wakingupslowly's Open Salon Blog

Just In Case You Thought You Might Fall In Love with Me

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:11:33 -0500

Make sure you don't fall in love with my hair. However

it looks on the day you fall for it? You will never see it that

way again. I can't wash, rinse, and repeat. I can wash and rinse,

but I can't repeat. Each day is a new hair day for me. You will be

disappointed every single day if you love my hair.

Don't fall for my shoes, either. Because no matter how much I may

love them too, they'll be gone tomorrow when I find a better pair.

I mean it. I do not commit to shoes. Boots? Maybe, but just for the

one season. If you must fall for my shoes, you better just take them

off my feet and take them home with you and leave me here, shoeless.

Oh, I hope it's not my legs you like. Well, that won’t work. See, in the

warmer seasons, I walk five to eight miles a day. But in the winter,

in the dead of February? I can barely force myself to walk five miles

in a week. That muscletone you think is so sexy and well-curved?

It’s on its way out the door.

If it's my walk you like, please note that I broke my leg three years

ago while merely strolling (and talking) and thus this stride is tenuous.

When rain's coming, I slow down and nurse my weak bones a bit. My walk

may entice you today, but sure as sugar, I'll be hobbling on a rickety

crutch with an ankle swollen up like a shoe box tomorrow.

Please don't say you fell for my eyes or that they 'spoke' to you. That's

the worst mistake you can make. My eyes make up stories and answer

with lies. Are they green? Are they hazel? Someone even said they were

gray once! They can't be trusted, not even with their color.

I wouldn't even look at them if I were you.

That "whole package" thing you're searching for? It's not here.

Just warning you.

That Is Why

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:11:17 -0500

I didn't wash my hair when we met for the last time.

You reasoned that a final goodbye in person would

somehow make me feel better (it didn't). You were so

happy there in that college town coffee shop, telling me

about your new fiancée. Somewhere in my mind I knew if

I brought everything I had for you, hair, eyes, smile, words,

heart, and you still said goodbye you would take a

part of me with you, stuffed there in your backpack.

That is why I didn't wash my hair.

When I thought of dying every day and came close

but not close enough to crafting a plan, I didn't take

medication that might keep the death thoughts outside

and buried in the snow. I knew if I took the pills of last resort

that season and they didn't work, there would be no hope in

my back pocket for a season when I did form a plan.

That is why I didn't take the pills.

When I fell in love with a poet and he handed me a poem

("Gold") typed on a clean sheet of white paper, I trusted

his love and talent. When I asked, "You wrote this for me?"

and he shrugged his shoulders, I thought him modest.

When I found out it wasn't his poem at all, I never

kissed him again with intention. (If only he hadn't shrugged.)

That is why I shy away when someone hands me a gift of words.

But when you asked me if I wanted to know you, even the

secrets that shame you, I knew to nod, take your hand,

and walk with you to the place only you visit, where you

stumble across your words, and keep your eyes down.

Once when I told someone what I fear most

they told me I was foolish and selfish for my ideas.

(Certainly, I saw the accuracy of their words.)

That is why I know to hold your hand, travel along with you,

and learn your story with an open heart, made new for you.

GOLD by Donald Hall

Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your thighs and your back.
We slept and woke
entering the golden room together,
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years,
shining and whole.

I Can't Remember It

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:11:30 -0500

I can't remember it, that

feeling of a hand in mine.

It makes a comfort that

reaches in. A heart responds,

a scar heals, a layer

gives way.

Once I saw a hand leave the steering

wheel to find my hand in my lap.

I watched as that hand took mine

and wrapped around it like a blanket

swaddling a baby. The knuckles

went soft, the power curved over.

And once, making love in a

position unromantic and lewd,

I felt a hand take mine and firmly

caress a new truth into my palm.

We Could Have Been Good Friends

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 20:11:40 -0500

for Erika

Your husband walked in with your children's

hands in his, their pace swift, as if he had to

force himself to enter, pass all of us,

and take their seats there in the front. A

mission that defined solitude.

Your son wore his red jersey, his young teammates

scattered among all of us. Your small daughter

smiled when she saw the big photos of you near the altar.

Your sister, as beautiful as the best friend she lost,

came in with her husband, his forearm held out

for her to grasp and lean upon. I don't think she

walked as much as he gently carried her.

Your parents nearly staggered in. Your father looked smaller

than his true size as he braced your mother and her mother.

Both women so lost in sorrow and tears, I feared they would fall.

When your father asked us to sing "You Are My Sunshine"

I tried, hoping my clutched throat might open enough

to sing smoothly with the voices emerging next to me.

At times the grief in the large church felt so oppressive

I resisted the urge to escape. Thankful for the substantial

windows, I studied the leaves swirling in the wind outside.

The pastor kept saying you were not dead, you were alive,

you were not gone, you hadn’t really left us at all.

The voices sang soundly, "How great thou art."

Those leaves, the wind. Those are what I trust today.

This Will Change Your Life. Just a Little Bit

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 12:11:19 -0500

Every few weeks she leads me to the back room of the

salon. I relax into the recliner and close my eyes, ready

for what she will give, a little pleasure, a little pain.

She heats my brow with the hot melted wax letting

it sit for a few seconds before she presses down the cloth

strip and quickly tears out the delinquent strands.

I've come to crave both sensations, the caress of the heat

and the ripping and pulling, hard and fast, of the hair.

She discourages flinching. I may wince in my mind, but never in

her chair.

Last week as she sat behind me, she said my first name softly,

as if she might ask me a personal favor or question. Then she said,

"I want to change your life. Just a little bit. A little. Will you let me?"

She held a mirror to my face and pointed to my brow's arch.

"See? See this? Here. Here is where I want it to go up more. A little bit

more. This will change your life. Just a little bit. I will heighten the arch."

The area of her focus is my weak spot, I know it well, intimately;

the place where I secretly pull a few hairs between waxings.

We've been through this before - she instructs me not to pluck and I

oh-so-discreetly use my tweezers at home. At the next visit

she tsks her disapproval. "You should wait for appointment. Wait for

me. You don't know how. You don’t know what I know, what I see."

For the few years I have gone to her, we've struggled with

a communication barrier, not because Vietnamese is her first language

and English is my one and only, but because of what I call the

'beauty barrier'. I don't really know what treatments to ask for

and she has given up offering me new ones. I don’t speak ‘beauty’.

Other women go to the back room for things I can't even name.

This day though, she studied my arch. She touched my arm when

she said, “Your life. Just a little change. Yes? Will you let me

do this? Asian and Japanese cultures say this will give your life a little

change. Like feng shui. You know feng shui? I will do feng shui with

your arch. You need change in your life, yes? Just a little bit. I do this for

you. Please, you let me."

"Yes. I trust you. I like a little change, too," I said.