The Possibility of a Ponytail

I went to high school with a girl named Amy MacKinnon. I have a memory of a shared moment that I’ve thought about from time to time over the years. Amy and I had a Latin class together. I was in the miserable midst of growing out a short, layered hair cut — a style I’d impulsively adopted after years of belonging to a local dance company that required the pulled-back bun of the ballerina.

I was generally a mass of insecurity, self-consciousness, and low self-esteem, and I must have been bemoaning my hair. I remember Amy taking an appraising look, considering a moment, and then assuring me that I could, in fact, catch most of it up in a ponytail. In a kind and matter-of-fact way, she gave me an entirely new piece of information about myself, one that would push me over the threshold from short- to long-hair again.

It was a tiny conversation, about something trivial, but I never forgot it. How come?

I’ve written on this blog repeatedly about seeing and being seen, and my issues around those ideas. In that instant, Amy looked, and saw, and reported back with some good news. The fact that I remember our brief exchange so clearly suggests how rare it was for me to experience being seen without also perceiving that I was being judged harshly. When I looked at, and saw myself, the only thing I had to give was a long list of criticisms. Amy held up a different image, one that neither flattered nor mocked. An honest assessment. And within it was not just the possibility of ponytail but a suggestion that maybe the truth, the reality of myself, was not as awful as I feared. It cracked open my self-image in a way that permitted hope to enter, ever so slightly. And it makes me wonder, today, why Amy and I weren’t fast friends.

Given her capacity to see clearly and assess without judgement, it’s no wonder that Amy MacKinnon became a writer. I just finished reading Tethered, her debut novel. It is the tale of Clara Marsh, an undertaker, and the damaged people, living and dead, who threaten the walls she’s carefully built around herself. Set in towns south of Boston, not far from where we grew up, it’s not only a page turner but it allows you to engage questions like how much faith do you have in the people closest to you and how far would you go to save someone outside that circle of familiarity.

The book also allows you to consider if you might have an aptitude for the art of undertaking. While I must answer with a resounding ‘no,’ I can imagine something compelling about working so near the mechanics and mystery of the human form. So long as it is alive, that form holds within it the potential for kindness, courage, love, and change.