When I first saw this photo, a memory flashed through my mind. I was in New Mexico, had just arrived from California to spend the summer with my dad.
I had long, fine brown hair that my parents would pull into braids to keep under control. These braids didn’t last the summer. I don’t remember my dad cutting them off. But I did see them later, after the summer. He’d mailed them to my mother. Yikes. Not exactly the daughter update she was expecting.
Anyway, it was probably the shortest I’d had my hair since birth and have never had it that short since. But it was likely worth taking any flak my dad got so he didn’t have to put up with brushing out the tangles in the dry mountains where hot showers and baths were luxuries. My daughter’s hair is a similar texture and we battle it out with a brush every morning.
I wasn’t the only kid to make this annual summer trek to the mountains to visit a parent. I have memories of many of these itinerant children – some memories more vivid than others. I knew the girl in this photo on the left, though she was older so I don’t remember us playing together much. This is her dad’s hogan where we were escaping the mountain sun.
We’re still working to ID the child on the right. It took a while for me to be certain the “mean girl” in the middle was me. I don’t recall wearing many dresses or having purses. But my dad swears I was in a dress and clutched a purse as often as I could get hold of either.
Virtual Farmgirl 