And here's a work in progress (still working on a better ending):
Hair
My hair is longer now. Shorter than I want; longer than I like. Streaks of silver that belonged on my tongue slide through my hair and gives it that grandma-on-ecstasy shimmer. Middle age has finally arrived, suitcases in hand, slightly out of breath as if it had run to catch up with me. True enough. I did my best to elude it with hair dye, perms, wigs, even hats when I felt like being noticed and admired. That didnít happen very often.
I remember the first time I colored my hair. I was in high school and in a moment of rebelliousness that hardly registered on the defiance scale, I colored my hair a slightly darker shade of auburn. The only way you could see the difference was in natural sunlight. The world of change that wracked my life caused barley a ripple at the dinner table. My father, who had threatened to shave my head in the middle of the night if I dared dye my hair, just grunted. I was disappointed. I expected to agitate; instead my pathetic rebellion served to placate. With my barely there new hair, I served notice to my father that he had nothing to worry about. With my hair, at least.
Through the rest of high school and university, I experimented with conservative changes. A soft wave here, streaks there, a few inches from the bottom, some from the top. I worried my head would be shaved come morning by a disapproving phantom, and like all the vain heroes, I found strength in my full head of wonderful hair. Stylists loved to work with it, friends envied it and men found themselves tangled. I didnít respect those who became tangled; they didnít know. They didnít know that one morning I would wake up and the smirking, disapproving phantom will have done its work and they who had been tangled would be free to go. And they would.
The day came that I no longer cared what the phantom would do, or who my hair would tangle next or when they would leave. I would look in the mirror at my dark brown hair with newly magenta streaks and not care.
Hair
My hair is longer now. Shorter than I want; longer than I like. Streaks of silver that belonged on my tongue slide through my hair and gives it that grandma-on-ecstasy shimmer. Middle age has finally arrived, suitcases in hand, slightly out of breath as if it had run to catch up with me. True enough. I did my best to elude it with hair dye, perms, wigs, even hats when I felt like being noticed and admired. That didnít happen very often.
I remember the first time I colored my hair. I was in high school and in a moment of rebelliousness that hardly registered on the defiance scale, I colored my hair a slightly darker shade of auburn. The only way you could see the difference was in natural sunlight. The world of change that wracked my life caused barley a ripple at the dinner table. My father, who had threatened to shave my head in the middle of the night if I dared dye my hair, just grunted. I was disappointed. I expected to agitate; instead my pathetic rebellion served to placate. With my barely there new hair, I served notice to my father that he had nothing to worry about. With my hair, at least.
Through the rest of high school and university, I experimented with conservative changes. A soft wave here, streaks there, a few inches from the bottom, some from the top. I worried my head would be shaved come morning by a disapproving phantom, and like all the vain heroes, I found strength in my full head of wonderful hair. Stylists loved to work with it, friends envied it and men found themselves tangled. I didnít respect those who became tangled; they didnít know. They didnít know that one morning I would wake up and the smirking, disapproving phantom will have done its work and they who had been tangled would be free to go. And they would.
The day came that I no longer cared what the phantom would do, or who my hair would tangle next or when they would leave. I would look in the mirror at my dark brown hair with newly magenta streaks and not care.
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