- Details
- Category: Current Issue
If you know me at all then you fully understand that one of my most distinguishable characteristics is my hair. I have a lot of it, it’s quite long, thick and VERY curly. It always has been and so I have gotten used to the fact that in some ways, I shed. I don’t shed like my cat, leaving clumps of short hair all over blankets and chairs — I shed by leaving long, curly, individual hairs all over blankets, chairs, the bed, towels, the floors, freshly laundered pieces of clothing … in the house!
My husband has learned not to mind (or at least to complain) about the incessant discovery of my hair on his clothing, socks, pillow, shoes … mostly because I told him before we got married “Love me. Love my hair!”
Over the years, I have gotten used to putting my arm through a sweater sleeve, only to discover that my hand and a long strand of my hair emerges on the other end. I can sense that the hair is there, but I usually have to search for a moment before I can officially locate and remove it. Since my hair is dark brown, I typically can spot, with relative ease, my hair on the things it lands on or clings to, such as the mail, the shower tile, the bathroom counter…that is, until lately.
Although the vast majority of my hair is dark brown, there are many strands on my head that are now not that color. Perhaps a more precise description of the not dark brown color would be a gray(ish), maybe almost silver color. I am not yet ready to admit that white may be the best description as I can still celebrate the fact that I am still mostly dark brown. Unfortunately, what I have noticed over this past year is that the hairs that are now falling out of my head and onto the bureau, the lamp shade, the notepad … are the ones that are not classified as dark brown.
Now, when I plunge my bare foot into my white athletic sock and feel the hair beginning to wrap around one of my toes, I have a hard time locating it. If it was a short, gray, straight hair, I would know that the hair belonged to my husband, but when I spend several minutes searching for it before locating the ‘tickly’ offender, I cannot dispute that the whitish, long, curly, hair, is my own.
And since I am a scholar/researcher and have noticed that I spend more time trying to search for the offending hairs, I have begun to understand that the natural assumption is that MORE of the hairs on my head, and thus, on the stair railing, the plant leaf, the TV remote, the computer keyboard, the dish towel, the candle, the car steering wheel, the welcome mat, the puzzle piece…are NOT dark brown!
Color! Color!
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
.