Just got back into town and saw the prompt for Sunday Scribblings. I colored my hair recently and thought about my mother. She went to the hair salon each week until too sick, she had someone come to her.
This is a revised poem.
Mother’s dark hair
Up in a French twist
Practical easy care
Her weekly ritual
Beauty parlour on Main Street
Big eyelids for awnings and
Alien head ladies in a row
Drying hair, gossiping, taking a break.
Mother, French twist lady
Practical easy care
No daily primping needed
For the nurse who tended others
Looked up one day
Watch a platinum short hair
Woman descend stairs
Mom? “needed a change”
I do my own hair
Wonder about her weekly ritual
Fingers plying the hair, tending her
A modest practical respite.
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8 comments:
How we remember each tiny detail about our parents rituals..
Somehow it made me sad.
My mom just recently lost her hair to chemo for the second time. Those drastic chances in our parents are hard to adjust to sometimes.
Big eyelids for awnings. Awesome memory, great poem.
This reminds me of my grandmother's day when they went to the hairdresser once a week. Everything was so much more polished and "done" back then. A lovely memory of your mom's ritual - and ultimately craving a change!
Great tight little poem... well done!
"Alien head ladies in a row" this is exactly as I remember it in my mothers shop all those years ago! I just can't get over the only washing your hair once a week...ewww. They all did it and it fed our family! Well done!
Peace Giggles
Great post! Terrific poem! Such specific and vivid details. So evocative. I remember Mother's long dark hair too, but she did her own, except when it occasionally needed to be cut---we lived too far out of town to visit the salon regularly. Mama wore hers in a smooth rounded bun on the top of her head. Eventually she, too, tried a shorter style. I remember really finding it attractive on her, but she eventually went back to the long hair style. Her older sister wore that same style until her death at 99 years old, and I believe Aunt Audrey was still doing her own hair right up until the end.
My mother kept her silvery white hair impossibly short but it looked wonderful on her.
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