Long Hair and Wtichy Women

FASHION & STYLE | October 24, 2010
The Mirror: Why Can't Middle-Aged Women Have Long Hair?
By DOMINIQUE BROWNING
At a certain age, cutting your hair is considered the appropriate thing to do, as if being shorn is a way of releasing oneself from the locks of the past.

One commenter said they think that long gray or white hair looks "witchy" on women - maybe this was a guy? What does this mean? That they are powerful, mysterious, dangerous or??? More power to the witchy women!

This NY Times article now has 1266 comments (the most I have ever seen on there, they usually cut comments off way before this point), so it seems like everyone has something to say about this. It was interesting to read the comments made about women it the family and hair as something beautiful and something that many people had fond memories of. How their hair was a big part of collective memory and individual identity.

Well, I have long hair because that is what feels the best to me. My mom was always hounding me to "get a hair style" after I turned about 35. I did have it cut a jaw length and wore it that way for a few years, but after I went to Jamaica when I was 43. After that I just let it grow and it is halfway down my back. Too bad that my hair is thin as it is, but tho I am an "older woman" I am lucky that it hasn't gotten thinner as many people commented on in the article, and now needs a bit of a trim now. My friends cut my hair which only takes a couple of minutes and after it is trimmed a few inches there is just a few tablespoons of hair.

I started coloring my hair in the 60's. I was a teenager then when we lived in California and I wanted to be a "real" California girl. I used "sun in" which you just spritz on. It has always worked well for me and is fast, cheap and easy. Since I was a blonde as a kid that type of coloring worked fine and looks pretty natural (or at least I think it does).

In the 50's the "pixie" hair cut was just the "thing" and my mom made my sister and I get one. I cried and didn't want my hair to be cut. I could take care of it myself and I tried to talk her out of it. No dice. But I did win honorable mention in a "Cute Kid" photo contest due to that hair cut - that and my chubby round face and pixie smile to match.

The last 3 years I stopped coloring my hair, but I am going to color it again in December. I did it last June for Isaac and Angie's wedding. Sister Chris was commenting on it - repeatedly. She goes to some stylist due to her thin hair and has spent a lot on color and cuts, but that era is coming to an end since she is retired and doesn't have that much to spend on what I would call a luxury. I used Garnier "natural (honey) blonde" shampoo-in color and it said that the color would wash out in 4 weeks. It never did...hmmmm.

In Jamaica fair hair is prized, as it is in Turkey, thus so MANY bottled blondes there. But when they see someone that they suspect has natural blonde hair that is really something to stare at. (Staring is considered "normal" there.) What they expect is "true" blond is apparently truly "exotic"...

At the Willy St Fair in September I saw so much beautiful blonde hair on women (probably 90% of it colored) that was shining in the sun. I decided I would do it again this winter before my trip to Jamaica. I am going to try to avoid my white forelock, which I love. It was one reason not to color my hair recently since my hair is now such a dark "ash blonde" and there is a good contrast that makes it more noticeable. In my 20's a friend's mom had a white forelock that I thought was so cool. I didn't think I would "get one" as neither of my parents had one, so was very happy when that came in a few years ago.

Of course women's hair is considered their "crowning glory." And in the late 60's and early 70's my mom grew her hair long - almost down to her waist. She was about 50 at that time. You could see the progression of the gray from top to bottom that was very noticeable as she was a brunette. I have a picture of us out in the garden with me holding out her hair out in a cascade for the photo. I think she got tired of taking care of it after a few years and went back to her shorter hair style. I cut her hair on many occasions. She cut the family's hair on the "old days" and I learned how to do it by watching her and also from watchin stylists cut my hair when I did have a "style." Now I cut my friend Antonio's hair. One year many years, ago, I cut almost five or more family member's in successionhair one Thanksgiving while the turkey was roasting including. The last to be cut was my nephew Isaac's golden locks - he was about 2 and it was his first haircut. He cried the whole time.

