I’m Turning Into My Grandmother

We used to make merciless fun of my grandmother because she didn’t wash her hair. She got it washed and styled, once a week, by a professional; but she didn’t wash it herself. In fact, getting my grandmother’s hair wet outside of the confines of her stylist’s bowl was a clear no-no. All her 13 grandchildren knew this. She even wore those unseemly plastic hair ponchos that they sell at the drugstore to prevent her hair from getting rained on.

We all thought this was hilarious. How could she not take a shower? (Instead my grandmother preferred baths, which made it less likely that water would inadvertently touch her perfect hair helmet.) How could she not blow dry her own hair? It seemed impossible, really. Beyond our comprehension.

And yet, a few decades have passed, and now I’m turning into my grandmother. Let me stop and say that I’d really love to turn into my grandmother. She is my role model in so many ways. I’d be gleeful to realize I was turning into her because I was strong, and capable, and an overall badass (she is 96 and is still rocking the world in every way I can imagine). But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m turning into her in a way I never expected.

Because, lately, I can’t wash my own hair.

Nora Ephron warned me about this. She said that twice a week she went to a beauty salon and had her hair blown dry. She also counseled that getting one’s hair blown out is “cheaper by far than psychoanalysis and much more uplifting.”

When I read Nora’s words I was so surprised by them that I underlined them in my book. It seemed so revolutionary. So unheard of, not doing one’s own hair! But Nora said she did it and it was the best thing ever, so I mentally added it to my Maybe I Should Do This Someday list.

A few years passed, and blowouts suddenly became a thing. Blow dry bars started popping up on city street corners. Going from time to time for an event gradually led me to wonder why I ever did my own hair. It looks so much better when someone else does it. They are professionals, after all; trained to do precisely this. And they can see the back of your head, which seems like a distinct advantage. The convoluted motions necessary to contort your body to blow your own hair straight are completely unnatural, and once you stop doing it often, those weird muscles that hold your arms at odd angles start to atrophy.

I now look back in wonder at the fact that I used to get up an hour early each day to blow my hair straight before work or school. How did I do this? Lose sleep for my hair, that is, and also make my hair look remotely good (which, in hindsight, is about as good as I could get my curly hair to look when straightening it myself). It is a mystery to me that I’ll likely never solve.

Now, I have two modes when it comes to my hair: wavy and half-assed or professionally done. There is no in-between.

And, while years ago I couldn’t have imagined it, now I’m mostly okay with this. Sure, I wish I could do it myself and achieve the gorgeousness that my hair stylist is capable of. But in the grand scheme of important talents, I’ve decided this is one I can do without.

And, besides, it makes me feel closer to (and more like) my grandmother. But if you ever see me in one of those plastic hair contraptions when it’s raining, please sit me down and talk some sense into me.