Photo #2 of my found hydrangea (plus a little introspection)

I know I just posted about my free hydrangea blooming but I felt I had to show it to you again. The first photo was June 27. Here it is today after lots of rain this week. It”s so beautiful it doesn’t seem real. I am besotted. How does such a color exist??

On June 27 the bloom looked like this. Nice, but clearly not at its peak.

See, I never thought I could have such beautiful things. I know it’s a plant not a thing but it fits a larger theme in my life. Growing up, beauty wasn’t appreciated in my family, not really. The vibe for pretty much everything was good enough. In fact, I think beauty for its own sake would have been, or was, considered suspect, frivolous even. It wasn’t about money but attitude.I had to grow up – in every sense – and embrace beauty, most especially as something I deserve, which has been the hardest part, and is ongoing. Anyway, these are a few of the thoughts I’ve been having, spurred by the presence of my stunning hydrangea, that had been left curbside for dead.

Short Thought 109 (expressions)

(I was thinking about writing this post for the last week and today I (serendipitously) saw a similarly themed post on Vanbytheriver.)

When I was a teenager, I specifically remember reading in a girls’ magazine the recommendation that the reader stop making facial expressions in order to prevent wrinkles later in life. Even then, I was shocked by this “advice” and readily dismissed it. What a thing to tell impressionable young women.

Can you imagine a boys’ or mens’ publication making such an absurd suggestion? Boys, stop smiling, raising your eyebrows, and frowning now if you want to be hired for jobs or get women to have sex with you later in life.

Short Thought 104 (“youthful” women)

I care about my appearance and want to look good, but I cannot stand the incessant marketing to women of products and procedures to make them appear younger (because the way they are couldn’t possibly be good enough – how dare they up and get OLD?! – made richer by the fact of having been encouraged & prodded all their years to live longer!!). I was perusing the coupons in the Sunday paper and noticed a line for skin care, L’oreal Youth Code©. I swear, if somebody would make a product for women and call it Old Bat Code or Old Bat Serum, to “bring out the Old Bat in you!” I’d seriously consider buying it.

Fiddle-dee-dee!

Not quite two years ago I discovered the Curly Girl Method. No, it’s not a religion or a diet and it doesn’t involve selling cleaning products door to door. In short, it’s a way of taking care of your hair, for anyone – no matter their ethnicity, black or white, male or female, young or old – who has anything from a slight wave to tight coils. Here’s where it started with stylist Lorraine Massey. Nikki Walton, aka Curly Nikki is another well-known advocate.

There’s scads of information online for further reading, but the basics are: stop washing hair with sulfate-based shampoos (they create suds and strip hair of moisture which wavy/curly hair in particular needs), condition the hell out of hair, use gel, and ideally air dry.

My hair always had a wave and held curl well if I used regular or hot rollers. I liked that and had no interest in flat-ironed stick-straight hair (which magazines, Hollywood, etc., have touted for years).

There are different kinds of curly hair and I believe from my own research, that I’ve got a fickle kind (oh, that’s not the official name), meaning it’s unpredictable. It can’t be counted on to do the same thing two days in a row and further, did you know one person could have different kinds of curls on their one personal head? I know it now. Still, applying the basics of the care outlined above have made considerable improvements and brought out waves and curls heretofore unseen. I’m sold.

The thing which has most captivated me is the emergence of my one and only Scarlett O’Hara spiral curl. It resides alone on the left side of my head, beneath other hair (which is doing a variety of things, just not spiraling). I’ve never seen this before. Why is it the only one?? Why didn’t I get a batch of ’em? It comes and goes like the Cheshire cat, but here it is, with the rest of the gang pinned up out of view, on a recent day.

Fiddle-dee-dee indeed!