Hair

Her eyes are dark brown and slightly slanted, with only the most kind of crows' feet crinkling at the edges and above her high, circularly sculpted cheekbones.

I have known her eyes for more years than I can remember. Her hands have trimmed and cut and shaped my hair for more than a decade. As I sat back in the booth and looked across at her, I realized that this woman has seen me grow up--transforming from a knee-high thing with stringy golden brown hair, to a curvy woman with thick auburn hair . She says that I am like one of her babies, like one of the two daughters she's raised. I feel blessed to have this woman in my life, however peripherally she might be.

She, more than I, knows what the real American dream is: I was born with a bronze spoon in my mouth. She emigrated from China and came with no money, eventually had two children, bought a house in South Pasadena, learned an entirely different language, owned a business, and sent her girls to college. She came from not much and ended up with a home, love and a family.

There are few people I have met that give with so much whole-hearted kindness and humbleness. She is one of them. I wonder what other ways she'll see me grow up in. How many more years her hands and scissors will trim away bad men, failed relationships, hopes, dreams from my life. I'm like Sampson, in that I hold a lot in my hair; for him it was strength, for me it is experience. Cut the hair, change the life. Much shorter bangs are punctuating this part of my life. I wonder how many different hairstyles she'll see me wear.