oh my goodness, another blog post about my hair
Thank you to everyone who weighed in a about my proposed hairstyle change. I've been thinking in these past few days (are you ready for a deep thought?) that hairstyle is an identity issue. The intersection of how I see myself with how I present myself to society. As such there seems to be a lot at stake when the presentation changes. Will everyone accept me in the same way they did before? if not, is there an asymmetry between the person I think I am and the way my friends view me?
The answer seems to be Yes and No. The people I've told in person "Hey, I'm going to dread my hair" have all pretty much shrugged their shoulders and been like, "Yeah okay. I get that that's something you would do." Which makes me feel pretty good about the way I currently present myself. Which is to say, I feel like a crazy hippy in my mind, so it's nice that my friends see that. It's the friends on facebook that have been more like, "Wait, OMG what?"
Here's another banal deep thought coming your way. It's hard for me to reconcile my current sense of self with the person my facebook friends knew ten years ago. Of course, the Leah who goes to reunions is the same person: I certainly present the same combination of fake-outgoing anxious over-sharing bubbly exhaustion that I did in high school. That's just the way I talk. But from a values perspective there are few things I cared about ten years ago that I still care about now. (Of course how banal again. I had kids in that interim and that changes everything; I'm not saying anything that everyone else hasn't figured out, and yet and yet...)
The person that I was ten years ago, overanxious and striving and wicked concerned about my appearance, that person died (theology alert!) and was buried in the waters of baptism. Yes, I know the way I appear in this blog post is overanxious about my appearance, but, er, it feels different and I swear I'm a different person. And theologically speaking I can be both that person and a different person; we are resurrected both in the "now" and the "not yet."
Dot dot dot. I feel like I started to write this post with an air of "You guys don't get me" and now that I've written it I find the whole thing kind of bitchy.
Dot dot dot. I've left this post and come back and I've completely changed my mind. Of course I am the same person I was ten years ago, extremely anxious over how other people view me and whether they accept me. If not, why would I vomit so many words about whether people like or dislike a hairstyle that I haven't even gotten yet?
No. The Leah I was at 6 and at 16 (theology alert!) is the Leah that God created, the same Leah that lives today saying every stupid joke that comes into my head and being more exuberant than the social situation warrants and having my heart break into pieces every time I see a fuzzy animal. But. (one last theology alert and then I'm done.) The Leah at 16 did not live in freedom, and I do. On account of Jesus, yes. Primarily so. But also on account of pursuing a life of freedom. Living freely sometimes feels very easy (thank you Jesus) and sometimes very difficult (thank you facebook). But that's the struggle that we've set ourselves to, and I hope that's what my friends see in me when they look at me and see a crazy person.
Okay, enough on this already. Hair is going into dreads on Thursday. I'm not going to talk about it again until I have photos.
sometimes we're Patriotic
barefoot patriot
I feel obliged to post about Patriots' Day every year, because it's awesome and also because I'm aware that everyone outside of Massachusetts and Maine doesn't know anything about it. You're totally missing out! (Since my core competency after eight PM is more posting photos than explaining historical holidays I'll leave it to wikipedia to get you up to speed.) We were joined this year by the VB family; while we beat them to the parade route they were rather more prompt with the blogging. Clearly they've got their priorities straight.
parades are serious business
Bands, reenactors, trucks, baton girls, clowns: all were well represented. The fife and drum corps were my favorite this year.
I know that flag-bearer
Zion was thrilled to be out and about, and I took many cute pictures of him engaged in a variety of endeavors; it was a struggle to pick just one to publish. I chose the one leading off this post because of it's resemblance, loosely, to other parade photos of yore (they wear hats and wave flags). Harvey also enjoyed himself but less demonstratively, and he spent more time eating and sleeping. I have photos of him doing both, but he's more comely in the former case.
parade food
Lemonade, slush, fried dough, hot dog, and french fries—all consumed in addition to the actual lunch we packed for him and brought from home—were at least as interesting to him as the parade. I guess he's blasé about the whole thing—it was his third Patriots' Day parade, after all. Not so for Zion and his friend Nathan, who wasn't sure what he thought about all the commotion.
"do I like this?"
And then there was this big boot thing, which amusingly enough came by right as Zion was diverting himself with unlacing my shoes. I was happy to distract him with the plus size model.
big shoe to fill
For the sake of the historical record I need to add that the day was quite unpleasantly hot this year, which is why the pictures show us reclining in the grass rather than out there on the curb as usual. We reserved our spot with a quilt but quickly decided that we'd be better off with a slightly obstructed view from under what shade could be provided by a budding maple tree. Also note that we traveled by bicycle, which is quite the way to do it. For some reason traffic is a little heavy around parade routes.