Jury duty update: Seated as Juror #9 yesterday, I was flicked by the Prosecution today during one of their preemptory challenges. And I'm certain my answer in the affirmative when asked if I thought some drugs should be legalized had nothing whatsoever to do with it. "The truth shall set you free" indeed.
I'm almost as mental about my hair as I am about my weight. I don't have Good Hair. I have baby fine, thin, straight hair that grows about 1 inch per year. When I was young, of all the fairy tale heroines, the one I most wanted to be was Rapunzel. I yearned for long hair that I could wear in two braids, Indian style.
(With 20/20 hindsight, I'm glad I didn't look like a brunette version of this in all of our family snapshots!)But my mother wanted no part of dealing with tangles and snarls and claimed that my hair would look "stringy" if long. So my sister and I had short, short hair throughout our childhoods, which I still blame for never being chosen to be in school plays. Between the ages of 14 and 30, I've grown my hair out to shoulder length or a little longer probably half a dozen times. And in recent years, have gone through growing the layers out until it gets to about chin length. Yet I always end up cutting it short again. My mother was right: it does look stringy.
But it's not just that. I feel more like...me with a short, layered cut. It could be it's just what I'm more accustomed to, but I don't think it's just that. There's something very liberating about short hair, and not just the 20-seconds-blow-dry-and-you're-done aspect. Short hair feels more free than my long hippie tresses ever did. Short hair on a woman is a thumbed nose to conventional beauty, an unfettered ride in a red convertible.
And I've just gone quite short again. Jean Seberg in "À bout de souffle" short. (Except red.)
sounds like a great cut -- how red? is that new?
ReplyDeleteI haven't gone really short for years and didn't find it a flattering length last time I tried. But you're right about it being statement-making and powerful -- I miss that.
Had mine (short) trimmed just yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI too, am glad you didn't look like the bad seed in old family photos.
materfamilias - You have such lovely, curly hair; if I had your hair I'd wear it longer too. I've been varying shades of red, from copper penny to dark auburn (more what it is now) since having my colors done in the mid 80's. Last year's blonde experiment was an aberration.
ReplyDeleteblackbird - in most of my kid pictures I look like an aspiring Louise Brooks with the straight and severe bangs (fringe). Enjoy your short cut!
Short hair rocks. :-)
ReplyDeleteI have coarse, curly, crazy hair. I've tried everything from long(where it ends up in a clumb on the back of my neck)to super short and everything in between. What works for me is about 3 inches long and just hydrated up the wazoo all the time. Then it curls in nice loose non-frizzy waves. Otherwise, I'm Elsa Lancaster in Bride of Frankenstein(and if I don't color, I come complete with the white streak in the front, too).
ReplyDeleteCan we see?
ReplyDeleteIMO the essential for short is style- I mean details (which sounds like you have)and maintenance. (When mine was a garcon cut that was every 3 weeks.)
And gorgeous colour unless one has sublime silver.
That wash and wear 'do with the ears exposed- I'm amazed how many women wear that. My DH calls them "brown wrens."
toby - if I had a grey streak I'd try to find a way to leave it untouched. My greying pattern is the same as both of my parents...interspersed throughout my head.
ReplyDeleteduchesse - let me see if I can get a pic I can live with. :-)
Sorry, Dejz - it makes me look literally as if I've been struck by lightning. I realize that this is probably one of those personal "things"(some people hate their hips; others don't like their chins) - when I don't color my hair, what I've got in the front is this massive white streak with other various shades of grey..with dark iron-grey in the back. I look like my Ukranian great-grandmother - except I still have my teeth. So, I color. It's my one piece of vanity, but I'm sticking with it.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Dejz - it makes me look literally as if I've been struck by lightning. I realize that this is probably one of those personal "things"(some people hate their hips; others don't like their chins) - when I don't color my hair, what I've got in the front is this massive white streak with other various shades of grey..with dark iron-grey in the back. I look like my Ukranian great-grandmother - except I still have my teeth. So, I color. It's my one piece of vanity, but I'm sticking with it.
ReplyDeleteShort hair IS liberating. Miss J loves it.
ReplyDeleteShort hair always seems more polished and sophisticated to me, I love it. My own hair is one hot mess but I at least don't have to look at it.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, having a "Florence Henderson" shag throughout Jr. High and High school, I think I found my "root". But I have to say that I wish I had known the liberation of short hair back in my soccer playing days. I love my hair short, the shorter the better! Less hassle. Except for bed head. Unfortunately, I don't have that red convertible, but I can open all the windows in my truck and not worry about hair in my eyes or having to deal with a snarled mess of tangles. Viva the short hair! Though with my unfortunate wardrobe of plaid, makes me look a tad butch. Oh well. You got the fashion genes, but grandma gave me a broken watch. ; )
ReplyDeletespot - hey, I've seen some women around here who can really rock a more androgynous look. You may not think so, but you've always had such a firm sense of your own style, even as a little kid. You knew almost instinctively what you liked and didn't like. That's Style, sis.
ReplyDeletei always had thick, wavy hair, which was difficult (read timne-consuming for my parents) to manage, with the result that i spent most of my childhood into young adulthood with the "pixie" cut. i hated it. so when i got to college, i grew it out, and tried all the fashionable dues when i turned 21 or so, i got the world's worst haircut (i still shudder to this day) and decided i was never cutting my hair again. with the result that my lovely, chestnut-red hair grew down past my waist, and i loved it. i put flowers in it, ribbons in it, tied it up in gibson-girl style pompadours... then, as i turned 30, came the morning i work up with a small crop of silver hair just above my right temple. i cut my hair right then, because i had sworn at age 14 that i would never ever go through the horrendous ritual of dying my hair, with the attendant touch-ups and colour disasters, as my aunts and mother had. (of course, when i swore that, i had thought that by sheer force of will my hair would never go gray -- and i'd never get wrinkles either. needless to say...)
ReplyDeletewell, here it is years later, my hair is completely silver and very nice, but i'm still fighting to find a flattering hairstyle. i hate the very very short layered hair that so many gray haired women wear... but i don't have the patience for longer hair or blowdrying...
always a dilemma...
I found a blog once (and have lost it since, too many favourites lists, old computer, whatever) that gave two choices. You are either a dog or a cat person, a night owl or an early bird, a long hair or a short hair person, etc. You are obviously a short hair person.
ReplyDelete