The Beauty, The Splendor, The Wonder of My Hair (This one's for you, Josef)

When Ohio closed the hair salons it got real for me.  You see, I'm one of those lucky people who has a hair person.  Not just any random stylist, but a person who helped me to create my look and who I depend on to maintain it.  We have a relationship, and he takes his job seriously!  Us clients have already been warned away from box dyes while we're practicing our social distancing!

Mr. Josef is popular, not the kind of guy you just call when you need a cut or color.  His dance card is full so everything has to be scheduled out in advance.  And woe to you if you have to miss an appointment!  I've taken off work just to avoid the nightmare of trying to reschedule.

My relationship with my hair color is complicated.  I went purple in honor of my 50th birthday.  Not so much to look younger, but to express the idea that even though I was 50 (I know, I know.  I'm not old.), I'm still a vibrant human being.  It's not about trying to look younger, it's about expressing who I am.  It's a bonus that it happens to match my overall coloring really well!  I've made Mr. Josef promise me that he'll let me know when the hair starts looking too young for my face.  So far so good.


I've been contemplating going back to my natural color in honor of my 55th birthday.  I'll be graduating school and beginning a new professional phase of my life.  Maybe it's time for me to manifest my maturity and to show pride in who I am now.  

Before my last hair appointment it had been a few more weeks than usual since I'd last had my color refreshed, so I had longer gray roots than usual.  Was this a sign? Was it time to let the purple go?

I stood in front of the mirror and blocked the purple with my hands so I could get a sense of how I'd look gray.  My reaction?  "Aw hell no!"

I discussed this with my daughters who are my image consultants and they agreed.  The purple has become my brand.  At the restaurant everyone can identify the server with the purple hair, and even the defendants I met with in the Cuyahoga County jail for my internship liked it. It has become part of who I am, with the extra bonus that it happens to look really good with my overall coloring.

Now I have to figure out what to do about the Pepe Le Pew stripe that is developing down my scalp.  Wear it with pride?  Develop some type of comb-over?  Cut it into a mohawk?  Experiment with black cherry Koolaid? 

I think having two different hair colors with a sharp line of demarcation is about to be the hot new look.  I'm so trendy!

So how are you?

 

Keep On the Sunny Side!

Something really weird happened this morning.  It was sunny and warm.

Those of you who live in Northern Ohio know what I mean.  Lately it seems like if it's sunny it's cold, and if it's warm it's rainy.  I think yesterday was the warmest day we've had, but it rained enough to flood our yard

This is the thing that has been really frustrating.   I know that going outside is probably the best thing we can be doing - getting sunshine, exercise - but it's either in the 40's with biting winds or rainy which turns all of the green spaces into mud pits.

This morning the sun was shining and when I opened my door it was warm!  Since my hip joints have been screaming at me because of all the sitting I've been doing, I decided to go for it.  I took a walk!  It has made all the difference.

For one thing it gave me a tremendous sense of normalcy.  There were other people!  People out with dogs, a mom with her toddler in a stroller, joggers...we gave each other wide berth, and I'm sure I was probably a little too excited to greet strangers, but it felt like a normal day.  I wasn't sealed in my hermetic bubble.  Life was going on!  Work guys were working on some utility pipes (not requiring them to be close together, I guess), cars went by with people in them...people who were going somewhere!  OK, maybe WalMart to get more toilet paper, but still.

On a whim, before I left the house I washed my hands thoroughly and grabbed some money off my dresser.  My walk took me past the Oberlin Kitchen and I went in to get a cup of coffee.  It's still open for carryout/delivery.  I threw away my creamer containers myself and didn't use any silverware.  It was just me, my manager, and the usual cook, and we just talked.  We didn't stand near each other, but we talked and laughed.  I'm taking a hiatus from serving til I go 2 weeks without a fever and I only have about 5 days left.  I've also decided to defer to people who need money more than I do.   It was just a joy to see people I know and love.  Of course one guy with a mask and blue latex gloves did give me the stink-eye when he came in for his to-go order, but I just backed away until I was safely across the room.  Threw away my own coffee cup so no one else needed to touch it.  I maintained a distance from the counters and tables.  It was a joy to be back.

