Earlier this week, Daniela sat on the stairs with a blue comb in her hand. "The texture is different, and I can feel it," she estimated hesitating before combing her freshly washed hair. The ficus tree sat a mere ten feet away foreshadowing the changes in follicular foliage.
Almost two decades ago, I had a conversation with a Lecturer in graduate school, Ranjini Obeyesekere. We were discussing a different foliage, and I still remember her comments as she envied the displays of chromatic intensity adorning the trees in the small central New Jersey town. She meditated on the dignified displays of dye and dying...a performance in hues...a farewell spoken in polychromic dialects. I recall how those leaves, each fall, were released in a mesmerizing display, dotting the townscape with impressionist brush strokes of ochre, auburn and saffron. There is no such pageantry in chemotherapy-induced hair loss.
Earlier this afternoon, Daniela called me at work. She had scheduled her own adieu, an appointment with her hairdresser. "I'm going to cut it very short," she warned me. I heard her chuckle. "That's OK," I smirked back. The setting is not as rustic, but the surroundings will still provide a pageantry, albeit more subdued. The salon will become a surrogate landscape with its own version of colors and dyes...and dialects such as Portuguese and Vietnamese swaying in the breeze, a dignified farewell nonetheless.
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