Thursday, November 08, 2007

but Kir, you were always a blonde to me

About 2 months ago, the Mathematician and I journeyed west to seek our fortune in the hipster utopia of Portland, Oregon. Actually, he was going there for work, and I decided to go along for the ride. I reconnected with an old, dear friend of mine from high school last spring, Miss Mary, and she had recently relocated to Portland, so I decided to take this opportunity to visit with her in person for the first time in like 5 years. Our very different lives had put us on disparate paths. Would we still get along? Would we have anything to talk about? I had to find out!

I think we were both a little nervous at first. Our slight hesitance kinda reminded me of the very first time we hung out outside of school together 14 years ago. Remember that feeling? Your first friend “date” with someone you just met at school? Tentative at first, but we ended up having so much fun. A few days later I slept over her house & we snuck puffs of a loosely rolled, very weak joint (my first) and watched Dirty Dancing together. We ate Cool Ranch Doritos and raw cookie dough right out of the Pillsbury tube, and laughed and laughed and laughed. I knew it that night: it was love! The kind of special girlfriend bond I’d always missed out on, having only brothers.

Fourteen years later our lives are very different, but within hours of hanging out together in Portland we realized: we still heart each other every bit as much as the first time we ever hung out. And it’s amazing to have someone like Mary back in my life, who knows that old part of me so very, very well.

So I took her comment a little differently when, while talking about my blonde project Mary looked at me and said: “ I always thought you were blonde, Kir!”

“Really? Hmmm…well, you know, I did too. But I’m not, honey. This is blonde, this hair that I have now. And this is bleached.”

“Yes, I know, but I just remember you and I BOTH being blonde when we met.”

Hmm…Maybe you’re right?” I shrugged. “I mean, hair gets darker with age. Maybe at 14 we were still little blondies.”

Several hours later, while looking through a mess of old photos, I had my answer. By fourteen I had a head of very light brown hair. So did Mary. But in our own minds, we both considered ourselves blonde.

Were we both in blonde denial? Sure. But, as I am learning more and more, blonde is as much a state of mind as it is a hair color. So I guess you could say, in addition to our Dirty Dancing obsession, our cookie dough obsession, and our Pixies obsession, we also shared a blonde thing.

I guess we're both blonde at heart.

Happy Birthday, Miss Mary xoxoxoxoxo

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love you!!! and i am blonde. ask my blonde father. and well, so are you. glad you are back in my life.

Noemie said...

omg you like the pixies? the band? i love them! it's hard to find people that even know who they are.:)