hairy metaphors

D has started blogging. More accurately, he now has a blogger ‘account’ and has been checking out other people’s blogs. And he has a title for his own as-yet unwritten blog.  It gives us something in common, apart from F. 

It also gives us  something to talk about in the car driving up to Maleny last Friday arvo. We are going up for one night,  for our old friend  L’s 60th  ( yes, sixtieth!) birthday celebration ‘soiree’. We’ve left F behind to have a sleepover at his mate’s - a first. 

As we drive north through the green hills of the Tweed Valley I tell D I’m a bit sick of my blog. I’m sick of my nice, fair-minded, sensible persona, and all those pictures of flowers. It’s dull! I’m nostalgic for a younger, bolder version of myself who told it like it was and bugger the consequences.

Though actually, it was excruciating at times, my terrible teenage/early 20's honesty. My Saggitarian tactlessness was a social handicap. I was always the one saying how bad someone’s new haircut looked, oblivious to the fact that everyone else had gone quiet because the  person was walking in the door behind me. I also learnt that  most people don’t really want to hear the truth. Still struggle with that one. 

I envied those quiet mysterious girls who the boys found so alluring. I tried to be like them, tried to just shut up and look mysterious - but sooner or later I’d blow it and blurt out some un-mysterious thing.

Later for a brief period, I embraced being loud, at least visually - blue spikey hair and red (‘80s feminist) overalls.

Since then I have cultivated discretion and diplomacy. All very wise and necessary. But I am missing something. Some sort of risk-taking edge, some willingness to let fly. In my life, and my writing. Maybe it’s just a symptom of middle age, of responsible parenthood. 

Yeah says D, his eyes on the road as we slide up the Bruce Highway through the dreary concrete and asphalt  limbo of South East Queensland. I know what you mean. Up until now he’s only ever said he likes my blog, good, easy to read etc. 

He tells me about going to a hairdresser in London thirty years ago. Some very flash place, Vidal Sassoon. It was  a sort of masterclass for hairdressers, he was one of the models. The woman doing his hair did a lovely job, he was happy, it looked good. Then the visiting celebrity artiste-hairdressing instructor came around and said “Yes, very nice, Darling, but it just needs a bit of ...- this!” And in a wild spontaneous guesture she snipped out a chunk of D’s hair.

And it looked even better. The person who’d given the original  cut was upset. But I bet she learnt something. That’s what your writing lacks he said. Hmm. How to cut to the chase?