“Hi, it’s Claudette,” I said into my phone.

“Who?” was the answer I received.

“Claudette,” I told the person at the other end. “I’m looking to get my hair cut today or tomorrow.”

“Who?” I heard again.

I looked at my phone and wondered what was going on. Who was answering the phone over there?

The little hair salon Sonja and I have relied on for our hairdressing needs for ten years is walking distance from the house in the city. I remember when we used to stack towels onto the chair for Sonja to sit on when she was a tiny preschooler. She was so cute, and loved the experience of getting her hair done once a year or so just before school started, usually around the end of August.

Both Sonja and I have long hair now, past our shoulders, so we tend to only go to the hair salon a couple of times a year.

The lady who cuts our hair is the lady who usually answers the phone. Her name is Karla. The other lady, Layla, is the owner and occasionally answers the phone as well. Both know me by name, obviously, which is why it was weird that the person who answered the phone kept saying ‘who’.

“I’m looking for Karla to cut my hair,” I persevered into the phone. “Is she available tonight or tomorrow?” Tonight and tomorrow was last Friday and Saturday, the only two days I was in the city as I rambled on about here.

“Who,” she said again. “Layla?”

Sigh.

There is one lady I’ve seen there who helps out part-time, who struggles a little bit with English I think. I don’t know her name. She is Polish, like Layla the owner, and although she had not cut my hair before, she’s been there a few times when Sonja or I had our hair done over the years. I suspect it was her who answered the phone, but I wasn’t getting anywhere with her.

“You want colour,” she said next.

See what I mean?

“I’m going to call you back later,” I told her and disconnected. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get a quickie appointment that Friday evening, and I knew Saturdays were very busy for them usually.

I ended up leaving it, and considered finding a salon out in the suburbs where I spend most of my time at my mom’s house. See if I can find a place that can cut my hair decently, like Karla does, and doesn’t require me to remortgage the house.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I was back at my mom’s house and busy all day with my Birch bark activities. I took a shower later in the day as opposed to in the morning. (Sometimes I get covered in Birch bark dust…)

After my shower, I looked at my hair. The ends were very dry… Would it be possible for mom to snip off the ends?

I dug out the specialty scissors and a comb and went down to the kitchen.

“Mom,” I said. “Can you snip off the ends of my hair?”

I did it for her many times over the lockdown periods, and I often cut my kids’ hair too during that time, it’s not really complicated. As I said, my hair is long and also wavy, sometimes curly (on humid days), a little mistake isn’t going to be the end of the world.

Not that I anticipated a mistake. It’s not hard, snipping off some ends of a person’s long hair…

Mom said we should do it outside since it stopped raining so I grabbed a clean dog towel and wrapped it around myself while mom moved a kitchen chair onto the back patio.

Once I was in position, I told her again to snip off the dry ends. She began to comb my hair and made some remark about how she wishes she had thick hair like mine (she has the opposite of thick hair herself). Then she grabbed a small bunch on the right side near the nape of my neck and snipped.

Something in me changed. I suddenly had a terse kind of feeling go through me.

“Show me how much you cut off,” I told her.

She pointed.

Ok, so if you had a heart attack looking at that picture, imagine how I felt!

Lordy.

I yelled something about how this is not exactly what I mean by ‘snipping the ends off’ which alerted my sister’s attention. Mom said it’s not a big deal, it’s underneath and covered by the hair on top.

I just sat there not knowing what to do next.

“What’s all the yelling?” my sister wanted to know as she stepped outside onto the patio.

“Mom cut a hole in my hair,” I told her and she came and inspected my head.

“Give me that,” she told my mom and took the scissors and comb from her. Then she took over.

“First, you section the hair off, like this,” she demonstrated to my mom, and began snipping. I saw the hair fall down and noticed it was about a centimeter which is about a third of an inch.

NOT THREE INCHES.

I advised my sister to find a way to keep it symmetrical, but she did say I had a hole in that area now. I figured I’ll worry about it later as long as she managed to keep things relatively symmetrical.

Anyway, mom went back into the kitchen while my sister finished my hair, and after I inspected my head in the bathroom mirror I announced my approval.

Meanwhile, mom thought the entire thing was funny. She said “it’ll grow back” and lucky for her, I am neither vain in the hair department nor worried about regrowth since I have very fast-growing hair, much to the dismay of both my mom and my daughter. Neither of them have fast-growing hair.

Later, mom brought me my 3 inches of hair bundled with a twist tie.

“Here,” she said and put it on the table in front of me.

I wonder what she wants me to do with it. Maybe I’ll do a witch spell and hex something…

Meanwhile, you might wonder why I didn’t just book a visit to the hair salon the following week.

Well…

I like being able to go to Karla and have her do my hair without me having to explain and all that. I like that the little business up the street stayed in business over the many years of lockdown we suffered. I like giving Karla, who is a single mom of two teens, a generous tip. And, I was too lazy and preoccupied to research and look for another salon in my mom’s neighbourhood.

But maybe I will do that. Maybe at the end of May I will look for a backup salon.

But for now, I guess my hair is what it is. And, to the naked eye, the hole is not really noticeable unless I point it out. See?

So, thank you for stopping by and reading my post today!

If you’re interested in crafting with Birch bark, I have a fresh harvest collected from wind-felled trees in a local forest. The trees were lying there in the swamp decaying so I harvested some of the bark and took it home to craft with. I have enough to list to my store, so click the button below and have a look around.

.

See you in the comments!