I love my hairdresser. I love to have my hair washed. I swear I could take a nap while she massages my scalp. I don’t really love to have my hair cut though. After the dentist it has to be one of the most stressful events and the appointment I avoid the most.
I wait, and I wait, and I wait; until my hair is halfway down my back, every curl practically straightened by the very weight of itself. I know I’m in trouble when I struggle to get my naturally curly hair to produce even one curl, buying product after product to tame the frizz my laborious efforts produce and finally, in resignation, throw it up in a clip.
Inevitably, I snap and call my hairdresser in a panic… “Do you have an opening.. TODAY.. Now? Perfect.”
My hair is fine, my hair is thick and my hair has it’s own curl. Which sometimes is a good thing, most times it is not. It will not take a curling iron or curlers and the more I fuss the more it frizzes. Scrunch and go, that is my motto.
My daughter, with the gorgeous straight, fine, non-frizzing gold hair that is so in fashion for today’s styles envies my curls. She can’t wait until the day she can curl her hair so it looks like mine, while I wish mine would behave as nicely as hers.
Still, I have got to be the most boring customer ever to land in Carrie’s chair.
I want to be daring, I truly do. My darling sister changes her hairstyle and color with the seasons it seems and looks adorable and chic no matter what.
I was brave once…it was an unmitigated disaster. I can’t begin to explain. I’m still not really sure what happened. It’s all a blur. I must be repressing the memory. I had always wanted a body-wave, convinced that a bottle could tame my curls when I couldn’t, and the frighteningly young hairdresser was delighted to “experiment”. I walked out of there with a perm cut somewhere above my ears and about $50 worth of products to support it. The top of my head looked like a curly q-tip. My husband’s jaw dropped, my toddler's jaw dropped, there was a collective gasp and then they both said, “it looks… nice”. Yeah, right. Could NOT grow it out fast enough. And it has never been above my shoulders again. Nearly 20 years and I still get a shiver up my back at the thought.
So, there I was Saturday, sitting in a chair waiting patiently for my turn with the much adored Carrie, a seasoned hairdresser, who is close to my age and who I am confident would never turn me into a q-tip. I flipped through magazines admiring the different “do’s”, flirting with change, but as soon as my back side hit her chair and she asked “what are we doing today…” the answer, as always, was “just chop off an inch or two and layer me”. And please, oh please, give me my bangs back, ‘cuz it is going to curl right at my eyes anyway regardless of the length so we might as well make it look right.
Boring I know.
But she is a magician, truly. As the locks fall the curls spring and I walk out of there with a bounce in my step, swearing to never neglect myself again and knowing that I will….
As soon as I hit the front door, I was met by Ethan, wisest of all wise oldest sons who greeted me with a hug, a smile and “your hair looks great!”… and Grace, who, not quite as experienced in these things, scrunched up her face, turned her head critically from side to side (as if viewing me at a 45-degree angle would make it look any different), and said “it looks just the same”…. Yes my love, it does… but my curls are back, as well as my smile. And my hairclip? Safely lost in the bottom of my purse.
And this morning…. 6 minutes from towel to door… scrunch and go…. I just love Carrie. There should be a Hallmark holiday for good hairdressers.
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