i went to the museum with a friend the other day and noticed streaks of gray hair, new to me since i last saw her. we ambled through the exhibit at the pace of her daughter, who plodded around in baby steps and occasionally asked “ou-side?”
my friend also had new gestures, holding out an index finger at just the right moment to catch her child’s reaching hand, pausing mid-sentence to smell if the diaper needed changing. after i went home i studied my hairline and used eyebrow tweezers to pluck out three light gray strands. between keeping up the curve of my eyebrows and eliminating gray hairs, my plucking routine stretched to twenty minutes. i can hardly keep up. i keep thinking that there’s a ringleader, that if i pluck the right hair all the other gray ones will give up, stop their slow siege.