Morning Ritual

On working days and vacation days—one morning ritual. The face gets washed; hot water or cold water; soak the hair, brush it out. Small life-affirming ritual I’ve been engaging in for longer than I’ve been drinking coffee. More consistent than brushing my teeth.

Twenty bucks would buy me a new one! It’s a dark black, solid plastic piece that my dad probably bought from a local drug store. Or the Fuller brush man. I haven’t been parted from it—so to speak. Constant for forty-two years. It wasn’t mine. It was dad’s and it worked pretty good for what I needed. My sixteen years-old long hair needed training and dad’s brush was perfect. When he left the house, he left it behind. Must not have been important. Now I think maybe he knew? How do we lock onto these little things?  

In high school and college I carried a comb in my pocket. Always the brush in the morning. Combs disappeared but the brush traveled with me.  My mom’s pink bathroom to a summer in Chicago; the upstairs bathroom in a house full of guys to the strained and cluttered baths of my first marriage. High desert years alone with my daughter to beach side songs with my beloved. The brush has been along for all of it. In suitcases and toiletry bags; on hotel counters to permanent bathroom drawers. Recently I bought another brush for travel—so nothing happens to the good one.

Why this brush?  Does it feel perfect in hand and on hair (weight, smooth plastic, firm bristles that penetrate to scalp) because it is; or because I’ve used it so long. Is it that ‘one thing’ of my dad’s that I own? I don’t know all the answers.

I do know this. Tomorrow morning the sun will rise.  I’ll get out of bed. Pour a cup of coffee. The face will get washed. I’ll put my head under running water. Then I’ll brush it out with the ideal hair brush. Life goes on.