As we begin another round of COVD19 self isolation from families, church and one another, I continue to welcome and pray for all of you who wander onto this blog. I’ve not written as much as I would like recently, certainly not from lack of time. Instead, I am working to finish a huge writing project that’s been in front of me for a very long time. Three months ago I set a deadline for my May birthday to finish the manuscript – but that’s proving untenable, so my goal is to finish it as an almost final draft. (We English teachers have difficulty putting the red pen down!)

So here we all are in the 6th week of staying safe in place to do our part during this pandemic. I fully support those whose elected job is to guard and protect us. However, I have noticed an amazing phenomena. In fact it is positively miraculous. People’s hair has stopped growing! Almost two months of social distancing and for some mysterious reason we never see anyone in the public eye scraggly or shaggy, badly in need of grooming.

Now this strange occurrence seems to have skipped over Dan and me and probably most of you because hair and nail salons and barbershops are deemed non essential businesses so we can’t use their services. My short hair has continued to grow quite normally and is now at that dreaded stage where only a thick cloud of hairspray can tame it. Dan’s is the same. We get up in the morning and either laugh at our hair sticking out like straw in scare crows or pretend we didn’t see.

By all reason, unless you are young, we should now be a nation of unkempt, rather poorly groomed, more “natural” people. Wouldn’t you think that over 40 brunettes, blondes and red heads with bright red gel nails would be more grey, less coiffed, with chipped, broken finger nails and that makeup on live television shows looks less professional? You would think so.

However, I can’t name a single public servant, news reporter or politician out in front of the news media looking any different than they did months ago. With all due respect to Tucker, Misters Pence, Biden and Schiff, to the governors and their wives, and to each and every talk show host, celebrity, etc., how do you do it? How do you manage to have shorn hair and a model perfect half day beard growth when all the men I know are sporting hair a la Al Sharpton and Einstein – or the President’s signature comb over? Why aren’t your eyebrows crazy wild? Madame Speaker , may I ask how you do your own hair with nary a strand ever out of place? Or put on daily makeup so expertly? Your 80 year old eyes must be amazingly clear.

Congresswomen and news broadcasters, your acrylic nails are still the perfect length. Ladies and gentlemen, can you share your secrets with the rest of us? Are there miracles going on in your world before the media cameras that aren’t for us? Or is it something else? Like elitism and hypocrisy.

To ask the question is to already know the answer. Some are allowed their salon visits and personal cosmetologists; others are not. The pandemic is revealing a great many unpleasant characteristics about ourselves and vanity seems to be right in front. Neither Dan nor I want to become slovenly. We want to look nice for each other in the privacy of home and when we face time with loved ones. So we’ll continue wait things out as best as we can, hopefully with grace and a sense of humor. But the obvious “do as I say and not as I do” standards of those who are supposed to serve, inform and protect rankles. Hypocrisy is like sand between the toes which chafes and chafes and chafes until it becomes a canker.

Who would have thought that haircuts can be both humbling and enlightening. In the meantime until I can visit Bob the stylist, my friend of 40 years, I’ll put barrettes in my hair, spray it down, cut my bangs crookedly and remember to laugh in the morning.