Bloodbaths and butterflies

There are black sheets on the bed to protect it from the crimson. The bathroom, splattered with red looks like a small but very efficient massacre has taken place in the bathtub. No, I haven’t committed some atrocity nor had yet another accident, apart from the choice of colour. But I can now say categorically it wasn’t ‘Fiery Red’ either.

I am gradually working my way through the hair dye on the supermarket shelves in search of the one I really liked… the one in the profile pic… but this is just very red. Not that I dislike it... but not what I had in mind. It is, perhaps, not so much ‘fiery’ as ‘blatantly’ red.
But that’s fine.

The dog, of course, has been eyeing me askance while I sit steaming away. She doesn’t like it when I alter my appearance with scarf, hood or towel. I have the distinct impression that she thinks I have lost the plot. She may have a point. She almost laughed as she watched me scrub at various areas that were carefully, if uselessly, protected with Vaseline… a vain attempt to prevent the ‘fifty shades of orange’ syndrome around my ears.

I inevitably got caught up in work and forgot the 25 minute deadline. But that’s ok too. The results are fine… they are vivid. When my friend arrives at the airport in a week or two he won’t have any trouble finding me. He’ll just have to look for something small, excited and very, very visible.

A shaft of late afternoon sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the blazing beacon. Ani looks almost startled, wearing a similar expression to the one I will find on my son’s face tomorrow. There will be comments. There always are. And particularly as I wear a lot of bright orange.

I have had a week of not being well… okay, months, but a week since illness won a round and dumped me in hospital. It feels much longer, and I don’t approve. My body and I usually operate an uneasy truce where it does as it is told on the whole, while I do my best to keep it moving and get it up and running at full speed again. The past week I have had to concede a temporary defeat. And I don’t like it. I’m supposed to be the one in control here.

So it was to affirm change the dye came out today.

It is a red flag I wear, a statement of intent, an affirmation of self. Not so much for anyone else as for myself. Every time I look in the mirror, or catch a reflection I am reminded that the worm turned some time ago. The caterpillar ceased to crawl and grew wings.

This caterpillar motif has come up a lot in discussion lately from various sources. It is an apt analogy. I have to say that the time inside the cocoon wasn’t particularly pleasant. There was a long period of knowing that something had changed, the old ‘me’ had gone and was being gradually dissolved, separated into its component parts. I had no idea what would emerge at the end of the process. It was unpleasant, rather scary and frequently painful. But it is from this emotional soup that the butterfly is formed and there can be no growth without change. I always felt I could fly if I had the wings but dissolution was required before they could unfurl.

I remember as a child there were vivid dreams in which I soared like a seagull, playing on the wind. So vivid were these dreams I can feel them still, recalling the sensations of flight in the pit of my stomach, how to steer with a simple shift of movement, what it felt like to climb and dive with a mastery of the element of air. Occasionally, if I am lucky, I dream these dreams again and glory in the sensation and the freedom I attain.

Granted, in my dreams I soared and rode the wind, rather than fluttering delicately, butterfly fashion, but flight is flight after all, and some butterflies manage to cover thousands of miles, in spite of their apparent fragility. And at least they get to stop and smell the flowers.

So although I may look like an incongruous red-head, that isn’t so much hair as a flying helmet.