Most of my life my mother wore her hair up. Then, in the 1970’s, perhaps inspired by Nancy Reagan, but who’s to say, my mother went “short.” This hairdo lasted briefly and began to grow into a length that could once again be “put up.” During this period there were “falls” and fake hair to add to the zest of the style.
My mother became an aficionado of what my sister and I called THE HELMET. Hair spray and regular appointments with a Hispanic hairdresser ensured that her hair would not move, look a bit like Margaret Thatcher and remain fairly carefree if one slept in a special net. Bobby pins were always somewhere in the nest that was my mom’s hair.
When my mother passed away, she left me an article that she had once read. It was about death and memory. It said that I should think of my mother whenever I saw a particular bird. I have done that with the white fairy terns that fly around Hawaii. When there are two I think of both my parents.
There is something else that resonates deeper. I have found bobbie pins around the world. In Japan, China, Britain, and the U.S. I always seem to find a bobbie pin when I travel. It’s a pretty random thing to look down at a sidewalk and see one. But I find them with regularity…Kyoto, Beijing, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and recently, in the place where I will eventually live, I found four. One was on top of Lava Butte and another on Pilot Butte. Two more were found on the streets of Bend, Oregon.
It may be that “Oregonads” (as my husband calls them) use more bobbie pins than the average world population. But I choose to believe that they are a message saying that I’ve made a good choice for the future.
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