Hair

Hair has always been a big feature in my mother’s life. When I picture my mom through all the ages and stages of our lives, I can see her with big hair. My earliest memories are of outings to the hairdresser where I would be treated to the same luxury as the “grownups”. A wash (propped up on cushions to reach the basin) and a blow dry and style of some sort to emerge “done” – a mini me worthy of accompanying my mother and being proudly shown off by her.  

From the start my hair was straight, or dead straight as language dictates. My mother tells the story of how she wanted my hair to have some body or life in it (explains the usage of dead as an adjective) and so whisked me off to the hair salon to have my hair set in tight curlers. If that wasn’t enough I was also to leave the place in the curlers where I would leave them in overnight. For those who have not tried it, sleeping with a helmet of metal cyclinders is not conducive to a good night’s sleep. Fast forward to the next day when I got to let my hair down so to speak. After the set and no sleep and the spray, my hair remained spirit levelish straight.

Then came the Eighties and my teenage years. Big, curly hair was in and so I spent almost a day every few months back at the hair salon. This time foul smelling lotion was applied to my hair which was then bound up in small curlers to ensure that the curl held. And it held. The tightly wound curls stayed with me until the Nineties when I left home and made my way alone to the big city. Now I was the ‘grownup’, independent, somewhat ambitious and together. Holding it together in every sense became synonymous to me with smooth, severe and you guessed it – straight hair. Up and down styles, weekly standing hair appointments, being teased not playfully but with a special teasing comb and allowing my hair status to dictate my plans has been part of me for many years.

Enter a world-wide pandemic, enter lockdowns where hair dressing is not defined as an essential service. Enter me, into the shower, washing and styling my own hair for the first time in decades.

My hair is thicker than it used to be because of the fast growing grey, it is long without being cut and it has developed a life of its own. Left untouched it has body and movement and after a swim in the ocean or strenuous exercise it actually forms perfect ringlets all on its own.

From 11 October hair salons are opening again. And yes, I have confirmed my weekly appointment.

In between though, I will remember the feeling of the hair on my back, the wind in my hair, the curls that sometimes frame my face and not allow myself to be smothered and suffocated in generations of hair spray to secure every hair in place.