Well, let's hear it for the witchy women, and hair as an object of memory, beauty and identity!

"Check out this great MSN Video": Rockettes perform on TODAY

"Check out this great MSN Video": Rockettes perform on TODAY

In Istanbul, Turkey - Spirit of the Wind

On my first night in Istanbul in August a huge wind was coming in from the north west. My bed was right by the big double windows. Of course I was exhausted from the excitement, long flight and time change. I lay there all night facing the widow with the big wind hitting me in the face and pouring over me. Later I found out that in Turkey the wind is a magical force - maybe a god - in the ancient regional cosmology. Rusgar is the name of the wind, ruya means dream and ruhum means spirit in Turkish. I was blessed by the mighty wind on my first night there in Turkey. If you're on a mini bus the covered women don't want a window open with the breeze blowing on them for this reason. In the old days, if a girl got pregnant they said - the wind did it! The Magical Turkish Wind -

Labor Day - L_A_B_O_R - Jobs of Yesteryear...

RE Labor - I worked at Waunakee Canning Co canning corn in late summer of 1970 when I first moved to Madison. I had transferred down to UW-Madison, had been a student at Eau Claire for two years. A school bus picked us up around town and we went 30 min out of town to the Waunakee Canning Factory. My shift was 6 or 7 pm until 1 or 2am. Lunch 30 minutes at 10:30 or 11. My job was standing pulling de-husked corn off the conveyor belt and feeding it into a decerneling machine - zip, zip, zip. I was the relief person, going repeatedly down the row so each woman sequentially could get an 10 minute break. I got a break when I got to the end of our row of about 10 people. The workers in this part of production were all women. Mostly young "kids" and quite a few farm wives. Federal minimum wage, of course - maybe $1.60 hr.(Amazing!) When there was a mechanical problem somewhere production was shut down everyone went up on the roof to relax and enjoy the stars in the cool summer night. Our happy paid breaks lasted from about 20 min to an hour or more. While working on the line I mentally reviewed every life experience I'd had in my 20 years and remembered every dream I could. After 3 weeks, at the point of * mental numbness,* went to lunch then just walked off the job without notice. I couldn't handle * one more minute *. I started hitchhiking back to town and a county policeman picked me up on Highway 113. He said - What are you doing out here? He took me to the Madison city line where a city squad car met us and that cop drove me home to the coop where I lived. I went back a week later to pick up my check that was ordinarily passed out at the end of the shift on payday. So my little brush with labor/factory work was - an education. After that I got a job at Yee's Cafe, one of just two Asian restaurants in town, in the old Capitol Hotel on King St (now a site of a big state office building). It was a big improvement. Business was great and I made good money in tips. Federal/state pay rate for this kind of work was around $.75 an hour for tipped employee, we did get an included meal. ************* After 4 years of working various jobs and not being able to save money for school, the Pell Grants / loans started (in '74) and I was able to go back to school in Jan of '75 with matching grants. I went to school full time and worked 3 part time jobs. One job was school bus driver on the morning shift, did sign painting in the graphics dept of the Memorial Union in the late afternoons (maybe $3.50 an hour) and did life modeling in the Art Dept($7.00 an hour?) where I was also a student. Both were work study jobs. In the summers I got some pick up work waitressing. I went all 3 semesters each year for 5 years total. I took one summer off - in '78 I finished my BS in Art Ed and I went to Europe with my "rich" Jewish boyfriend. We were there for 9 weeks. We travelled around most of western Europe on Eurail passes, did some camping and stayed at penosionies. My backpack was 35 pounds with the sleeping bag. It was a glorious summer and long way from the canning job! I started grad school that fall I finished in two years with one MA and one MFA degree working the same 3+ jobs. Finally a "professional!" I got job teaching art in the fall at McFarland Middle and High School. Was paid the entry level rate (:-( ) because it was a semester long sub job, but I designed and taught the whole art curriculum 7th - 12 grades with 5 classes (100 students) a day... ********** The long and winding road of - W-O-R-K!