Spring is coming whether we can see it or not.  Crocuses are popping out everywhere and the daffodils are budding but being quite sensible in taking their time to open.

Even as I write this the clouds are rolling back in, and the temperature is steadily dropping.  But now I know that the world still exists, and we're all in this bad sci-fi movie together.  And there are flowers, and great big puddles, and it's all beautiful.

That's my report for the day...and how are you?

This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco

This ain't no fooling around!  (Song lyrics blatantly stolen from The Talking Head's song "Life During Wartime."  One of their best!).

Feels unreal, doesn't it?

I just have to say that I'm really bad at this whole quarantine thing.  I mean, I'm doing it because there is a chance I was directly exposed to the dreaded virus, but I don't do it well.  I've never called myself a good self-starter and, hoo boy, I was right!  As many people correctly point out, this is a good time to slow down and attend to the interior life.  Do that house project you've always wanted to do.  Read books, write poetry, color, dance, sing...our opportunities are almost endless.

But this is me.  What do I do?  I start sleeping in until 10am, grab a cup of coffee and wonder what to do next while accomplishing very little.  I've had to complete a couple of school assignments but it took every ounce of discipline I own to get through them.  Plus I'm started to get the "tomorrows".  Sure, I could do that reading tonight, but there's always tomorrow.  Maybe I should just take a nap.  Each day just feels like a lump of time to get through.

I'm going to try to do better.  Tomorrow (of course!) I'm going to try getting up at 8am.  Maybe plan my day so I devote a certain number of hours to schoolwork and maybe work ahead as much as I can. (!)  I can bake when I get bored, I've started a jigsaw puzzle, and it's the beginning of the spring water fowl migration if I need to get out of the house.

But I'm suffering a weird kind of ennui.  I'm still jumpy every time I happen to cough.  I'm really worried about exposing my husband so periodically I maniacally run about the house wiping random surfaces with anti-germ wipes (Door knobs! Light switches!).  I make sure our towels are separate and I'm doing my own laundry.  This does seem kind of moot, however, considering we're still sleeping in the same bed.  We have our limits!  I spend a lot of time on my phone with emails, Facebook, and texts.  I'm becoming one with my couch.  Meanwhile, my husband is one of those functional people who is sorting the stuff in the attic.  I look really bad by comparison.

These are strange, strange times.  I had a conversation with my sister who  experienced a big flood.  It was triggered by heavy rains upriver from where she lives.  They had a lot of advanced warnings that the flood was coming, complete with maps of the areas affected.  Even with all that information, she said, you really didn't know what it was going to look like until it happened.  People tried to prepare, but it's not easy when you don't know how high the water is going to get, or what that looks like when it's approaching your house.


Maybe that's it.  I don't know what a pandemic looks like, how bad it will get, what I need to prepare for.  I'm not sure that it has fully sunk-in that Tom won't be going to work, and I'm not doing shifts at the restaurant.  I won't be riding the train into Cleveland, sitting in class with my school posse, having dinner with friends.  And it's going to be like this for awhile.  I better get used to this alternate existence and start managing my time.

Good luck with that.  {sigh}

One thing I've realized I can do is start writing again.  It's been over two years since I've posted in here!  Glad I could still find it!  I'm back, kids!

I'm just warming up, of course.  If I have any deep thoughts I will share them.  So that's what's up with me.

And how are you?

It Was 15 Years Ago Today

It started while I was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking about 9/11.  For those of us who didn't live it directly, it was a long time ago.  A callous has formed over the horror of the day.  But listening to the radio this morning peeled back the protective coating and started to bring the feelings back.

