I saw it in the mirror today. A long, perfect, curved hair. Luminous. Ivory and and milk. It poked out of my right nostril.
"That's new." I thought.
I couldn't help it. Like a scab, I had to pick at it. I yanked on it.
There it was, removed from my body, a part of me. I rubbed it between my index and thumb. Its plumpness, the packed keratin, was pleasant. I was fascinated at how thick it was compared to the fuzz of my body hair.
I've had graying hair for a while, but this was my first bonafide white nostril hair.
It was so long.
"How long did it take for you to grow?" I wondered. What a journey, I thought. What was I doing when it began to squirm and push its way out of my epidermis? How many days? Weeks? And in those days and weeks, did I make good use of my time as much as this little hair? All things considered, it probably made better use of its time than me. One hundred-percent of its time in the dark and wet recesses were devote to growing, surviving, elongating it's body and life. How much of my time was spent on the essentials of my life?
Patrick Steward died this week. A few weeks ago Dolly Parton left us. When did I join my parents in talking about obituaries and the passings of celebrities? Probably when those who died - dying - were those we grew up knowing. I caught myself explaining to Madeleine who just died.
Mom and I watched Chandler for years and he was so funny.
Don't you remember seeing the dots at the museum from Yayoi Kusama?
You probably don't care, but I hated Val Kilmer in Top Gun and loved him in the Saint.
I sounded like my Mom. And Madeleine probably heard me, just like I heard my mom, even though her head continued to float over the iPad screen. I now realize all the things that my Mom didn't say.
Matthew Perry was so young. But was he? He wasn't that much older than me. And I can see how his demons are similar to my own.
Did you know how much Captain Picard kept me company as a kid? Every day, after school, after home work, I'd sit with my brother in front of our RCA TV and watched Star Trek on Channel 39. The captain was a father figure when my dad was not home, still working. He was also a teacher and a leader and a role model. Besides Sunday school, how much of my moral code came from this character?
And so on. I now comment on the passing of celebrities I know, because with them gone, I also lose a little bit of who I am. Perhaps that's not right. I recognize that I will go down the same path; their death reflects the one universal truth of being human. We all were born. And we all die. And I can't help that this is something twentysomething me would've written and believed to be profound. Now, it's just like a old sweatshirt; familiar and often used.
I looked at that white hair for a long time. Then, I saw another one.