A Date With Fate - flash (not quite) fiction

A Date With Fate? As two mid 20-something art students in 1975, we took off to Northern California for winter break. Yes, hitchhiking - the only way to travel. Speeding across Nevada (or was it Wyoming?) on the Interstate Highway we surveyed the stars. A tiny light moved faster than possible in the middle heavens witnessed by two. My first UFO. The driver missed it with his eyes on the road. With pretty good luck, after three days and singing "every song that driver knew" to several kind strangers we finally arrived in Mendocino. Molly, Tom's old girlfriend, and her honey bun were house sitting just outside of town in large furnished redwood home. It had a full-wall stone fireplace and a bank of windows along the length of the house with a view of the Pacific. A spindly catwalk stretched 20 feet from the yard to a rocky out cropping 40 feet above the crashing waves. It was a cool windy day, the sun glinting on the water. A narrow cliffside footpath led in either direction on grassy low hills studded with scrub oak and dwarf cypress trees. We thought we could see the curve of the earth. Pausing to to drink in the view, I stood right on the cliff edge then looked down at mighty waves smashing into the rocks below. A little of the weather-worn sandstone started to give way, and as quick as a cat could wink its eye, it collapsed beneath my feet. Instinctively I grasped a scraggly little cypress tree. Tom grabbed my other arm and pulled me back.

Time To Jump In (Jamaica/Madison, WI)

Time To Jump In by Brandy Larson A white brahma bull stands alone on a high hillside - red earth and tufted green grass. We drive past with meadow and acacia trees on either side. The small fruit stand is next to a rocky outcropping on the edge of the road. Stopping for a cold coconut our vendor deftly hacks off the top of the green husk with a few strikes of his machete and offers a straw - cool and not too sweet - coconut wata. Down to the last drop he wacks the shell in half and we scoop out the jelly lining with a wedge of green husk for a spoon. Food of the Goddess. (Time to turn on the space heater in the basement to prevent the pipes from freezing...). A roadside restaurant trails fragrant smoke. My driver Jefta pulls in and we place our order as we watch the smoke rising from the wood fire coals roasting half jerk chickens. Sitting at a picnic table beneath a thachroof we sip from sweating bottles of ginger beer and Red Stripe. The pretty young woman who took our order calls us up to the tall counter as she chops the roasted meat into irregular pieces with a cleaver, crunch crunch, on a thick round of wood. She has prepared plates with chopped cabbage and carrot salad and a stack of white bread and butter in a basket. We nibble the meat off the bones, eating with our hands. (Put on some layers and insulated boots to brave the morning air. I brush off snow here and there to set out some seeds out mostly for sparrows, my flock of over 30 birds. I put out peanuts in the shell for a couple of crows that have also been hanging around. The suit is frozen, so they can't get at any of the much needed tallow). On the back veranda the sea is visible about 75 yards down our yard and a slope above purple flowering lignum vitae. The narrow path is footworn. A goat enclosure is on the left on the gentler side of the hill. The humble gate is tied closed with a bit of fraying rope. In the morning Miss B (79 and not counting), staff in hand, heads down to let them out to free range for the day. They come up behind her single file with a big nanny in the lead. The kids, many recently born, frisk about exploring, hopping everywhere and butting each other. They are tan and white, spotted tri-colors, some black, some grey and two white ones. Last trip I named her Milk and her kid Milky. Some are smaller African goats suited to this semi arid land, but recently some larger goats have come into the herd, the big nanny produces triplets instead of twins. Up in the yard they drink from buckets and nose around for tossed out kitchen scraps. (Clearing off the snow off the car again. There is a light crust on the top. I check the food I put out for the rabbit and the opossum last night. It has been covered in snow). I walk down the footpath to the bay thinking how long feet have smoothed the way, many bare feet even today. First the Taino people nearly wiped out by disease sometime after Columbus arrived in Jamaica in 1503; the pirates starting around 1655; the Africans, freed in the British Empire by law in 1834, they (the men?) were eligible to vote as of 1838; and more recently the local folks, some descended more than several generations ago from shipwrecked Scottish sailors who stayed, became fishermen with last names of Elliott, Gordon and Strachan, who bought large tracts of land. Billy's Bay, named after a pirate, stretches for a mile to the north ending in tall sedimentary cliffs and below sharp reef rocks above the water level. I wander down the beachfront, one of only a hand full of people, wading knee deep in the surf and plan to go to Frenchman Bay Beach with bigger waves for body surfing and people to hang out with. Pelicans reel and dive for their dinner. I see someone out on the reef with a spear gun, maybe he'll stop by B's later and sell me some fish. (School cancelled again today, on Monday for snow and now for the bitter cold and brutal winds. The weather guy said it's colder here now than in Alaska or even in the Antarctic! Lowest temperature here in 20 years. Even my cat Alsan is getting cabin fever). I'm packing my shoulder bag with journal, book and swim suit. Coated in sunscreen I put on my sunhat. First I'll walk to the bakery (called the coffee shop by the locals) to hang out with some resident tourists and tourists. The bouganvilla riots over barbed wire fences and privacy walls of homes and villas. Tiny lizards dart here and there. There are cacti of many sizes and shapes, huge blue agave plants and flowering poincianas. Later at Frenchman I hope the surf is up. Time to jump in.

