Anniversaries

     Friday, May 7, marks one year since Mike died. (See post, "Last Days," on May 14, 2020.)  My heart is heavy to think about this past year without him, but, of course, those are the kinds of thoughts the date educes—the year without him, our six years together, and the tenderness and sorrow of the last three weeks of his life. To read the posts about those last days brings tears to my eyes.

    The anniversary of his death comes only eleven days before the anniversary of our wedding, which would be our second, so memories of that wonderful occasion pile on top of all the others. Yesterday, since I am fully vaccinated, I had my hair cut at last, and in a fit of sentimentality thought maybe I would dye my hair purple, the way it was at our wedding, as a way to honor Mike and recall  those good times. I wasn't sure about doing it—it could also make me too sad—but in a burst of courage I asked the hairdresser to do it.

Mike meeting me after my canoe ride down the
Applegate River. Note the purple hair.

    Unfortunately this wasn't the same hairdresser who had dyed my hair for the wedding. That was Dianne Knapp, who had been cutting my hair for years and was a good friend and knew exactly what I wanted and what looked best on me. I was sad to lose her last summer when she died of breast cancer. I had lost a friend, but I had also lost a very good hairdresser.

    To find a new hairdresser, I just looked online, read reviews, and picked one blindly.

    The haircut is all right. Not stunning, but it'll do, I guess, and I am very glad not to be looking so shaggy any more and to get the hair out of my eyes. (Dianne could do better.) I told the beautician I wanted purple in my hair as it had been at my wedding. I showed her a picture, like the one above, and told her I wanted that color, applied like that. 

    What I got has knocked all the sentimentality out of me. The color is all wrong. What Dianne did was draw a dark lavender through the front strands of my hair. What the new hairdresser did is pink-purple: too bright, too pink, and too broadly applied.

Intolerable. I should be scowling.

 I dislike it intensely. Mike would laugh, and that would make me laugh, too. I smile to think about it. The hair is all wrong, but it is what it is, as with Mike's passing. The little things, like the big, must be accepted. 

Trying to make it acceptable