Since vaccinations have become available and people feel freer to go out, it’s been interesting to see what people want to do first.

Friends have confessed taking special pleasure in eating out or going to a neighborhood farmers’ market or to a family gathering. Graduation celebrations might be scaled down affairs, but, in these past few weeks, there has been more of a party atmosphere in backyards everywhere.

Carried away by the notion that I actually expect to go out more, I decided to get a cut and color. Actually, I felt like a new do. Kind of a big deal for me.

Jill has done my hair for years. From time to time, she has suggested something but never pressed a point of view. She listens to me.

As usual, she was warm and welcoming when I stepped into the salon, quickly brushing off my apologies for being ten minutes late.

“No worries. You’re my first today.”

“Ah, it’s been a long time since I’ve been anyone’s first.”

In typical fashion, I made an in-the-moment quip. She seemed genuinely amused.

Brassy red hair gathered in a tight knot at the top of her head, as she draped a smock around me and offered a disposable mask to replace the decorative cotton number I purchased from a company I found online, I continued the banter with a comment on her hairstyle.

Referring to The Flintstones, a cartoon series I was raised on, I noted, “I like the Pebbles and Bam Bam look.”

She laughed then began asking me questions about what I wanted, how many inches should be cut off. She confirmed where I usually parted my hair.

She applied gel at my hairline to protect my skin and mixed the usual potion, hair coloring that replicated my natural color and washed out over weeks.

She asked me what I was up to, whether I had any travel plans now that things were opening, how was my writing going. She asked about my dog.

Probably in her late twenties, originally from central Wisconsin, I marveled at how well she knew me, how easy it was to share intimate things with her. For someone I rarely saw, I felt like I was spending time with a friend.

I am completely at ease and full of trust when my eyes are closed and my head is tilted backwards over the basin for shampooing. I was so relaxed, I almost fell asleep when she brushed and blow-dried my new do.

I know making someone feel good about how they look is part of her job, but her manner makes the process of getting my hair done really feel like self-care. I didn’t always feel this way. I didn’t always consider that self-care included feelings of CONNECTION.

She explained how she made tiny cuts with her scissors to get a little more volume, and I asked her what she did over the Memorial Day weekend. Although we’ve talked about her life in the Madison area, her favorite neighborhood brew pubs here in Chicago, and her world before, I was bowled over by what she shared.

“I got married.”

The eyes above my throwaway mask must have nearly jumped out of their sockets. She quietly  and proudly showed me a beautiful pear-shaped diamond ring. She reached for her cell phone and showed me photos of the occasion.

She explained that she and her boyfriend of four years got married at the Cook County courthouse. Because of COVID restrictions, only one set of parents joined them as witnesses but both sets did things with them over the weekend.

She beamed when she told me that she and her new husband had an especially lovely dinner at North Pond. Nestled in the Lincoln Park Zoo, surrounded by nature, it would be hard to think of a more perfect spot.

With a little prodding, I learned about how they had met, how he had asked her to marry him before but she said no, how he cried a little at the courthouse ceremony.

She added, “We’re very happy.”

My own feelings of loneliness, my solo life exaggerated by months living under COVID restrictions, melted away.

Experiencing open and meaningful sharing, even with someone I only see every three months, is no small thing.