A Bad Haircut
Its amazing how the simplest things in life can completely level us.
No matter that I daily interact with some of the most powerful folks in our government, or have cracked jokes in the office of the Consulate General of Japan, or made my way through foreign lands in which I couldn't translate the most basic of human needs.
No, apparently, none of those scenarios hold a candle to getting a bad haircut in your home country, half a block from where you live.
At the end of an otherwise marvelous Columbus Day, I swung into Bubbles, the hair salon recommended by friends, in close proximity to my current digs (Thompson Markward Hall- a women's dormitory).
It was a risk, a risk I wasn't sure I was even willing to take till I found myself wrapped in a cloak and seated at the sink, ready for a shampoo.
Darryl was a jovial fellow- kept me in stitches with his hair-rescue stories, declaring he wanted to follow some women home and rid their house of every pair of scissors, to keep them from trimming their own bangs!
"Then they come to me and say, 'Fix it'.
Time's the only thing that can help you now.
I can't do anything to fix it."
I laughed at the tales, not fully recognizing the truth of it in the moment.
I was in and out in about 15 minutes and immediately suffering Hair-cuttee's remorse.
I looked like a bush, a bush that desperately needed trimming.
But I had told Darryl what I needed; and he seemed to know what to do.
Yet the result seemed disastrous.
Well, not quite disastrous, but certainly not beautiful.
I wallowed in my self-pity for the next half hour before finally marching myself back down the block, up the steps and into Bubbles for the second time that evening.
Darryl was gone and would be gone the next day as well.
So I scheduled a "Redo" session with Ginger, the competent appearing woman to Darryl's immediate right.
I felt certain I would have been better off going with her from the start.
Tomorrow turned into today and by evening I found myself once again cloaked and explaining my hair trauma to the astute Ginger.
She took her time doing her "investigative work" only to finally and firmly conclude that I had in fact received a very good cut.
My hair just needed to grow.
Cutting any more would only exacerbate the problem.
In the words of Darryl, "Time's the only thing that can help you now".
It has come to my attention that I am an impatient being.
Not in a humorous way, nor a 21st century, "Why won't my computer go to the next web-page more quickly?" kind of way.
I am not patient.
And as I read only this morning, but all day failed to understand, Love is.
Love is patient.
Even now I struggle to leave it just at that- Love is patient.
There are seasons of sowing and seasons of reaping, seasons of allowing the earth to lie fallow. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest . . . and a time to wait in between the two.
Living in the city, in a dorm, no less, where my meals are prepared and served and the ties to agriculture virtually obliterated to my human eye, I don't see a lot of growing these days, at least not in the fields.
In truth, about the only thing I'm waiting to grow is my hair, and we see what a struggle I've encountered to embrace that truth.
What appeared a grand misfortune, a risk gone ary, even a possible injustice, was, in fact, a pruning of sorts.
My eyes saw a "bad haircut" and my heart would not accept it, till I learned the truth.
Time's the only thing that can help sometimes and Love is patient.
I pray Love is patient with me as I learn to make room for time.
No matter that I daily interact with some of the most powerful folks in our government, or have cracked jokes in the office of the Consulate General of Japan, or made my way through foreign lands in which I couldn't translate the most basic of human needs.
No, apparently, none of those scenarios hold a candle to getting a bad haircut in your home country, half a block from where you live.
At the end of an otherwise marvelous Columbus Day, I swung into Bubbles, the hair salon recommended by friends, in close proximity to my current digs (Thompson Markward Hall- a women's dormitory).
It was a risk, a risk I wasn't sure I was even willing to take till I found myself wrapped in a cloak and seated at the sink, ready for a shampoo.
Darryl was a jovial fellow- kept me in stitches with his hair-rescue stories, declaring he wanted to follow some women home and rid their house of every pair of scissors, to keep them from trimming their own bangs!
"Then they come to me and say, 'Fix it'.
Time's the only thing that can help you now.
I can't do anything to fix it."
I laughed at the tales, not fully recognizing the truth of it in the moment.
I was in and out in about 15 minutes and immediately suffering Hair-cuttee's remorse.
I looked like a bush, a bush that desperately needed trimming.
But I had told Darryl what I needed; and he seemed to know what to do.
Yet the result seemed disastrous.
Well, not quite disastrous, but certainly not beautiful.
I wallowed in my self-pity for the next half hour before finally marching myself back down the block, up the steps and into Bubbles for the second time that evening.
Darryl was gone and would be gone the next day as well.
So I scheduled a "Redo" session with Ginger, the competent appearing woman to Darryl's immediate right.
I felt certain I would have been better off going with her from the start.
Tomorrow turned into today and by evening I found myself once again cloaked and explaining my hair trauma to the astute Ginger.
She took her time doing her "investigative work" only to finally and firmly conclude that I had in fact received a very good cut.
My hair just needed to grow.
Cutting any more would only exacerbate the problem.
In the words of Darryl, "Time's the only thing that can help you now".
It has come to my attention that I am an impatient being.
Not in a humorous way, nor a 21st century, "Why won't my computer go to the next web-page more quickly?" kind of way.
I am not patient.
And as I read only this morning, but all day failed to understand, Love is.
Love is patient.
Even now I struggle to leave it just at that- Love is patient.
There are seasons of sowing and seasons of reaping, seasons of allowing the earth to lie fallow. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest . . . and a time to wait in between the two.
Living in the city, in a dorm, no less, where my meals are prepared and served and the ties to agriculture virtually obliterated to my human eye, I don't see a lot of growing these days, at least not in the fields.
In truth, about the only thing I'm waiting to grow is my hair, and we see what a struggle I've encountered to embrace that truth.
What appeared a grand misfortune, a risk gone ary, even a possible injustice, was, in fact, a pruning of sorts.
My eyes saw a "bad haircut" and my heart would not accept it, till I learned the truth.
Time's the only thing that can help sometimes and Love is patient.
I pray Love is patient with me as I learn to make room for time.
posted by Catherine's Blog at 4:52 PM
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