New Color

As the scissors snapped shut, I heard, "I was betrothed to my cousin." I saw her nose unconsciously wrinkled in disdain. In the mirror, I watched a hardness seep into her eyes as her gaze drifted far away. Unconsciously, she combed my hair.

A blink. Gradually she began cutting again. Her voice returned. "I was so grateful my grandmother brought me here."

Her grandmother legally immigrated into the United States to join her sister. She left everything she knew after 50 years of living in her homeland.

Now a granddaughter will remain eternally thankful she did not have to fulfill the role of women in her homeland. The relief in her voice is audible.

"I am so grateful my grandmother hired an attorney to help me. It was hard. I am not political, but she recommended that I request political asylum."

When I arrived my grandmother told me, "I brought you here, now you must help bring your brothers."

"As the oldest, for twenty years I worked to help my brothers. I never gave up. It was very hard. The paperwork was complicated as relations between the countries deteriorated. I just kept trying. Now two of my brothers are here. They are so gratful for the opportunities that exist here for anyone. My third brother does not know if he wants to come now that he has lived for so many years in his town."

Tehran. It is very different than here.

Have you read Reading Lolita in Tehran? I ask. Stories and books are my automatic connection to people.

"Yes," she answered, then paused, "Well, actually I am listening to it on audio...I just started it. Funny you would ask."

As I listen to her cautiously sharing how difficult the lives of women are in her homeland, I feel drawn back to the book that I had picked up years ago but struggled to complete.

Her mother is back in Tehran caring for her father who suffered a stroke a couple years ago after she had secured her immigration papers and was living with her daughter in America. Her husband wasn't sure he wanted to move. Now her daughter worries about her mother as the country is so unstable. She offered to come home to help. Her mother adamantly refuses, as she does not want her daughter to risk the life she has in America.

"It is bad here." That is all the mother will say. "Do not come here. Do not leave."

"You know the government is listening and reading everything," she sighs.

Her daughter reads between the lines and again her eyes belie the internal struggle she feels.

As the story unfolds it becomes clear to me that the grandmother came to pave the way for her granddaughter. Her mother let her go at 19 for a dream of a better life for her daughter. The power of the courage of these women to let go in hope rather than succumb to fear floods my body as I watch her work in the mirror. She has soft waves in her short hair and a perfect curl rests on her cheekbone.

Those hands that clip and shape also gave her the means to to shape the future of her family.

My cut was finished. As her fingers measured the accuracy of the cut around my face, her chin rests on my head. As I study our reflection, she was lost in her work and thought. Two women who were raised worlds apart sharing the morning together and memories of grandmothers.

As she ushered me off to finish my color, I held the image.

My grandmother homesteaded on the prairie. The harsh prairie where the winds of winter froze life. The summer prairie where the sun baked the land into lifeless cracks of silence. She raised her daughters and sent them to normal school during the great depression in an era when the education of women was unusual.

She tells me she trained as a stylist in San Jose. Then hesitating, she continues to share her love of art, a passion that led her to a BA in Art History. Art is a visual history of the world she is enchanted by.

Recently she has started taking art classes. She reveals she thinks she would like art therapy, so she can help others. Particularly women. She is passionate about her desire to help women around the world despite her quiet demeanor.

Her artistry emerges, as does my hair color. She smiles faintly as she studies her work. She is pleased.

She walks me out into the the hot California sun blazing in the clear pale blue sky.

An unforgettable haircut.