What hit me the hardest was the interview of the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, the company that lost the most people in the twin towers.  The magnitude of the loss became real when he described how they would have had to go to 20 funerals a day for 35 days to honor everyone who'd died.  Instead he decided to keep the business going in order to support their families.  He broke down when he described how his brother had called their sister that day.  He was in the building and called her to say that he knew he was going to die.  He was saying goodbye.

It all started to come back to me.  My daughters were in elementary school and I was lazing on the couch listening to Howard Stern on the radio.  (Don't judge me).  The show was broadcast from New York.  It was on the show that I heard there was a fire at the World Trade Center, and that it might have been hit by a plane.  At this point it still seemed to be an accident.  Out of curiosity I turned on my TV just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the other tower. On live TV.  The announcers went silent.

It took a few moments for the horror to sink in.  It was a passenger jet.  There were people in those towers. 

The rest of the morning was surreal.  It was a beautiful day here in Ohio with a clear blue sky.  I couldn't pull myself away from the TV.  I saw the towers fall.  It was sickening to think that people were dying that day just because they had gone to work, or had decided to travel.  It was hard to reconcile what I was watching with the lovely September day.

Then the TV people started talking about other explosions elsewhere.  The Pentagon had been hit.  There was a rumor (later found to be untrue) that there was an explosion on the West coast.  A plane had crashed in Pennsylvania.  All flights were being grounded.  I honestly felt that I had no idea what could happen next, or where.

One immediate reaction was to reach out to family and friends, even ones not in harm's way.  Maybe we were being reminded how fragile and random life and death could be and we just wanted to connect.  My mom called, supposedly about my husband's birthday the day before, but that really wasn't the purpose of the call.  It was to hear my voice.  I called Tom at work just needing to hear his voice.  Some parents started picking up their kids from school.  I opted not to because I didn't want them seeing what was happening, and I didn't know how I was going to explain it to them.

The other scary thing was that Oberlin is home to an air traffic control center that basically coordinates the airspace between New York and Chicago.  There was fear it, too, could be a target.  Miriam's grade school was just blocks away.  They kept all the children inside at recess and told the kids it was because there were too many bees on the playground.

The plane that crashed in Shanksville made it's fatal turn and started heading back east in Oberlin airspace.

The next few days continued to be surreal.  There was no drone of airplane engines, no jet trails in the sky.  People were rushing to donate blood, but it sadly wasn't really needed.  People either survived relatively unscathed, or they died.

If there was any silver lining at all, it was that we were briefly reminded of our common humanity.  We were kind.  I remember saying "Hi" to someone on the street (a small town thing to do), and the person met my eyes and warmly responded.  We were making a connection.

Sadly, this did not last.

We were a more naïve nation then.  For those of us too young to remember Pearl Harbor, the worst event we'd lived through was the Oklahoma City bombing.  Also horrific.  I was taking a college theater class at that time and we took a whole class to talk about our feelings surrounding that event.  I remember saying that I was really disturbed that this was going to raise the bar for terrorist attacks.  I did not know how much worse it would get.

We're more jaded now, I think.  We're sadly accustomed to mass shootings and when we hear about terror attacks we're likely to think "Oh no, not again".  And move on.  Just part of the crazy world we live in.

Today I say a prayer for everyone who lost their lives that day.  I remember the incredibly brave first responders.  I also say a prayer for every soul that was wounded having experienced the attack first hand.  And for those who lost loved ones.  They will never forget.

And neither will we.
  

Blessed Allhallowtide

Recently our local public radio station held its annual (generally interminable) fall fundraising campaign, complete with those wonderful "thank you gifts" to entice people to part with their hard-earned cash.  People in the upper echelon of contributors qualified for a snazzy little device called The Bass Egg that purportedly turns any surface it's set upon into a speaker.

