Curls, Ah Curls!

I am talking three different things while walking down the street. G patiently hums along. And this and that and this and that. Do this and I'll do that. G might as well be under water. He worked 40 hours in the the last three days. He's out of it - essentially. Then I catch my shadow on the ground. "Eeek!" I scream. "What? What happened?" he wakes up from his daydream. "My hair looks weird?" "Huh?" he asks, not understanding how I can have a notion about the state of my hair in the middle of a narrow street with no store windows. "I can see it in my shadow. It's weird!" "???!!!" "It's wiggly, I'm telling you..." I insist. He looks at my blop of curls, trying to see what I am describing. "It's beautiful. It's really nice..." he says with love in his eyes. I look back at my shadow on cement. I love what I see.


Girlscout passed through town last week. She breezed through lunches and dinners and coffees with tens of her friends. And she traveled to Chicago for a dear friend's grandson's bar-mitzvah. In between the turbo-charged love fest, we met up three times. She was the same as ever. She didn't have homework anymore, she had clients who called her up for advice -- anxious parents who sought her counsel for their children. She selflessly gave to her clients, her patients, her friends. Her face was pure, without makeup or any other interruptions. Her thick black curly hair was coming down in straight strands - going against their nature, but presumably under her control. She had started straightening her hair, since her ex didn't like her hair wild and floating around her shoulders. He liked things a certain style. He tried to fit her into a mold. He left her life three years ago, but girlscout still straightens her hair. Perhaps to show him that it is her who has control, not him. Perhaps she likes it better this way. Perhaps she was told she was not pretty any other way. One day, someone will tell girlscout she is pretty ever which way...we'll have coffee in Soho again, between a flight and a client. And her dreamy curls will breathe the air.


Rebeccah picks up my call with significant enthusiasm. "I got an apartment!" she says. "What?" "I signed a lease. I am going to just pack up some clothes and have some time to think to myself at least," she explains in one breath, with the victorious auro of someone who has won a challenge after a long fight. "OK, great, " I say relieved that she is pulling herself out of a stifled situation, and is able to regain control over her life. She doesn't have to wonder where he'll move, which job he'll take, whether he'll propose, or anything of the sort. He may reach out to her, waking up to her absence. She'll be at the new apartment, not conveniently in the living room. "What are you going to do next?" I ask, expecting to hear a back-to-school prep story from the lifelong teacher. "I am going to get my hair straightened. It's a lot of money, but I am ready for a change!" she says with the same determinism. "It looks great either way," I say, thinking whether he is worth spending several more hundreds of dollars. "I am doing it for myself," Rebeccah says as if reading my mind. "I felt great the last time I did it" I do remember that time. She did feel like a new person. Heck, she looked like a new person. Enough with unpredictable waves that just won't calm down. In this case, it may be time to press down some unruly curls.