For a long time, one of these very favorites was a little-known young adult novel, Of Sound Mind, by Jean Ferris. I was eleven or twelve when I first read it. I distinctly remember picking it up, a hardcover with a thick plastic protector, as I combed the library's "new releases" shelf for books I hadn't read yet. This was when I read fiercely, ravenously, maxing out my library card two or three times a week. I always took a canvas bag with me, and it was always overflowing when I left, and I always began a book on the way home, even though it made me dizzy.
Of Sound Mind is about a boy, Theo, who can hear, and his parents and brother, who cannot. It's something of a coming-of-age story, and he befriends & falls in love with a girl, Ivy, who was also born to deaf parents. The book is about living in the tension that exists between contraries, and the story is both sad and sweet, heart-wrenching and hopeful. I re-read it that first time before returning it; and must've checked it out two or three more times in the years following. Something about it captivated me: its honesty, I think, and its hopefulness, too.
But my twelve-year-old mind also latched onto a very specific detail: the girl, Ivy, was described as having dark hair...with a single lock dyed a deep purple. I loved that. I grew up seeing colorful hair disdained, and this, a single lock dyed bright, seemed perfect: a small, quiet display of rebellion. Just a little bit of wild swirled into all the conservative, cautious, collected.
For some reason I've never forgotten Ivy's purple hair. I've toyed with the idea on and off for over ten years, never quite sold on it. Sometimes I feel like a purple hair person. Sometimes not. But this year-- twenty-two, twenty-three-- this year I have known and liked myself better than I ever have before, and that's been a sweet thing for me. That's a great and long story, and I'll share it sometime. Like the book, it's been all about living in the contraries, realizing that I don't have to be one or the other. That I am a little bit conservative, and also a little bit wild; that I love my natural, plain, simple hair, and I also love the idea of a little purple. And all of that is perfectly fine.
So Tuesday morning, when I thought, "Maybe I'll dye my hair purple today!" that's exactly what I did. I went and picked out purple dye, and bleach, and a little bowl & brush, and a friend came to help, and I dyed those hurrs.
...just a little bit :) I'm graduating in May, and hoping to begin job interviews around that time as well, and so I wanted to make sure I could hide it if necessary. I chose to dye the very back center section of my hair, roots to ends, so you can barely see it when it's down, but when it's up, it looks like this:
I used this great tutorial from CANDYPOW on how to safely bleach your hair using coconut oil-- the bleach was in for about 40 minutes, and my hair turned the color of light brown sugar. Then I applied the RAW dye, wrapped it with regular old aluminum foil, and left it in for about 3 hours. Voila!
I. LOVE. IT.
!!!!!!!!!!!
The color is great-- although just a bit more blueish than I wanted, kind of a violet. If I did it again, I'd buy the same color (RAW Deep Purple) and maybe mix in a few drops of red, to get more of a plum shade. But I love it, and I'm looking forward to it eventually fading into a light lavender.
I love it, and both my eleven & twenty-three-year-old selves are so glad for freedom, and transformation, and a little bit of wild.
