Vanity

I flipped through the images once more for good measure before shutting down the screen. The day before saw the same activity. This time it led to action without any sense of certainty. (Again with the tendency to stand on the edge of a cliff mesmerized by the view for an indeterminate time--- only to haul off and leap without warning.) Spinning the chair to launch across the study and through the doors to speed up the stairs only to stop and stand staring in the large mirror over the bathroom vanity. The cats cruised in to investigate, but the lack of motion as I considered the top of my face and head failed to hold their feline interest beyond a questioning meow from Bad Bella.

As the felines wandered away, all of my hair was pulled into a twisted rope that stretched toward the ceiling with one hand. The other hand dipped in clipping away an inch to refresh the usual choppy layers. Thus freed from the uncertainty over the next step, the renewed layers were quickly secured in an elastic loop. Well, almost all of the layers. A deep patch of hair at the very front that refused to hang forward after a decade of being swept back remained. Wetting the uncooperative strands, the patch was sorted into hair to protect from the scissor's predations with the pony tail, and hair flopping forward well below my chin. Finally giving up on the single-handed achievement of a straight part at the top, reinforcements were called in to help.

Middle Child was a bit incredulous. To prove my intent (after she straightened the desired part in the hair), the scissors flashed bringing the floppy front hair to lip level five inches of hair sheared away in an unspoken commitment to the course set. Wetting the hair over my face, I twisted the hair into sections again and clipped. Middle Child stared. The remaining hair was held between two fingers and the edge cut straight across. Erin joined her sister. They both stared at me. I stared at the reflection.

It is definitely a change, but Middle Child pointed out that I look very much like the old pictures she has seen that predate her. The girls also think there is something familiar, but they cannot figure out who it is that Mom looks like with this new hairdo. (Maybe... ah... Mom? Only with bangs.) It's possible that I look like the screen images of people with facial shapes and features similar enough to my own to convince me to take the leap to experiment a little despite the usual resistance to such change. Then again, probably not since I ended up with blunt bangs rather than the less-defined, longer fringe intended.