A Howling Bad, Howling Good time

A Howling Bad, Howling Good Time by Brandy Larson Nov, 2018 We could see only their little tails scooting back and forth. Half a dozen silky black puppies raced back and forth in the dog run behind the neighbors house. I was eight and allowed to hold them. "Mom, oh Mom, can I have a puppy?" Thrilled, I agreed to all the responsibilities. Owwoooh, Oww-hoooo. The full moon was high up in the summer sky. I cradled Tiny, my little black dog with a white patch on his chest, in my lap on the patio. It was midnight when I heard him. Mom already said, "If The Dog keeps this up we'll have to get rid of him." Howling was bad, comforting him in the silence, stroking his long silky ears, was good. Lying on the lounge chair in my jammies with bare feet was cold. A dog's life in the 50's meant living in the yard. Dad built a big house for my smaller dog. My little brother David liked to wiggle his way into the dog house, something only a boy would do. When we moved across town we tied Tiny up at the new house. When we came back to the new home front with another load of stuff, Tiny had slipped his collar and was gone. It was crying time. Back at he old house for another load - there was Tiny. Oh, happy day. He'd run all the way back to his place of origin. "How did he know how to get back here?" I asked Dad. "The wonder of dogs," he said. When the snow came to Salt Lake City we made a comfy little bed and Tiny was allowed in the utility room at night. A few years later we moved to Northern California with Tiny. A few more years later the economy took a nosedive and we upped stakes to move to the Midwest. It was The Grapes of Wrath in reverse. We sold the piano and the beautiful dining room set and were finally left with a tarp covered trailer of essentials and three kids in an overloaded Nash Rambler station wagon. "There is no room for Tiny," Dad said. "This is a fact of life." We had a big tent. Mom said, "It will be an adventure, camping across the West." It had been a long day on the road. A State Park was our destination. We drove and drove, searching and searching. Well after dark Dad finally pulled off the highway into what looked like an encampment. He conferred with another of the many would be campers hunkered down for the night. Wyoming had optimistically featured the State Park on the map - that had not been developed... "Son of a gun." Exhausted, Dad repeated the famous words of Brigham Young, "This is the Place." He pulled our sleeping bags out of the back of the station wagon. "OK kids, we are roughing it tonight." The ground wasn't too hard as I snuggled into my sleeping bag, staring into the starry Big Sky. "Oww-wooooh, oowoooh," sound travels far in the desert at night. "Yip-yap-yip-yip." Another full moonlit up the sky. The coyotes sang to each other in the wide open spaces, having a good time as only canines can. Tiny's cousins I thought, just before I finally fell asleep. B