The Bass Egg works by sending vibrations into the surface it's set upon, causing it to resonate and produce sound.  I have always loved fall for its soul-popping beauty.  But this year especially I find myself responding on a whole other level.  At one point I used to teach Sunday School, and I remember doing research on the topic of Halloween/All Saints Day and learning about the very deep roots of these celebrations.  I was especially struck by the ancient belief that during this time of year the veil between our world and the spirit world is thinner, allowing for easier passage between the two.  What a beautiful idea, really.  I've been enjoying the temperate weather, colorful foliage, and clear blue skies of the season, but my mind kept returning to that thinning veil.  It sent out a vibration that resonated within my spirit.

This year has been another year of loss for people I know and love.  My own father passed not long after the new year, and friends of mine have been walking the same difficult path.  And there have been the especially painful too-early exits of spouses and children within my social sphere.  Situations in which there are no good words to say, except "I'm sorry."

This year I'm taking comfort in ancient belief and feel blessed to be part of a church tradition that has adopted it and sanctified it and made it their own.  In my quick Google search to verify that my recollections of the season were indeed correct, I found that the church had even given these days a lovely name, Allhallowtide, encompassing All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day.  Setting aside a time to remember and celebrate our loved ones, to even feel them walking amongst us again, is a beautiful thing.  The Mexicans have it right celebrating Dias de Los Muertos.  It's a tradition we'd all do well to embrace.

This year I felt the need to mark this bittersweet occasion, and that small, still voice within gave me the idea.  I chose to visit the grave of my favorite local saint, a person I loved deeply (not romantically) during life who remains special to me after death.

Normally I'm not really big on visiting graves.  It's not that I find it spooky, morbid, or particularly depressing.  It's just that I generally don't find that the person I loved and remember is there.  I have sat at this particular grave before and frankly, it felt kind of awkward.  Like knocking on someone's door when they are clearly not home.  No connection.

This time, though, was different.  Maybe it was because of Allhallowtide.  Maybe because circumstances had conspired to bring me in close contact with his family and mutual friends.  I followed the leading that told me to go get some ice cream and visit my old friend.

The ice cream was significant because he loved it in life.  And it had to be good ice cream.  The artisan shop in town was closed so I had to settle for Ben & Jerry's.  I chose peanut butter cup because my friend was no plain vanilla guy.  He would appreciate the big rich chunks of candy.  I cleared the leaves off of his monument which, conveniently enough, happens to be a stone bench.  I sat down and dug into my pint.

It occurred to me later that I must have cut quite a figure.  I'd come straight from work so I was still dressed in my all black waitressing clothes, my hair is currently a vivid purple, and I was sitting on a grave calmly eating ice cream.  It may have all looked quite blasphemous, but what I was experiencing was really quite spiritual.

The weather this fall has been amazingly gentle and warm.  There haven't been storms or gales to knock all the leaves off the trees so there is still a surprising amount of color.  And my favorite trees, the oaks, are in full display in their burgundy, harvest gold, and cappuccino brown.  It was warm enough that I was comfortable in my t-shirt even though it was late afternoon.  I watched families riding bikes and people walking their dogs enjoying the unseasonably mild weather while they could, and I just let my thoughts run to my friend.  He loved days such as this.  He loved natural beauty, and the feeling of the sun's warmth on his face.

The sky was perfectly clear blue.  No clouds, no curtain separating this world from the next.

I thought about his family that I'd had the pleasure of spending time with just the day before.  I felt how much he loved them, especially his wife.  I know how pleased he would be with his daughters and the lives and families they've built for themselves.  I envisioned his delight with his granddaughters, remarkable young women, whom he loved even though he did not get to meet them in person.  I prayed that they all would feel his calm reassuring presence in whatever difficult times may lie ahead.  I know he will be with them.

Because the bench had been a little damp I'd grabbed an unopened newspaper, still in its bag, to use as a seat cushion.  As I stood up to stretch my legs a bit my eyes fell upon the paper and I smiled.  It was the Cleveland paper that I'm pretty sure he read daily, especially the sports pages.  He was a huge basketball fan who would have thoroughly enjoyed the Cavaliers' run at the championship.  He would be a LeBron James fan, I think.  I could picture us debating the impact of The Decision and whether LeBron should be welcomed back to Cleveland with open arms.  I smiled at the thought.

