Shokufeh is... home

New hair

I'm a bit embarrassed - here I am, finally posting a picture from Pilgrimage. But for the purposes of a "before" picture. Ignore that for a moment, and admire the olive tree grove of Bahji in the background. So lovely.

Okay, moving on. Here's the "after."

Yep, quite a change. I've been wanting to go back to short hair for a while, but was waiting, for a bit of a goofy reason - I figure that there aren't that many events in adult life that are well documented, but that Pilgrimage would qualify. And for my wedding I had short hair. And I didn't want our kids to click/flip through our picture albums and think their mother always had short hair. So I waited. Like I said, goofy reason.

I never did write about my hair frustrations, but I guess I should write a few sentences about it. I have hair that reflects neither of my heritages - it's thin, fine, no longer as wavy or curly as it once was (my teens to early 20s), nor as straight as it once was (until I hit puberty). Once in a while I hit upon a good cut for it in its longer state, but it took me a while here. It's hard having hair like mine on an island where most people have long, thick, straight hair. Or if they don't, that's what they want. Some months ago, I went to get a cut, and I could just tell that not only was I disappointed with the cut, the hairdresser was too. But it's because when I asked her to enhance its waviness, she seemed to think that she played no role in that. She didn't layer it enough, and then applied some strange alcohol-based product, stuck me under a dryer, and then did these weird smoothing motions with her hands. And then giggled nervously, saying, "Well, maybe it'll get a little wavy later." Ugh. But then I found someone that could cut my hair in a way to play up my waves, and I liked my hair again. Which allowed me to cut it. Because I didn't want to cut it out of hate. I wanted to cut it short again because it suits me.