I was always loosing bobby pins. Many years passed like that, with me loosing bobby pins. Every morning I woke up, made my way to the bathroom, and put my hair up in a bun. I was very exact with my bun: my hair had to be center-parted; the two sides had to slope downwards at precisely the right degree; the ponytail had to twist to just the desired tightness in forming the final chignon. Standing before the mirror in silence, I would secure it with six or seven bobby pins and say a wordless prayer. Everything depended upon this bun: my ballet class, rehearsals, the ensuing night. It was a little bun, my thin hair didn’t amount to much, and it sat lonely at the nape of my neck. We did everything together, this bun and I: we danced, we went to school, we even took the subway.
And every evening I returned home, exhausted, mindlessly pulling out the pins and leaving them wherever it was I really did leave them. Countertops, bags, my bed, anywhere- I never saw the same pin twice. They vanished and others took their place. Often I would be in the shower, washing my hair, and with my hands feel a sole pin clinging on. I would laugh and think, mysterious tiny pin! They would be in my shoes in the morning, in coat pockets during the winter. My mother would walk around the apartment exclaiming,“Phoebe! I found more of your bobby pins!”
I’ve stopped finding pins in the shower; in fact I haven’t found a pin anywhere for quite some time. Perhaps that is because I no longer wake up and put my hair in a bun, securing it with six or seven of them. After I gave up dancing, I wondered what happened to all my pins. As I never threw them away, I am lead to believe that in the coldness of whatever dark place they were hiding, without any hope of being useful again, they decided to finally disappear.
I was always loosing bobby pins, many years passed like that, and now I can’t find a single one.