The strangest gift I’ve received from the pandemic

It’s a discussion topic you can’t miss these days: gifts from the pandemic.

Silver linings from this disaster that’s befallen us.

Like weekly Zoom calls with my nephew, who lives in London (and has my hair!). Those never happened before COVID.

Some people are learning to bake bread.

Others are getting more time in their gardens (goodness knows, that’s not me, alas…)

But perhaps the strangest gift I’ve received, and the one that sparks delight, awe, confusion, and frustration in equal measures, and all throughout the day?

Curly hair.

That’s right, after a lifetime of straight hair (except for a couple of dalliances with perms), I’ve now officially gone curly.

Not, of course, that the pandemic actually caused my hair to curl.

It’s simply that, after fifteen years of having a pixie cut, this is the first time my hair has grown long enough for me to see the curl that has no doubt been creeping up on me for years.

Okay, it’s true I had some curl when I was a toddler. And I always had a little curl at my temples. But that was it.

My long hair in my teens and twenties was distinguished mostly for its lankness. (And yes, its color. Being a redhead has always been a big part of my identity.)

I always wished I had more curl in my hair.

So it’s with a sparkly sense of delight that I now see curls every time I look in the mirror!

Even when those curls don’t frame my face the way I wished. (Sigh… The day I looked like a failed Farrah Fawcett wannabe was particularly memorable.)

I’m having to get to know my hair anew.

Which basically changes every week or two as it grows out.

I ordered barettes and hair ties, and am figuring out how to use them to wrangle my curls when they don’t behave as I want them to (which is proving to be more often than I’d like).

It feels a bit like learning to know myself again.

It irks me to no end sometimes.

But mostly, I’m utterly delighted.

And really, if you think about it, who could ask for more out of a gift?