Heatwave: A single strand of hair

None of us remember San Francisco ever being this hot for this long; we are changing our habits in this city. Our doors and windows are open, our fans are on, the clink of ice in our glasses a constant. Girls are in tank tops and mini skirts, or less...

Boys too. After all, this is San Francisco.

My house has been a virtual dining hall the past twenty-four hours with 25-30 people coming and going. As my first-born begins planning her wedding (for next summer), my older kids, their mates and friends have been gathering here, then spreading in all directions.

But I am alone this afternoon in this heat. I sorted some seaglass for my blog "Seaglass" and inadvertantly came upon a strand of J's hair. I doubt the glass jar containing it had been opened in the two years since she she sorted it for me on another hot summer's afternoon. I loved the way she sat cross-legged on my living room floor sorting the seaglass that day, and I knew also I was falling in love with her.

Today, I knew it was her hair by its length and its color.

Then I remembered that I used to find her hairbrush filled with bunches of her hair and I would absent-mindedly clean it out for her. And I recalled that once I did that in our hotel room in Mobile, Alabama, last November, after a wonderful night of passion...On a whim, I saved the hair & stuck it in a book. I looked around just now and found it, right where I had left it, so many teardrops ago:





Maybe I am more than a "sentimental materialist." Maybe I am like a obsessed teenager. If so, why?

After all of this searching for answers, I still don't have a clue.

So I replaced the single strand of hair back in with the seaglass, where it has been settled so comfortably these past two years. After all, I don't like to disturb what nature has choosen to preserve.