First night of the new semester back at the Writing and Reading Center at the local Community College. As I walked through the door, I first thought that we had a new Instructional Aide, but I was wrong. The lady I have always worked with was wearing a purple scarf wrapped around her head so as to cover her hair. Not an attractive scarf. And it wasn't arranged very attractively--just sort of wound around her head and held in place by a couple of bobby pins.
The last time I had seen her, before break, she had cropped her long blond hair very short--but again, it was not stylish--just short.
And now, her head was covered. Had she converted to Islam? Well, she still wore her big wooden cross around her neck. Had she become a nun? I don't think nuns wear purple. Cancer? Maybe she wore the scarf to cover hair loss. But, unlike most people I know who have gone through chemo, she seemed pretty energetic.
I thought about asking her, but changed my mind because I thought she had probably explained her reasons a hundred times to others and was either sick of explaining and just wanted to get on with normalcy or that she'd offer an explanation eventually or I would just find out through the usual information grapevine.
