Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Wild about my wild gray hair!


What a treat! A few nights ago, exhausted from an extended day trip to hike around Dinosaur National Monument (the Colorado side; the hardly-any-people-there-because-there-are-no-dinosaurs-there side), I didn’t even bother combing out my clean wet hair after a very long hot shower before my head hit the pillow.

I knew I’d have to rewet my hair in the morning anyway; to add the normal dose of product to help poof-out my straight fine hair, turning my head upside down hoping to give it even more poof as I blow it dry.

All of that is pointless of course because all that poofed hair is again straight and fine and just hanging there “strangy” as my Granny called it, within 10 minutes of leaving the house. “Baby, your hehr is already strangy; and I just brushed it. Good heavens. Glenna Mae!” Granny would call to my mother in the other room. “Why is this child’s hehr so strangy? What kinda shampoo er you using on her hehr?”

Decades later and I still have a problem with strangy hehr. So you can imagine my surprise -- and sheer delight -- when the next morning, after sleeping on clean wet hair without combing it out or adding poofing product, I sleepily glanced at the mirror and saw… poofed hair! Impossible. I splashed some cool water on my face and looked again. Poofed hair; poofed hair! How is that possible? I had poofed hair. No product. No blowdryer.

The next night, I tried it again. Could it have been a fluke? Next morning, poofed hair again! But something caught my eye. Silver. Wild, wavy. Another one. And another. They were poking out through all the dark brown like familiar strangers. Not a straight gray one among them. All wild and wavy and silver in the light. The gray ones were causing the natural poof, which lasted all day, mind you.

My old routine of wash, add poofing product, and blowdry upside down was taming those otherwise wild gray hairs that seemed to come out of nowhere. I am quite just too pleased about this moment of discovery.

What a terrific and unexpected life cycle treat! Straight fine dark “strangy” hair my whole life. To realize suddenly that I’m transitioning to wavy thick silver hair is just too cool. And I don’t have to do anything. Nothing. No product, no blowdryer, no wet comb-out, nothin’. Brush when dry. Wavy hair; I’m going to have wild wavy hair. And that means I will be able to have those cool haircuts that I could never have because they’re for poofier hair. A whole new look; how fun!