There's something to be said for starting over. For being, at 40, an absolute beginner. I've always thought that it's useful to have the experience of being an only: the only woman in a room full of men; the only white person at an event attended by an otherwise all-black audience; the only something, somewhere. Suddenly becoming a minority has the effect of making you understand a little those who live their lives as minorities. Starting over feels analogous to that: being a beginner makes me remember all the other times I was ever finding my way through something new, makes me admire & appreciate the people who have mastered the skills I'm learning now, has me looking forward to the day when I feel equal to whatever task might be set before me. Not, however, imagining a day when *poof* I'm all done learning! Because I hope & imagine that that day never comes.
We're not the new ones out on the floor anymore: the next class has just come out of the classroom. So we've been moved along the wall to our new stations. It's a point of pride to not be on the first wall anymore, a point that only the students know, not the clients. I have a station with more than twice the storage space of my old one, so now each day does not end doing a puzzle called Fit All These Oddly-Shaped Items Into This Very Cramped Cabinet. It was awful. If I got something wrong, sometimes I had to pull it all out & start over. Like a Rubik's Cube, only less fun. And I never liked Rubik's Cubes, so I didn't think they were very fun in the first place. But at least I never had to try to do one down on my knees in bits of cut hair.
I still feel like a stranger in a strange land, when the people around me talk about how prohibitively expensive taxidermy is or how many tanning minutes they have left or how they wish they'd gotten a wedding dress with camouflage on it (I swear I am not making any of this up). I am in the minority here & how. But I find that it doesn't matter as much as it might. I have my little group of friends: Amber, Mercedes, Michelle, & (you all saw this coming, right?) Sunshine. We eat lunch together, study together, sit together during class. Our stations all used to be very close together & mostly they still are, except Sunshine is way up front away from the rest of us. She waves sadly sometimes & we all wave back. We're a funny group, a mishmash: Mercedes is the youngest, she's 20, but by far the most steady & mature. And also possibly the most skilled of all of us. She's a tall, sturdy black girl with amazing cheekbones, a truly radiant smile, & the biggest most fabulous head of natural hair you have ever seen. Amber is 25, tall & skinny, a pretty tomboy with two kids & a part-time job a Food Lion. She's my closest friend there & I truly adore her. She's also impossibly goofy. She & Mercedes are what make my days. And the two of them together are hilarious, like an improbable sitcom. Michelle is 23, angel-faced & blonde, with a five year old daughter. She's funny & smarter than you'd think at first. Possibly the prettiest girl in the school, she & I are always being given men's haircuts to do, to the point where it's a joke between us. I always imagine the men, mostly old timers who appreciate the $6 price of our haircuts, are elated when they see her coming to get them. And Sunshine, well now, Sunshine: she's 34, very tan, the mother of two teenage girls. She's from Tennessee & her accent is like nothing I've ever heard. She's tough & loyal & funny & she knows how to work hard & hustle a little if needed (she has business cards she gives out, so people can ask for her again, though her name is pretty easy to remember without a card). I feel pretty certain that if someone said anything against me or tried to do wrong by me, these girls would be right there if I needed them. Certainly Mercedes & especially Amber have been there for me when I had some truly rotten days. So while I'll never feel like I fit in, I have what I need: people who I like, who like me, with whom I pass the time & share my days.
(That photo at the top is totally unrelated to anything in this post: it's just an updo that I did on my mannequin & liked enough to take a picture of.)
We're not the new ones out on the floor anymore: the next class has just come out of the classroom. So we've been moved along the wall to our new stations. It's a point of pride to not be on the first wall anymore, a point that only the students know, not the clients. I have a station with more than twice the storage space of my old one, so now each day does not end doing a puzzle called Fit All These Oddly-Shaped Items Into This Very Cramped Cabinet. It was awful. If I got something wrong, sometimes I had to pull it all out & start over. Like a Rubik's Cube, only less fun. And I never liked Rubik's Cubes, so I didn't think they were very fun in the first place. But at least I never had to try to do one down on my knees in bits of cut hair.
I still feel like a stranger in a strange land, when the people around me talk about how prohibitively expensive taxidermy is or how many tanning minutes they have left or how they wish they'd gotten a wedding dress with camouflage on it (I swear I am not making any of this up). I am in the minority here & how. But I find that it doesn't matter as much as it might. I have my little group of friends: Amber, Mercedes, Michelle, & (you all saw this coming, right?) Sunshine. We eat lunch together, study together, sit together during class. Our stations all used to be very close together & mostly they still are, except Sunshine is way up front away from the rest of us. She waves sadly sometimes & we all wave back. We're a funny group, a mishmash: Mercedes is the youngest, she's 20, but by far the most steady & mature. And also possibly the most skilled of all of us. She's a tall, sturdy black girl with amazing cheekbones, a truly radiant smile, & the biggest most fabulous head of natural hair you have ever seen. Amber is 25, tall & skinny, a pretty tomboy with two kids & a part-time job a Food Lion. She's my closest friend there & I truly adore her. She's also impossibly goofy. She & Mercedes are what make my days. And the two of them together are hilarious, like an improbable sitcom. Michelle is 23, angel-faced & blonde, with a five year old daughter. She's funny & smarter than you'd think at first. Possibly the prettiest girl in the school, she & I are always being given men's haircuts to do, to the point where it's a joke between us. I always imagine the men, mostly old timers who appreciate the $6 price of our haircuts, are elated when they see her coming to get them. And Sunshine, well now, Sunshine: she's 34, very tan, the mother of two teenage girls. She's from Tennessee & her accent is like nothing I've ever heard. She's tough & loyal & funny & she knows how to work hard & hustle a little if needed (she has business cards she gives out, so people can ask for her again, though her name is pretty easy to remember without a card). I feel pretty certain that if someone said anything against me or tried to do wrong by me, these girls would be right there if I needed them. Certainly Mercedes & especially Amber have been there for me when I had some truly rotten days. So while I'll never feel like I fit in, I have what I need: people who I like, who like me, with whom I pass the time & share my days.
(That photo at the top is totally unrelated to anything in this post: it's just an updo that I did on my mannequin & liked enough to take a picture of.)
Wonderful. Nice labels, too.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your posts! I will say that I'm attempting another salon next week hoping to find the 'right' one, and as I was looking I was thinking...I'll sure be glad when Xtina is done so I can go to her! So...done yet? what about now?
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