OK. I hate beauty shops but I love some things about them. I'm getting ready to go to the far reaches of India, so I want to look natural. At the same time, I want to look half-way respectable to my daughter, who has already been in India for months. She maintains her equanimity no matter where she is, so my hairdo is not going to destabilize her,but still I don't want to be conspicuous. She has been studying the ancient healing arts and is about to enter a ten day "noble silence" in a Vipassana Institute in India, after which I will be meeting her back in Delhi and going with her to the highest elevation possible, in Leh. She's an old soul, and will lead the way to Leh.
So, as far as my attire and hair go, which way is most respectable? Do I go with the "I'm your mother and I'm here from the Western world to escort you home again" look (highlights, expensive linens, carefully selected bracelets) or do I go as I already am, a little dishevelled but not too much, a little fat but not too fat, a little old but not too old, a little whatever but not too whatever. Believe me, I won't waste too much time worrying, this is my lifelong destination, and my lifelong friend Ginger has verified it because she remembers sharing the dream from when we were children, but then again..Oh well I already went to the beauty shop. I told them what I wanted (a smidgen darker) and they just went ahead and did what they wanted and made me a whole lot darker. All my $200 foiled highlights washed down the drain.
At the beauty shop, what else could they do? Here I am, an outlier, someone who only shows up a few times a year and never is too specific about what she wants.I don't bring any photos, I just say "I'm going to India, I want to blend in." So they figure the hell with me. Who the hell goes to India anyway except some nut? I say "I'm going to an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet, I'm a little worried about it", and the beautician says "What are you going to take along to occupy yourself?"
I'm a stranger in a strange land: always have been, always will be. That phrase didn't start with Robert Heinlein by the way, go back to the Wilhelm/Jung edition of the I Ching, itself many thousands of years old, hexagram 56, The Wanderer, here's the whole thing, I've always loved it:
"THE WANDERER. Success through smallness.
Perseverence brings good fortune
To the wanderer.
When a man is a wanderer and stranger, he should not be gruff nor overbearing. He has no large circle of acquaintances, therefore he should not give himself airs. He must be cautious and reserved; in this way he protects himself from evil. If he is obliging toward others, he wins success.
A wanderer has no fixed abode; his home is the road. Therefore he must take care to remain upright and steadfast, so that he sojourns only in the proper places, associating only with good people. Then he has good fortune and can go his way unmolested.
Six at the beginning means:
If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things,
He draws down misfortune upon himself.
A wanderer should not demean himself or busy himself with inferior things he meets with along the way. The humbler and more defenseless his outward position, the more should he preserve his inner dignity. For a stranger is mistaken if he hopes to find a friendly reception through lending himself to jokes and buffoonery. The result will be only contempt and insulting treatment.
Six in the second place means:
The wanderer comes to an inn.
He has his property with him.
He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
The wanderer here described is modest and reserved. He does not lose touch with his inner being, hence he finds a resting place. In the outside world he does not lose the liking of other people, hence all persons further him, so that he can acquire property. Moreover, he wins the allegiance of a faithful and trustworthy servant–a thing of inestimable value to a wanderer.
Nine in the third place means:
The wanderer's inn burns down.
He loses the steadfastness of his young servant.
Danger.
A truculent stranger does not know how to behave properly. He meddles in affairs and controversies that do not concern him; thus he loses his resting place. He treats his servant with aloofness and arrogance; thus he loses the man's loyalty. When a stranger in a strange land has no one left on whom he can rely, the situation becomes very dangerous.
Nine in the fourth place means:
The wanderer rests in a shelter.
He obtains his property and an ax.
My heart is not glad.
This describes a wanderer who knows how to limit his desires outwardly, though he is inwardly strong and aspiring. Therefore he finds at least a place of shelter in which he can stay. He also succeeds in acquiring property, but even with this he is not secure. He must be always on guard, ready to defend himself with arms. Hence he is not at ease. He is persistently conscious of being a stranger in a strange land.
Six in the fifth place means:
He shoots a pheasant.
It drops with the first arrow.
In the end this brings both praise and office.
Traveling statesman were in the habit of introducing themselves to local princes with the gift of a pheasant. Here the wanderer wants to enter the service of a prince. To this end he shoots a pheasant, killing it at the first shot. Thus he finds friends who praise and recommend him, and in the end the prince accepts him and confers an office upon him.
Circumstances often cause a man to seek a home in foreign parts. If he knows how to meet the situation and how to introduce himself in the right way, he may find a circle of friends and a sphere of activity even in a strange country.
Nine at the top means:
The bird's nest burns up.
The wanderer laughs at first,
Then must needs lament and weep.
Through carelessness he loses his cow.
Misfortune.
The picture of a bird whose nest burns up indicates loss of one's resting place. This misfortune may overtake the bird if it is heedless and imprudent when building its nest. It is the same with a wanderer. If he lets himself go, laughing and jesting, and forgets that he is a wanderer, he will later have cause to weep and lament. For if through carelessness a man loses his cow–i. e. , his modesty and adaptability–evil will result.
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OK so Once when my sister and I were young, our cottage in Santa Barbara burned down. The following day, a man we had known together in London mysteriously showed up, totally randomly, John Eichinger, and he helped us go through the fire rubble. My I Ching had burned in the fire, down to Hexagram 56. He walked in, a stranger in a strange land, with his backback on, someone we had last seen at Westminster Abbey and never contacted since, and he picked up the burned I Ching in the rubble, and read from a remnant of the only visible page, nine at the top of Hexagram 56: The bird's nest burns up.
SO back to the beauty shop and the girl tending my hair who wondered what in the hell I was going to take to the Tibetan Plateau to occupy myself?!?! But I love the beauty shop girls, and how nice they are, and how they have the little gadgets and doo-dads in their hair and how they keep talking so nice about the simplest happiest things. Why can't I be like that? Well, though I've always laughed a lot, I was always dealing with the heavier side of things, now I sort of wish I could have lived my life a little more towards the light side, even though that's not really me. Pleasant small talk is key, though. Truly a gift. Maybe it was that Bob Dylan song making fun of people talking about the weather and Time magazine that botched me up. Cause guess what? He was wrong on that one. It's great to be able to talk pleasantly about the weather!
My sister says how could we have been raised in the same household, me with my romanticized view of going to a difficult faraway place and getting a tattoo, for reasons unbeknownst even to me in full? Maybe I was too well-educated for my lot in life, too mystic in my approach. Maybe it was all the anesthesia from childhood eye operations, maybe I was a little off in space from the get-go.
SO anyway, my hair will be too dark in India, majorly inauthentic looking, and my daughter won't mind, and I will take a minimum of stuff, and put it in a little shoulder bag full of sleeping pills and altitude pills, and maybe we will take an oxygen tank, but hey I'm sixty-one, so WHATEVER!It's all gravy from here on in. We'll definitely be talking about the weather. Or dare I say...yakking about it.
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