When you dress conservatively and your hair is blue, people look at you.
Timid (but cool) people tell you they envy you.
Children on the playground believe you when you tell them you ate too many blue Jolly Ranchers.
Your mother, bless her, is scandalized.
When you live conservatively in a conservative community and your hair is blue, you don’t feel like you live in a box of plain sugar cookies.
No one looks at you and thinks they know exactly who you are.
You’re complex.
You’re mysterious.
You’re just a little bit dangerous without actually being dangerous at all.
When you’re a 39-year-old mother of two and your hair is blue, you don’t succumb to the daily grind.
Children are vast sucking pits of need that will swallow you whole if you don’t brace
yourself properly: mothers whose hair is blue know that their own needs are important, too.
When you teach Gospel Doctrine and your hair is blue, you make the stereotypical Blue
Hairs a little nervous, but everyone else follows a little more closely and doesn’t fall asleep.
When you read poetry and your hair is blue, you feel more confident and edgy, which makes everyone look at you and look at you and look at you and see you, not just your blue, but you.
Marianne is a playwright, poet, essayist, quilter, marathoner, mother, and all around fascinating human. She makes her home in Utah with her two daughters, ages 4 and 10.
Join us for a discussion of "Natural Coloring" here.
