Ghosts in the Hair Salon
I woke up motivated to be better. I do this every once in awhile—it usually results in me doing some push ups and deciding I'll just refrain from eating. The push ups peter out eventually and the starvation lasts about 4 hours, but the motivation is there, even if it's brief.
Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, having spent the evening counting polybags and card sleeves and chipboard for Olive & Clyde's taxes, I decided I'd write a blog post today. I can't meet with Sarah because I have to be in Cincy for Losant's STEM girls workshop this weekend, but I'm determined to manage my own writing. The sensation the last couple months of needing to move forward keeps growing—I'm restless.
One of the things I need to focus on is idea generation. I wrote a short story this week—just something silly, but I had an idea, I fleshed it out into a plot outline, and then I just wrote it. I need more practice at that so it becomes easier. None of this coming up with vague ideas and then dropping them. Ideas ideas ideas. Follow through.
So last Friday I was sitting in Headliners in Marion, Indiana, during what we in my family call "Haircut Friday." I'm pretty sure I've written about it before. Basically I drive over an hour once every eight weeks to get my hair done, and it's a family event, with Bev, my Harley Davidson-loving, studded collar-wearing hairdresser, doing 4 or more people's hair on a Friday evening before we go have dinner with my grandpa.
Sitting there last week getting my hair washed, I had an idea pass through my head: my hair salon is filled with ghosts.
Not actual ghosts, though it could be. But memories and souvenirs of the past, quite literally. The walls are covered with antique barber shop implements—scissors, metal combs, straight razors and their leather straps—the ghosts of their holders and the heads they were used on corroding them with rust. Bev has an obsession with Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, so the salon is filled with photos of both frozen in their aborted youth—Marilyn, leaning slightly forward, breathlessly, fingers trailing down her neck. James, a smile on his face, a cigarette in his mouth, hands clasped over his knees. There's a life-size cardboard cutout of Marilyn in her classic "skirt-flying-up" pose, old tin signs of her hawking shampoo—"Yes, I use Lustre Creme Shampoo"—James wearing a leather jacket and staring moodily off into the distance.
Whenever I'm in the chair by the sink I can see a vintage, sepia-toned advertisement for "the new bob," with two round-faced women with 1920s waves in their short hair. When I was in college, Bev and her salon partner, Heidi, had jokingly stuck post-it notes with their names on them on each of the women. The blond one was Bev, the dark-haired one was Heidi. Heidi was always the one Bev consulted whenever I wanted to change the color of my hair—Heidi would come over to the chair and make me show her the underside of my arms, which somehow helped her figure out whether I should go honey chestnut or mocha latte. She never did my hair—that was always Bev's job—but she'd occasionally do my mom's. Either way, Bev and Heidi would be chatting back and forth the entire time you were in the salon, whirling you up in their conversation and laughter and gossip and somehow the entirely genuine feeling that they sincerely cared about the state of your hair.
One summer I was on my way to meet Grandma and Grandpa to drive up to the lake when I heard Heidi had been shot by her husband. On the back porch of her friend's house, where she was drinking coffee before work, he made her and her friend get down on their knees and shot them both in the head before killing himself.
So Heidi's ghost is there, too. And I can't get my hair washed without seeing that pretty, spunky woman with the bob and Heidi at the same time, both long gone and no longer worried about their haircuts.
And then there are my own ghosts. I've been going to Bev's for as long as I can remember, even when it was just once a year when I made the trip from Georgia to visit my grandparents. I can see the different versions of myself there—the 12-year old who wanted a perm, the sophomore who had Bev do her hair before the holiday dance in her dorm, the 28 year old who cried when she thought her hair was too short. The bridesmaid getting her hair done for both her brothers' weddings. The bride I was almost 5 years ago, testing out wedding hair styles. The fat me, the skinnier me, the young me, the older me. The single me, the married me, the blond me, the redhead me—and once, regrettably, the almost black-haired me.
I can see my parents, and my siblings, and the friends I dragged along with me. Michael, who was so mad the first time I made him go because it took so long. My aunt and uncle, who stopped by Bev's to show us their new puppy so long ago. It's a strange thing to have a hairdresser who's a family friend. She's not just a hairdresser. It's not just a salon, and it's not just getting your hair done.
But lately when I go what I see most is my grandma, who went to Bev every week for 30 some odd years. I see her walking in while I'm under the dryer, asking Bev if the Schwan's man dropped off her order (when you live way out in the country beyond their delivery area, sure it's reasonable to have your food delivered to your hair salon instead). She's asking me where I want to go to dinner tonight, she's showing Bev photos of hairstyles she thinks would look good on me behind my back. And when we leave there to go have dinner with Grandpa, to eat pizza in her house with all her things, at the kitchen island where we all used to sit together, I can't help but be a bit heartbroken, as much as I love him. Because there are ghosts that follow you around, too.
Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, having spent the evening counting polybags and card sleeves and chipboard for Olive & Clyde's taxes, I decided I'd write a blog post today. I can't meet with Sarah because I have to be in Cincy for Losant's STEM girls workshop this weekend, but I'm determined to manage my own writing. The sensation the last couple months of needing to move forward keeps growing—I'm restless.
One of the things I need to focus on is idea generation. I wrote a short story this week—just something silly, but I had an idea, I fleshed it out into a plot outline, and then I just wrote it. I need more practice at that so it becomes easier. None of this coming up with vague ideas and then dropping them. Ideas ideas ideas. Follow through.
So last Friday I was sitting in Headliners in Marion, Indiana, during what we in my family call "Haircut Friday." I'm pretty sure I've written about it before. Basically I drive over an hour once every eight weeks to get my hair done, and it's a family event, with Bev, my Harley Davidson-loving, studded collar-wearing hairdresser, doing 4 or more people's hair on a Friday evening before we go have dinner with my grandpa.
Sitting there last week getting my hair washed, I had an idea pass through my head: my hair salon is filled with ghosts.
Not actual ghosts, though it could be. But memories and souvenirs of the past, quite literally. The walls are covered with antique barber shop implements—scissors, metal combs, straight razors and their leather straps—the ghosts of their holders and the heads they were used on corroding them with rust. Bev has an obsession with Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, so the salon is filled with photos of both frozen in their aborted youth—Marilyn, leaning slightly forward, breathlessly, fingers trailing down her neck. James, a smile on his face, a cigarette in his mouth, hands clasped over his knees. There's a life-size cardboard cutout of Marilyn in her classic "skirt-flying-up" pose, old tin signs of her hawking shampoo—"Yes, I use Lustre Creme Shampoo"—James wearing a leather jacket and staring moodily off into the distance.
Whenever I'm in the chair by the sink I can see a vintage, sepia-toned advertisement for "the new bob," with two round-faced women with 1920s waves in their short hair. When I was in college, Bev and her salon partner, Heidi, had jokingly stuck post-it notes with their names on them on each of the women. The blond one was Bev, the dark-haired one was Heidi. Heidi was always the one Bev consulted whenever I wanted to change the color of my hair—Heidi would come over to the chair and make me show her the underside of my arms, which somehow helped her figure out whether I should go honey chestnut or mocha latte. She never did my hair—that was always Bev's job—but she'd occasionally do my mom's. Either way, Bev and Heidi would be chatting back and forth the entire time you were in the salon, whirling you up in their conversation and laughter and gossip and somehow the entirely genuine feeling that they sincerely cared about the state of your hair.
One summer I was on my way to meet Grandma and Grandpa to drive up to the lake when I heard Heidi had been shot by her husband. On the back porch of her friend's house, where she was drinking coffee before work, he made her and her friend get down on their knees and shot them both in the head before killing himself.
So Heidi's ghost is there, too. And I can't get my hair washed without seeing that pretty, spunky woman with the bob and Heidi at the same time, both long gone and no longer worried about their haircuts.
And then there are my own ghosts. I've been going to Bev's for as long as I can remember, even when it was just once a year when I made the trip from Georgia to visit my grandparents. I can see the different versions of myself there—the 12-year old who wanted a perm, the sophomore who had Bev do her hair before the holiday dance in her dorm, the 28 year old who cried when she thought her hair was too short. The bridesmaid getting her hair done for both her brothers' weddings. The bride I was almost 5 years ago, testing out wedding hair styles. The fat me, the skinnier me, the young me, the older me. The single me, the married me, the blond me, the redhead me—and once, regrettably, the almost black-haired me.
I can see my parents, and my siblings, and the friends I dragged along with me. Michael, who was so mad the first time I made him go because it took so long. My aunt and uncle, who stopped by Bev's to show us their new puppy so long ago. It's a strange thing to have a hairdresser who's a family friend. She's not just a hairdresser. It's not just a salon, and it's not just getting your hair done.
But lately when I go what I see most is my grandma, who went to Bev every week for 30 some odd years. I see her walking in while I'm under the dryer, asking Bev if the Schwan's man dropped off her order (when you live way out in the country beyond their delivery area, sure it's reasonable to have your food delivered to your hair salon instead). She's asking me where I want to go to dinner tonight, she's showing Bev photos of hairstyles she thinks would look good on me behind my back. And when we leave there to go have dinner with Grandpa, to eat pizza in her house with all her things, at the kitchen island where we all used to sit together, I can't help but be a bit heartbroken, as much as I love him. Because there are ghosts that follow you around, too.