I have been rocking the curls since I was born and there is a long post I’ll write someday about how my hair has driven my mom up the wall my entire life. A woman with straight, thin hair gives birth to not one, but three daughters with varying degrees of thick curls and slowly lost her mind trying to figure out how to tame the beasts upon our heads. Most times she’d shove a barrette in it and call it a day. Then when I was nine Mom discovered the “pixie” and it was whacked off through high school.
I call that period The Transvestite Years.
When I was married and Mark was in graduate school, I made an appointment with somebody everybody I worked with went to and loooooooooooved and he shaved my head with an electric razor as if I was scheduled for brain surgery the next day.
I had minimal luck with hairdressers over the years and most days resembled Rosann Rosannadanna. Nine years ago, I was checking out at the grocery store with a cashier I’d never seen before who had great curly hair and I asked her who cut it. She put up the Sorry This Lane Is Closed sign and started dishing. Curly girls don’t mess around.
“Amy. You have to go to Amy. She is………… she is a magician.” Her purse was at her register and she gave me Amy’s card. “Call her. Call her today.”
Well, with a reference like that how do you not follow up? When I had my first appointment, my new hairdresser/new best friend asked if I preferred to go by Kathy or Kathleen.
I love Kathleen, but my whole life I’ve been called Kathy.
“I will call you Kathleen.”
Last week she texted me to remind me of Mallory’s appointment. “Sweet Kathleen, I will be seeing Mallory at 11:00. Maggie comes at noon. Maybe they are coming together? The only thing that would make it better is if you could join them.” Sigh.
This is a picture the photographer took of her doing Maggie’s hair for the wedding. I framed it and gave it to her for Christmas. She lost both her parents when she was very young and her and her brothers went to live with her aunt and uncle. I wanted her to have something to look at every day that would remind her how talented she is, how much she is adored by all of her clients, and how the parents she had for too short of a time must be so very proud of her.
