My sister
Janey really loves me. You know how I know? Well, here's the most recent
demonstration of her love. And trust. This is the way I view it. You might have
a different opinion.
You see, she
let me cut her longish, heavy black hair. She'd only wanted me to cut her
fringe, bangs if you're American. I'd done this a couple of weeks ago, easily,
successfully. But she has that hair that grows at about a millimeter a week so
it needed redoing. (Here's a side note. There's a certain joy in being able to
cut my sister's fringe as required. That's because she's just moved 'home' to
Melbourne after thirty or so years interstate, the last ten a four hour flight
away. Once again, we get to hang out with each other.)
I enjoy
hairdressing. I'm the amateur family hairdresser; the aunty that was trusted to
cut her nephews' hair before they discovered cool. (They're discovering middle
age now.) In our youth, Janey and I always trimmed each other's long hair. I've
cut husband Al's hair since I've known him, and still do. He did go to the
local barber a couple of times, until in sympathy with Al's burgeoning
baldness, the barber left Al a thready strand of hair to 'comb over'. Seeing
his flap, lifting gently in the wind as he approached the front door, I
promptly clipped the offending hairs and resumed being Al's dedicated barber..
I coerced
Janey into allowing me to cut her hair. 'Freshen it up! Take some of the weight
out of the back,' I said, very professionally lifting it and letting it fall, as
hairdressers do. I was still in the after-glow of a quasi-adequate haircut I'd
recently done for a friend who, rather than getting a professional cut, freely admits to hacking bits off her own hair.
Janey's trust
didn't even waver when I set up my iPad next to the mirror, opened a YouTube
video and asked her to pause it after The Salon Guy's every step. See I was
giving her 'the short layered bob'. I'd watched the video through a couple of
times. Looked easy on the human-haired plastic mannequin. Why shouldn't I be
able to achieve the same awesome results as a seasoned expert hairstylist? I'd
parted Janey's wet hair and found the hair-line at the nape and cut a good few
inches off the length. I continued carefully following the steps until Janey
reached back, had a feel and pronounced her hair too short. That was when my
adrenaline kicked in and when Janey's hair started going inadvertently
asymmetrical. Perhaps I'm being kind to myself in that description. Two and a
half hours later, my arms were aching and my scissor-hand was cramped into position. Janey,
not once raising her voice - she's very lovely - ordered me to stop. Recalling
a bad haircut she'd had in 1984, she flew out the front door with her witch-mop
hair to collect her granddaughter from school. Interestingly, it was Halloween.
There's a
happy ending. The next day I shouted my sister a haircut at a local hairdresser as recommended by another friend, one who sensibly chooses to pay for a haircut. Janey now has fresh, funky short hair and looks like a million dollars.
