“You have pretty eyebrows,” she told me. I carried that compliment around with me for years. She was an older girl, one of the cool girls. I was surprised that she even deigned to talk to me, much less to compliment me on the eyebrows I worked so hard to obtain.
That was when I was much younger, when I read beauty books. When I balanced pencils at just the right angle against my nose so I could arch my eyebrows just so.
Even as I plucked my eyebrows, I kept in mind the injunction that sometimes eyebrows don’t grow back after plucking. I needed to be judicious, to only pluck what I was willing to have never regrow.
I left the perfect arch behind with my teenage years (probably before), but plucking is still a part of my life.
This time, it’s trying to get rid of that ONE WHITE HAIR.
I can feel it when I smooth my eyebrows. It feels different from all the rest – coarse where the others are smooth.
I can see it when I look in the mirror, a blank spot amidst the otherwise dark hair, a disproportionately long hair amongst the normal-length hairs.
When I see it, I pull it, hoping that the books would be right, that continued plucking would cause that hair follicle to give up. But it never does. A new mutant hair springs up overnight, twice as long as the others.
I don’t remember what got us talking about it when my brother and his wife were in Lincoln at the same time as I, but we got to chatting about our eyebrows and my brother confessed that he too has the mutant hair. His hairdresser clips his every time he gets his hair cut – and it regrows to double length with surprising speed.
I seem to recall that my sister and I have commiserated over the hair as well.
One case, two does not a trend make. But three in the same family? Maybe there’s something in the genes. Within our otherwise perfect* genetic code lies a gene for that incredible mutant eyebrow hair.
*Okay, maybe our genetic code isn’t perfect. It seems that to perfect the mind, one must sacrifice somewhere. Our family’s genetic defects include not only a mutant eyebrow hair but persistently crooked (non-squishy) noses. :-)
You know there was an email from Aunt Kathy about this several months ago, and several of her siblings including Mom chimed in with commiseration. Several in two generations puts it as genetic, in my book!
I wonder if it has something to do with getting older. I never used to have any but have a few now. Both my husband and I have what I call owlish ones that we have to keep clipped. The worst ones to me are the ones that will. not. lay. down for anything – I’ve even tried gel on them, but they still stick up. :-(