I had this Italian man of about 65 highlight my hair in Stamford in the beginning of the summer. I was referred to him by a woman who is attractive, mature and had coolish hair. The man, with a pierced ear, and I had a deep talk about his wife and her passing and how he deals with it on a daily basis. He had this wall paper in his shop which was reminiscent of a grandmother’s attic and I said, “That is an interesting choice for wallpaper.” It had wagon wheels and doll images on it and I was being sort of facetious.

He replied, “My wife chose it years ago.” and then he pointed out the doll collection across the shop.

I was alarmed due to the inadequate and outdated choice of interior decoration. However, I had this innate ability to connect regardless of my immediate, secretive, and silent paranoia about his ability to do a “good” job on my hair given his lack of decorative acumen.  Each time I made a point in which he agreed with, he would say, “Thank You.” He would pause right before he said it and a bit afterwards. You ever meet someone who says, “Thank You” each time you say something meaningful to them? It is hilarious and almost annoying.

This older and dowdy woman walked in for color, and she had a distinct voice, almost like a deep, deaf like tone, but she clearly heard well. I thought, I know this woman from somewhere. I initially was annoyed by her presence because she made innocuous comments repeatedly and she bored me to death. She was interjecting commentary unrelated to our conversation about the unknown and death, which was far more interesting than, “I had to take my elderly father to the hospital today because he got into a car accident.” She also spoke of things around her house which required attending to. YAWN. I wanted to belt out, “SHUT the EFF UP Lady, you are harshing my buzz over here.” We are talking about some serious shit. I then realized that I was being negative and a selfish conversation hog and went inside my consciousness and created a shift of energy. I intentionally focused on not being a judgemental bitch. We all proceeded to converse in a lively manner. All the while, I am thinking, “What am I doing here, Who are these people, and where are the television cameras because I couldn’t be more out of place, I couldn’t be talking to weirder people, and I am sitting here with a head full of foils unable to escape this ordinary nightmare which ironically turned out to be a rather lynchian experience.

I figured out how to place this “woman” and discovered that she temped in an office where I worked in finance in Greenwich. It was amazing to me that I could make the switch in my head from elitist cool to hey, I am like you and you and you and you… ha ha ha. I wound up giving her a pep talk, because she had been out of work for a long time. I was explaining that today’s world is affording opportunity for people to brand themselves, and to create a living out of doing what they love. I challenged her to go inside and to think about what it was that made her passionate and to figure out a way to make a living doing it. She often used the, “Thank You” term just as the “hair dresser” did and I found myself secretly annoyed but kept it underwraps rather skillfully.  I say hair dresser versus stylist because I clearly was in a time warp and stylist would not be appropriate given this man’s salon, demeanor and the environment.

Needless to say, I exited this salon, with cartoon metaphorical blue birds flying about my head in a whirling fashion

… and I say– I departed what could  have been a most ordinary and irritating experience with  kisses and hugs from both, the hairdresser and the woman as they both expressed that they felt they met me and saw me for a reason. And the hairdresser said, “You made me want to go out tonight, to go to a musical and I  will!”  He also shared that he hadn’t been out in years, but for some reason, he felt enlivened and was ready to go out and enjoy himself.  I got into my car and was sort of blown away and left thinking, My work is done here! HA HA HA… THANK YOU…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Lifestyle and Entertainment, Posts by Sandra Oles, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.