Sacred Bricoleur

I crossed paths with Trickster Coyote the other night. Literally. I was walking the dogs up 9^th Street towards Jerome, about a block from my house, when I looked up and there, where the two roads meet, trotted out Coyote. His head popped up, a mirror of my own. Then we had a staring contest that lasted all of three seconds, but felt like three hours.

And everything was snapshot still.

I've been thinking a lot about Trickster lately and trying to reevaluate my definition of him. I have also been trying to disassociate from the asshole tricksters that have plagued my life and clouded the way I see. Trickster isn’t bad. He’s just—tricky. A situation inverter and a shape shifter, he alters our perceptions of the world around us. And it’s good to get shocked out of our ruts sometimes. It is in these moments that we are able to focus enough to see that something needs to change.

Or see that it already has.

I’m not the same girl I was a year ago. A year ago I thought I had my shit together. But now I’m seeing that I don’t. Have my shit together. At all. But I’m also seeing that this is okay. I have shed some preconceptions about myself and my place in this world. And even though starting from scratch is mildly terrifying, I’m excited about all the opportunities that have opened up for me. I am excited about the person I have the potential to become now that I’m not clinging to the person I used to be.

But am I ready to meet the Trickster within me?

As long as your hair is.

That’s how long I’ve known you. (a coworker said this to me the other day)

I can measure my life by the length and/or color of my hair. White-blond and uncut until 2^nd grade when I bravely sat in the beautician’s chair and had at least 12 inches chopped off by my own design. Bowl cut in 3^rd grade. First perm in 4^th. In 6^th grade I cut my own bangs about 2 inches too short, just in time for winning the science fair and the cheerleading/basketball awards banquet.

I started seriously cutting my own hair in 8^th grade when I was 14. I had a spiral perm and didn’t have to worry about cutting evenly because it was so curly. In 12^th grade I chopped my hair so short I looked more like my brother than I had in years.

Right after graduating from high school I bought my first box of hair dye. Auburn. My mother helped me pick it out. It was 13 years before I saw my natural hair color again. I went through various shades of red and purple and pink before I got sick of it and felt the need for a do over. So in February of 2008, in the middle of a pretty brutal north Idaho winter, I stood in my bathroom and shaved my head. Shiny bald. With a razor. And I told myself I was not allowed to cut or dye it for one year.

I made it a year and a half before losing it and chopping my hair and dying it Ronald McDonald red.

And then I moved to Oregon and decided I’d probably have better luck finding a job with no hair rather than hair that was a strange faded orange-ish red-ish color.

So I shaved my head again. Flawed logic I’m sure, but I did find a job with my shaved head. And I’m pretty sure they would not have hired me with the orange hair. I think I’m pushing things there with my visible tattoos. God forbid I ever pierce my nose again.

But back to my hair. It’s growing. Half an inch a month. Which most people tell me is really fast, but I find the whole process painfully slow. I have trimmed the back a few times, but only to avoid having a mullet. All in all I’ve left it alone. And it’s driving me nuts. It’s in that strange in between stage where it’s not short enough to be a cute Mia Farrow pixie cut, and not quite long enough to do anything with.

But I’m not going to cut it again for awhile. I’m tired of starting over.

(and I will add more pictures to this as I find them.)