I'm cheating on my hairdresser. I thought, perhaps, I'd be able to make it through till Christmas time, when I'll be heading back east for a visit, then I could go uptown to Rosey to have her undo all the damage this desert is inflicting upon my hair. But yesterday, I found a split end that was split into about 14 fibers. Clearly, I cannot go without a haircut for 4 months in the desert! But how could I possibly find someone to take Rosey's place?
I found Rosey 4 years ago. I was working at the Columbia U Bookstore and saw that across the street was a salon. Now, I like my hair. A lot. I am afraid of getting it cut by the wrong person, someone who does not understand the pain an afro can inflict on a white chick going through puberty. All I have wanted, since my waist-length locks were snipped off at age 8 in an attempt to make my mother's life easier (cuz seriously, this hair can be a bitch to take care of), all I have wanted is for my hair to be loooooooooooooong. And I do mean down-to-my-ass long. I want to get lost in my hair. I want to swim in the ocean and rise out of it like Venus, wrapped in nothing but my hair. But curly hair don't grow so easy, and once I got the afro, I was stuck with it for years. Growing out an afro is a lengthy process, and kids are not terribly patient. As it would grow, it gained nothing in length, everything in height. Not cool when you're in elementary school. It wasn't until junior high that my hair finally grew long enough for me to pull it back into an awkward banana-clip mohawk, and it wasn't until high school that my hair finally hit my shoulders when it was dry. I would get it chemically straightened and marvel at how long it was, how it could hit my cheek if I hung upside-down. But the chemicals made it brittle, and it would break and shrink. My hair has gone through many shrinking stages over the years, often when my ingestion of various chemicals would lead to brittle internal breakage. You can probably track my lifestyle choices by looking at the length of my hair in my photo albums. My senior-year-of-college hair was MUCH shorter than my freshman-year-of-college hair, and it had nothing to do with haircuts. But eventually, my lifestyle cleaned up, I traded my bourbon for beet juice and my LSD for Vitamin D, and I figured my hip-length hair would be right around the corner. But no, it would grow, then it would break, and it never got past my shoulder blades. ARGH!
Enter Rosey. I needed a haircut, it was falling out in clumps, so on a lunch break at the bookstore, I headed across the street to the Scott J Aveda salon and asked for someone who was good with curly hair. I got Rosey, a no-nonsense Puerto Rican woman of about 45. I said to her, "I want you to take off as little as possible while getting rid of all the dead stuff." She sat me down, looked my over quizzically, spun me around, and said, "When's the last time you got a haircut?" "I don't know," I answered, "maybe a year." She raised an eyebrow and gave me a most disapproving look, a look that withered me in my seat, then told me, "You want your hair to grow? Well, you need to cut it!" This made no sense to me. When she told me I should be getting a haircut every 3 months, I thought she was crazy. How would my hair EVER grow if I kept cutting it all the time? So I resisted, and waited 5 months, and then I sat in the chair as Rosey scowled and spun me around, then she showed me how much she was cutting off that day, usually about 2 inches. "I told you, you need to come in every 3 months, but you don't listen, so this is what you get." Each time I left, I would vow to return in 3 months time, then hang my head in shame as I walked out the door. It took over a year for me to start taking her advice. Mostly, I think I did it because I was feeling guilty whenever I saw her, like I had somehow let her down. I started going in every 3 months, and each time she would take off a little less than the visit before. But there was always something I wasn't doing right. One day she was brushing my hair, and her scowl made it clear that I had screwed up. "You don't brush your hair," she said. It was true. For years, I hadn't brushed my hair. Brushing made it so BIG, it took all the shape out of it and made it look like a bush. "You know how I know you don't brush your hair?" I lowered my chin and shook my head, knowing she would somehow put me in my place. And she did. She lifted up her hand, which was absolutely covered with my hair. "You don't brush it, your hair falls out. Your scalp is like any other part of your body, it needs love! You gotta brush it to massage it, to stimulate it, you don't brush it and it don't get stimulated and all your hair falls out." Again, didn't really make sense to me, but I did not like to displease Rosey, so I bought a paddle brush that day. And sure enough, when I went back to see her 3 months later, she brushed and brushed my hair with an unreadable look on her face, until finally there was a hint of a grin on one corner of her mouth. "You been brushing, haven't you?" I shyly nodded. "See, what I tell you? You brush your hair, it don't fall out. And look, today, I'm taking off not even an inch." I now found myself leaving the salon with a sense of pride. I had done right by Rosey, and I felt rewarded by her approval. It took 4 years, and much scolding on Rosey's part, but my hair is now the longest it's been since the days before the afro. And I love it. And I love Rosey. You can imagine how hard it was for me to say goodbye to her on my last visit in July. I told her I was moving to the desert, and immediately she looked at my hair and said, "Uh oh." Yeah, big time. She gave me some products to use to try to keep my locks lubed and told me to condition, condition, condition. And I have, oh have I conditioned.
It hasn't helped. Or maybe it has. But this desert has been kicking my ass, and my hair was feeling like straw. How would I possibly find someone in Vegas that I could trust with my hair? I decided to search out an Aveda salon, as I like a lot of their products. Turns out, there's a place just next to the Palms, less than a half-mile from my apartment. I stopped by yesterday to check it out, seemed safe, so I made an appointment for today, with "someone who's good with curly hair." That someone turned out to be Tesha. And Tesha...well, I feel bad admitting it, but I really liked her. Perhaps even more than Rosey. I know, I know, it's too soon to really know, I mean, we just met, this is all happening so quickly. But she snipped and trimmed and took off probably about 2 inches but it still looks long and it feels great and she was nice to boot, in fact everyone in the salon was nice, we talked about New York and different places we've all lived and yada yada...It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the salon. I was complimented highly on my hair (which I get in salons a lot, my hair is a wet-dream for some stylists) and on my skin (when I revealed my secret of "I sleep with Vaseline on my face when it's really dry and I wake up with perfect skin", I thought the receptionist might have smacked me then and there. I do have good skin. Thanks, mom). It was a feel-good visit, no head hung in shame, no trauma under the scissors. I now have my salon in Vegas. Happy day. Happier hair.
My dad called me this morning and said, "Guess what? I'm driving past a cemetery, and I'm not in it!" A big thank-you to all the doctors, nurses, orderlies, cafeteria employees, gift shop staff, everyone at Columbia-Presbyterian for taking such good care of my papa.
No comments:
Post a Comment