White Hair Ritual

Excerpt

I have big hair — my defining physical feature. My family enjoys teasing me about it. At work I tame it to suppress my twirling habit and hygiene concerns. I stash containment tools everywhere: my home, car, office and in pockets and places you’d never guess. Once, I arrived for ICU rounds to find that all members of the all-woman clinical team had braided their hair in geste to mimic my predictable coif. My no-frills morning routine was practiced and automatic until one day something drew my attention to the largely ignored mirror on my bathroom wall. Pausing and leaning in to investigate, I noted scattered white hairs amid the still brassy ones. For uncertain reasons, I developed an almost meditative habit of pulling them out: one by one, day after day. During the ritual, I often recalled my father brushing fingers through his hair, half-joking that his experience raising teenaged daughters was the obvious impetus for the salt in his pepper. I listened carefully to hearken what story my own trespassers tell. …