From rags to curls

When I was in high school and even slightly before, spiral perms were the ultimate of hair fashion. I remember looking at my classmate’s crinkled curls with such supreme envy over my straight, fine hair. So I asked my hairdresser about it during a routine visit. I don’t know if he was trying to indulge my parents’ budget or if he really had respect for my hair. He suggested I give myself a test run and curl my hair myself. Nope. Not with a curling iron. The old fashioned way. With rags.

Huh?

You know, like they show in scenes the night before a very special ball in Jane Austen films or when the staff are made to endure unruly children before their bedtime in a 18th century estate? Their hair is tied up in funny little knots with strips of cloth. Rags.

So… I think I was in eighth grade when I first attempted that historic method. Within a year, I had the habit nailed to perfection. I knew exactly how damp my hair had to be, how thick the strips of cloth should be for a certain curl. I would tie up my hair, keeping warm under my blankets, with my husky at my feet as I read through homework assignments.

I woke up looking like Shirley Temple, but as the day went on the curls relaxed and looked as I wanted them. With none of the drying out of a perm. And then I could wash my hair and have straight tresses again.

I did eventually get a perm. What can I say? I was a teenager. I wanted to be lazy and somewhat trendy. But after two rounds, I realized it was damaging. I remember chopping off half my hair because it had turned to straw, after which I vowed to never again put such strong chemicals in my hair to keep the curls there.

So, throughout the years, when I’ve grown weary of long and straight, I’ve pulled the bag of rags out of whatever drawer or cabinet in which they are stored. Then I pop in a good movie and start tying. I have gone through bursts when I do it every other night… or, as it seems to be these days, once or twice a year.

I am in need of a haircut and thought to do something different with my hair today, so I pulled out those rags, stashed in a Bath and Body Works bag on a shelf with my unused hair dryer. I poured myself a glass of wine and caught up on Robin Hood last night as I rolled my hair into curls.

I looked at the rags as I spread them out over the couch pillow. I realized they are more than instruments of vanity. They are remnants from pieces of my life locked in the recesses of my memory. I’ve collected fabric over the years that weren’t much good for anything other than the strips to twirl my hair. Bed sheets of a classic 1970’s pattern. Bits of a kimono from an ill-fated costume design class. The fuchsia from my Helena toga in Midsummer at Barre Players. The gold satin from my Lady Rosaline dress. All these little bits of my history that have traveled with me over the past twenty years - to college, to each and every apartment in which I have dwelled through Massachusetts (and Connecticut). To London. From childhood to adulthood.

Yeah, this story is a trifle of my daily life. One of those details wedged between the great moments. But … even as it is a practice of vanity… it is a ritual, a habit, a normalcy I’ve kept with me for two-thirds of my being. Something that every once in a while makes me remember the ordinary days of my life. The days that are shredded into rags in the fabric of my memory. Pieces that can be used again to create something pretty.