Shoe boxes full of pink and blue plastic curlers.

Clearing away. Into red-tied white kitchen garbage bags, they enter completing their time here.

I remember the feeling of them hard against my own head even though these are not mine.

Large-sized bottles of

shampoos,

conditioners,

coconut creams,

hairsprays,

combs,

butterfly clips,

hairnets, ties, covers,

Scarves.

Used to be relaxers, hair pins, beer, mayonnaise….

Some combination of desire and pain. Desire for the longing to BE – to really BE! Alive – beautiful – bountiful.

“You’ve got to suffer to be beautiful!” my grandmother would say.

And she was beautiful. Vibrant with tears from the laughter of her soul. Loving with so much joy. Fierce and feisty to her core. Quick with the tongue. Dancing in beautiful ball gowns, carrying shoes home early mornings was a joy.

The love of a wanting for more. To be seen as something beautiful, alluring, loved. Cared for and refined. A knowing deep within time. That can only alight from within.

“Us dummies didn’t go to school” she would say…. Not like you.

The large stand up hair dryer. Setting so many perms. “Silk on the pillow” was what my hair was meant to be.

A queen.  

Her hair dryer sold to a local beauty shop. She would have loved that. Always wanting to be a hairdresser herself. Trying the lastest thing….

The light within required a mirror to see.

Or perhaps a granddaughter. 

One for the soul.

For the fixings and trixings were true then however they may seem.

And yet, her light shown so bright there was always a dream.