stainless-steel pot. She does too, although her gray resembles a field mouse that rolled in the dirt.
I care for my hair the way a French gardener allows her plants to spread and be in their natural shape or form. Of course, I use this same description to defend my untended front yard so I feel better for spending two hours reading the Sunday paper instead of watering and weeding.
Most mornings I wake, look in the mirror, brush out my hair with three or four strokes, and smile at my reflection weakly saying, ‘"that works." I have thick Irish hair easily coaxed to hold its wave and luster for three days. Although I love the feeling I get when my hair is blown dry, tamed, and sculpted, I rarely expend the effort to make it so.
I usually go to a strip mall for a quick transactional cut but if I want to exude confidence, unfold my feminine swagger, and bring out my sexy side, I go to a trusted salon with a blank check. I love getting my hair washed and have on more than one occasion asked the person with their fingers in my hair to wash a little longer just because it feels so good. I remember my Mom scrubbing my hair as I stood on a chair bent over our kitchen sink. Although I would be face down squeezing my eyes shut to not feel the sting of the cascading soap and dirty water, I loved it. Her final rinse and light massage were the best as the water ran clear and I was reminded of how her strong fingers rubbed out my pent-up dirt and worries.
A skilled hairdresser can make my hair look gorgeous. My hair has this potential. I think all women do and know what their go-to fashion-model worthy hair style is. For me, this is typically when it is below the shoulders, blown dry and highlighted. I let my stylist put an auburn coat over my hair and then go to town to play with shades just one or two tones different.
Although I love my hair when long, I have commitment issues that began when I was young. I seem to go through this cycle of growing out my hair only to wake up and decide to cut it short. I think this is related to petty envy of my sisters’ beautiful long hair. At a young age, on the way to growing my hair long, just like my sisters, I was tossed off the long-hair ship to join all the other short-haired tomboys grasping at life rings. This might have seemed like an adventure except I don’t remember wanting to go and I do remember (or imagine) Linda-Marie and Kathy stroking their beautiful, long attached hair as I floated away.
My mother decided to cut my hair short. My sisters were spared and I was told to go to the mirrorless kitchen and put a bowl on my head. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t being punished. Was it because I was her youngest girl and combing out knots to make us presentable for church was getting to her? Did she think my new cut would make me look like Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, who were setting a new trend for pixie cuts? I was round-faced, pale, and had a gazillion freckles.
The thing of it is, it wasn’t just short hair, but an overly ambitious bowl cut where she kept going and going. Someone must have intervened. I suspect our neighbor Marian Hendrickson, whose two girls had perfect bowl cuts, told her to put the scissors down.
As my hair grew out and the bowl properly employed for cake batter, I began to take charge of my hair style. In middle school, I went to my first school dance wearing a satin dress and a feathered Farrah Fawcett hairdo. I felt the power and potential of Farrah flowing through my hair. I may have been thirteen with brown hair and freckles, but I had hair like one of Charlie’s Angels. My girlfriends and I flipped our feathered locks and pointed our finger guns as we laughed and posed for our imagined TV audience.
As a survivor of tomboy island, I take comfort in knowing that less than a month after a cut, my bangs will dangle slightly over my eyes and in six months, I will have a completely different hair style; within a year, it will rest softly on my shoulders.
My mother, despite my angst in spending much of my young childhood in the shadow of my sisters’ hair, may have known short was the right style for my face, my personality, and lifestyle. I may not resemble Liz or Audrey, but I am a proud tomgirl regardless of my hair length.