Fringe

The butcher-shop lady and I agree: a haircut is a powerful thing.

She was blessed (from her father's side, I learned) with beautiful hair: thick and silver with lovely dark undertones and on some days it is a mass of perfect corkscrew curls and other days (like today) blown out soft and straight.

"You've done something different; it quite suits you" she said. I was so pleased. With the compliment, of course. But also with the fact that I live in a neighbourhood where the butcher-shop lady notices when you get your haircut. I was delighted. In fact, all day long I've been delighted with one thing or another. And, while I will admit that I am surely a victim of magical thinking, I believe the haircut is responsible for this change in my weather.

The day itself was overcast and, objectively speaking, quite ordinary. We went to the park in the morning, brunched at the same outdoor cafe as we do everytime, chased Loki across the benches shoving little bites of pancake in his mouth. Made naps. Made coffee. Turned the TV off, turned it back on, turned it off - now this time I mean it. Ate dinner. Baths. Bed.

But there were all these wonderful moments. Like how the man next to us at the cafe was playing this handmade African musical instrument and let Loki try it. And I found this tree in the park that an artist had carved a big bearded face into and Loki and I talked to him, the treeman, for a while and Loki was a little scared of him but touched his beard anyway. And then we found snails all over the leaves and I showed him Queen Anne's Lace, which always reminds me of home for some reason. And we stumbled across a filmset where they had put fake snow all over the ground and so we walked through the snow in the middle of July. Later, at home, when it thunderstormed, we made a fort in the livingroom and read Where the Wild Things Are with a flashlight and then went outside and splashed on the patio and weeded the entire back garden in the rain and found earthworms.

Of course, it all goes back to the haircut (duh.)

Here's what happened. Friday night, Herb was on call and after Lori left to go enjoy childless adulthood, I was on my own with nothing on TV and not sleepy and feeling the dull kindof blueness that I've felt for a while. I was brushing my teeth for bed, having given up on being awake. And then I started to move my hair around a bit. Pushed it over my forehead, held it up here and there. Just before I grabbed the scissors I remember thinking: (1) If I actually pick up the scissors I'll really do it and then I'll be screwed (2) it's only hair, it'll grow back (3) this is really stupid. And then I cut myself a fringe.

In the morning Herb said, "It looks like you just cut a chunk out of your hair over your forehead." Yeah. That's more or less what I did. "You should go get that fixed," he said. So I did. And while the hairdresser explained that this is not how he would have gone about giving me a bang, I must say I am quite pleased with our collaborative effort.

Objectively, I've got the butcher-shop lady and my next door neighbour, Norm, to go on and they both like it. Herb does not. But it doesn't matter. I just needed to look in the mirror and see something different. And that, I think, has helped me see everything else a little differently so that - on an ordinary, rainy Sunday - I found joy all day long.

Tonight's Dinner:

Homemade Pizza (mushrooms, pineapple, Genoa salami, fresh basil)

Oven-baked chicken wings

Salad