Emily

In a confusing world, the importance of personal connection

I don’t know where to begin these days. Between conflict and pestilence, I struggle to find a subject. I consider the big picture and all that emerges is a primal scream. But one thing I’d like to tell you about is Emily, who does my hair.

Emily used to have a boyfriend, but he was lazy and thoughtless so now she has a psycho cat and two rescue Chihuahuas named Lulu and Coco. I can never figure out where she lines up, politically, because she loves country music and her Jeep but she also has a silver bar through her septum and watches Euphoria. She’s vaccinated, so, there’s that. She used to read voraciously. I miss that about her. I don’t know why she stopped.

I am thinking about Emily now and I’m telling you about Emily now because she has been a constant in my life for over a decade. Our relationship has endured longer than many marriages. Yesterday, while coloring my hair, she told me her grandfather died. When I first met her she would talk about him and his place in Panama City, Florida. How he loved Emily’s gate-chewing Great Dane, which was before she moved out of the family home and got her own place. I remember the summer he refused to open the backyard pool, and how much that annoyed her.

The chair I sit in is a two-way street. Emily has heard about my life, from loving my job to hating it, to the time a flasher surprised me on my front porch. From my father’s colorful lady friends to the day he died. For better, and for worse.

Drop-ins welcome, according to the sign outside the salon where Emily works, but long-haulers like me find the way to shorthanding a shared narrative. Every time I go in, it’s the next chapter, the loop in the remembered timeline that keeps us tethered, at large and one-to-one. As I drove away today, I could think of no better wish than that we all should have Emilys, and Emilys, us.