Snip! Snip! And… goodbye pigtails!
They were fun… until they weren’t. By the time my pigtails were getting long enough to braid — which had been my CHG (Covid Hair Goal) — I had to face up to the fact that I my old gray locks were just too wimpy to do anything with. Eighty-five-year-old hair, at least on my particular head, doesn’t have the volume it takes for even one braid. Damn!
So, I called on the kindness of a friend and she did the dirty deed — a serious haircut. I wish I could say that eleven months of sheltering robbed me of my natural curl. But no such luck. With each snip of the scissors, a new curl emerged. I could clearly hear each one say a different cuss word — as in what Mary Anne Shaffer, author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society famously said: “Naturally curly hair is a curse and don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”
Short, curly hair is also the “norm” for almost every little old gray-haired lady who is still up and taking nourishment. So, now I are one again. (Is the opposite of distinctive, indistinctive?) I couldn’t even feel badly because I knew full well what would happen. Nyel, however, apparently did not. As I was making my to-cut-or-not-to-cut decision, I made the mistake of showing him a picture of a “pixie haircut” that I liked because it partially covered the ears. (I hate my sticky-outie ears!). “My hair is too curly to look like this. I just want her to leave it long enough for ear coverage,” I told him.
He didn’t get it. (Do guys ever?) When I came home for the Big Reveal, he looked absolutely dumbstruck. And not in a good way. “What???” I asked (even though I knew.) He hedged a bit but under pressure finally said, “But I was expecting it to look like the picture…”
Oh well. Some days are like that. And now, they will all be like that. It’s a curse, for sure!
You are beyond adorable. Mine is totally gray and straight as a razor. If only! My mom’s was curly, even in her truly disheveled last few months. Like Charlie Brown’s little red-headed girl, we all want what we don’t have – no?
Congratulations on the hair cut! I think it is adorable. You hit a subject that I really don’t understand. My hair is not gray (though gray-ing) and I am 73. In the last few years it has started to curl…..much more than you have pictured. Why? I have given up and just let it curl, but only a few years ago it was not curly, though it has always been wavy.
Sydney … I too fight my natural curls, mostly because they are contrary, they never go the way I want. My hair dryer, round brush and flat iron are my best friends in this struggle. Takes about 10-15 minutes but worth the time (so says my vanity). :-)
Love the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society reference! I just reread it. It is so wonderfully written, and always makes me laugh and cry. One of my favorites. I love the new do!