My Mother's Hair #MemoirsinMay

 

This month in our Time to Write group with Teach Write, we are writing five five-sentence memoirs in this fifth month of year using five prompts from five of our favorite books on writing. Week three we are using a prompt from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones Card Deck.:  Tell me about your mother’s hair (or an aunt’s, grandmother’s, stepmother’s, sister’s). Texture, color, how they wore it, did they dye it? The salon or beauty parlor they went to? How about their hands--or feet?

When I was little, every Saturday morning, Mom would go to the “beauty shop” and have her hair washed, set, and curled. How did she ever go that long between shampoos? From high bouffant with a hairpiece to frosted shag to curly perms to finally learning how to use a curling iron on her own. Time moves on, and history repeats itself. Washing her hair is back to once a week…or on days when she remembers.