By this time my ice cream was getting rather soft and I made a gesture I've never felt inclined to make before.  I let some drip onto the ground and it felt like sharing.  I traced a little heart shape.  It was my way of saying I loved you, I remember you, and here is something you enjoyed.  I smiled and let a few gentle tears slide from my eyes.

The seasons will march on and it won't be long before clouds, snow, and the noisy joyous confusion of Christmas close this spiritual window.  We'll each be absorbed back into our respective worlds.  But every year when the leaves are falling and the skies are clear I intend to take some time to acknowledge and wave to the people who are standing behind the gauzy curtain, who are waving and smiling back at us.

Why Ingrid?

Some of you may have noticed that I have a something of an obsession with Ingrid Bergman.  Here is the story.

It started as a schoolgirl crush on Humphrey Bogart.  This may be hard for you all to picture, but I was a peculiar teenager.  My celebrity crushes in my junior high/high school years included Basil Rathbone, José Greco, and Donovan.  All names that would draw blank stares from my peers.  It was the early 1980's, after all.

And there was Humphrey Bogart.  Not any Bogart, but the character Rick from "Casablanca".  With that movie it was love at first viewing.  I had the movie poster on the wall of my bedroom.

One day I was staring into my mirror, a thing that teenaged girls are wont to do.  Knowing me I was probably lip-synching to the Beatles or some such thing since I apparently lack the hair/make-up gene.  But while staring at the mirror I noticed the reflection of the movie poster.  I could see my face, and Humphrey's, and Ingrid's...

I stared at Ingrid Bergman.

Familiar looking eyebrows... similar nose...

Was there a resemblance?  I almost hated to think it.  One does not normally go around thinking she looks like one of the most beautiful women in the world.

I mentioned that I was a peculiar teenager.  Did I mention that I was miserable as well?  That is another thing teenaged girls are prone to.  I probably thought that I was fat.  I had some close friends, but wasn't what I'd call popular.  Boys certainly didn't notice me.  I often felt like I didn't fit in.  You know.  Normal teen girl stuff.

I also had an issue with school.  Math.  Any kind of arithmetic.  That all started to go wrong with me around the 5th grade while I was learning to divide fractions, and it continues to this day.  I'll be going along, doing my little calculations, getting it all figured out when suddenly my brain says, "Wait a minute.  What?"  Then it all goes blank and I need the whole operation explained to me again.

The problem was that I was the youngest of 6 kids growing up in a small town, so all my teachers had also taught my siblings.  And it just so happened that my next oldest sister is something of a math prodigy.  I mean really gifted.  Then I come along and I'm stumbling with the basics.  Teachers didn't really know what to think.  There was a certain amount of "I don't think she's really applying herself" and "What's the matter with you?"

By high school I'd largely given up.  I somehow made it through 9th grade algebra.  I don't remember how and I certainly don't remember algebra.  The last hurdle to being finished with high school math forever was passing geometry.

My geometry teacher had, of course, taught my sister just a few years before.  When he was working problems out on the blackboard she would point out his errors, and probably worked way ahead of the class.  I think his attitude toward me leaned towards the "What's the matter with you?" camp.  In retrospect, I can see that I must have been an amazingly frustrating student.  Like I said before, I had given up in math and would sometimes sit in the back of the class reading a book.  I can remember taking a test one time and being unable to answer most of the questions.  But for some reason I managed to complete one of the extra credit problems.  I hated the class and I'm sure he didn't know what to do with me.

So one morning I'm walking down the hall in full-on melancholy teen mode.  I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised if there was an actual visible rain cloud over my head.  I was just schlumping along when I passed my geometry teacher.  We gave each other perfunctory nods when he stops and turns and says "Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Ingrid Bergman?"

WHAT?!?

