Day 26 - A View from the Chair

Today, I got my hair done.  Getting one’s hair “done” can mean many different things to many different people.  To me it means cut and highlights.  Depending on how adventurous I’m feeling and whether I’m in a “grow it out,” “maintain it” or “chop it all off” mode – that cut could be anywhere from a half an inch to six inches.  Today was in the half an inch range.

You’re thinking, "Kathleen, you already blogged about your hair.  There is a limit to how many blogs a girl should write about her hair, and that limit is zero."  Ok, ok.  I hear you – but this blog isn’t really about my hair, it’s about my hair stylist.

On my way home from getting my hair done, I started thinking about the fact that one of the longer and more sustained relationships in my life is with my hair stylist.  I’ve seen her every 8-10 weeks with incredible regularity for over seven years.

When and if I ever have to leave her, it will be legitimately hard for me.  Every couple of months, I count on seeing her smiling face and sitting down in her chair knowing that I will leave with hair the exact blend of honey blonde and golden brown nature took away from me when I was five.   Except for the times I have steered her wrong (“No, I want it an inch above my chin” or “Dye it brown.  Dark brown.”) – I have never left her chair unhappy, and I have followed her to different chairs.  For a brief time a little over a year ago, I learned she had left her current salon, and I was paralyzed.  I had to find her.  She sent me the information for her new salon, and I heaved an audible sigh of relief.

I honestly enjoy the hour and a half I spend with Constance four or five times a year.  She knows about my career and my second job as a dance teacher.  She asks about trips I’ve been on, weddings I’ve stood up in, and parties I’ve planned.  Her memory for detail is impeccable, and the time flies by quickly as she combs, foils, cuts, and blows out my hair.  As we have grown older and, incrementally, gotten to know each other better, we have begun to laugh about things that wouldn’t have come up when we could barely drink legally.  We talk about our lives as adults, and that funny feeling that someday, someone is going to come up and tell us we don’t quite belong in this big, bad adult world.  We're just kids in mommy’s high heels, children playing house.  It's funny that she and I have, in some ways, grown older together.

Inevitably, as I only see her a few times a year, the conversation turns to how “time is flying.”  The brevity of each visit and the space between our meetings make it seem like this is so - but the length of my roots and the stories I have to tell suggest otherwise.  Today I told her about my impending thirtieth, and, after asking how I felt about it, she was genuinely excited for me.

I don’t have any contact with Constance other than the several hours a year I spend in her chair.  We are not connected on Facebook, and we are not friends in any true sense of the word.  There is, however, something totally unique about the relationship I have with this talented woman.  I trust her with my stories, my dreams, my plans, and – above all – my hair.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.