My spirit instantly sprouted wings and I soared down the hallway, and I remained in that state for the rest of the day.  It wasn't just in my head!  I LOOKED LIKE A YOUNG INGRID BERGMAN!!  And it certainly wasn't coming from someone who was out to flatter me, believe you me.  And I can't think of any way he would have known about my fanatic love for "Casablanca".

I'd like to say that it changed my life.  That I went back to geometry class, paid attention, and aced it.  Truth be told I have no idea how I ever passed geometry and I have no idea how to perform most geometric calculations.  My miserable math skills followed me to college.

But that's OK.  I look like Ingrid Bergman.

And how are you?

This Is Why I Love My Job

In my latest incarnation I am a waitress in a diner.  I can honestly say this is not where I expected to be at this stage of my life, but I'm really trying to go with it.

[NOTE: I am changing the names of the people involved because I figure it's probably not nice to write about someone without clearing it with him or her, first.]

I work for Wendy, who co-owns the restaurant with her sister.  Wendy is a shrewd businesswoman who knows her way  around the food business.  She is at the diner just about every day working the tables with her servers.  I'm in awe of her work ethic.  She's also tough to work for.  Not tough as in difficult to work for, but not a warm fuzzy.  This is not the place to work if you need to hear "good job" or "well done" to get by.  She speaks her mind and doesn't suffer fools gladly.  And there are lots of fools.  Myself included, some days.  OK.  Many days.  Most days.

But this is about what happened today.

It's summertime in a college town so it's not wildly busy.  We had a few tables of folks when Susie walked in.  She's a regular who usually comes in with her son as she appears to be struggling with dementia.  Some months back Susie had walked into the restaurant with only a dog leash and told Wendy she'd been out walking her dog, but couldn't tell Wendy where the dog was.  Wendy was able to verify that the dog was home, safe and sound, and also took the opportunity to talk to Susie's son to make sure that he knew she was out and about on her own and to express concern about how Susie was doing.

My heart sank a little bit when I saw Susie walk in by herself today as she hadn't come in by herself for quite awhile.  Wendy immediately went to talk to her.  It turned out that Susie had headed out for a walk and couldn't remember how to get home.  But she had found the restaurant.

Wendy escorted her to a seat, brought her a pop, and told Susie that she would take her home.  She still had a few tables to finish up with, but she assured Susie that she would get home.

So Susie took a seat at the counter.  Sometimes she'd pull out the money she had with her and Wendy would assure her that she'd already paid (I know Wendy gave her the pop) and she could put her money away.  It was taken care of.  Susie would start talking about being lost and Wendy or I would remind her that she was at the restaurant, she was OK, and that we'd make sure she'd make it home.

What touches me to the core even as I write this is how calm Susie was.  She knew the restaurant.  She knew she was lost but she felt safe.

This story has two heroes.  Just as Wendy turned to me and told me she was going to go get her car as soon as she delivered her last order, our lunch rush arrived.  Not a huge crowd, but multiple tables at once so a lot for a single server to handle.

The universe works in mysterious ways.  It just so happened that my husband, and all-around good guy, Tom (yes, that's his real name!), happened to be on vacation this week, and just happened to have met some former students at the diner for lunch today.  This is how great a guy he is: he didn't bat an eye or hesitate a moment when I asked him to take a woman he didn't know to a home she didn't know how to find.

Wendy quickly stepped-up and gave directions to Susie's house (she didn't know the actual address), and explained that Susie would probably recognize it when she saw it. 

Clearly Wendy has taken Susie home before.

And that's when I fell in love with my job.

A few days ago another regular who appears to have cognitive struggles was sitting at the counter.  After she left Wendy pointed out to me the note taped to the wall that had her usual order written down in case she came in when Wendy wasn't there.

I'll admit that when I took this job I felt I was doing something less worthwhile than my last work.  I mean, I'd gone from working with families in crisis (vaguely professional and more than a little bad-ass) to serving food.  But as The Grateful Dead famously said "Once in awhile you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right".  As I've done before, I've gone from serving people to serving people.

And feeling blessed that it's at a diner that offers up a side-order of grace with that lunch.