The Swedish Connection

I wasn't sure that the leap to punk music and hip hop was going to stick. It was Havana and I's first musical connection. Our Friday afternoon dance parties, while mom was at work, were dominated, admittedly, by music of my choice. Stereophonics, Cyprus Hill, the Stooges. Oblivious to their meanings, she learned the words. We cranked up the volume, "louder, louder" she'd cry, and we danced. We'd run back and forth across the front room. I'd swing her around. She'd try swinging me around. We'd bounce. But Havana's first love with my music was to be short-lived.
I later realized that in order to appreciate my music, it was necessary for Havana to first pass through other music. Less complex, less angry, more sedate music. Pop music. It was impossible to make the leap direct to higher forms of music. Havana needed to procede through her Abba stage. And that's where we are. Dancing Queen. Mama Mia. Fernando. SOS. Waterloo.
I suspect that her mother is encouraging her, but I cannot produce any concrete evidence. Although Karen has suggested that Abba should not be judged superficially. That the catchy exterior of their melodies are twinned with darker lyrics, overwhelmingly about sadness and loss.
Almost every evening the parents are invited to take a seat on the sofa for a SHOW. Havana rushes back to the girls' bedroom and puts on her old Halloween pink tutu, returning to look for her little dance partner. Bjorn's piano intro opens and the two are off on their performance: Illy making spins that fall before completion and Havana showing off her latest dancing mad skills, while increasingly lip-synching the lyrics.
Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find.

Glam Rock and Hair Consciousness

Havana has long hair and is very attached to it. She makes tails with it, she has it up, she has it down. Once every few weeks she will spend an hour in front of the mirror in what could either be described as playing or working on her hair.
I am regularly reminded by our children that I have no hair.
I, inturn, regularly remind them that a more accurate formulation is that I have no hair on the top of my head. In our house, like in society in general, hair that is not on one’s head is presumed to not even exist, while hair on the head gets all the special attention normally associated with the crown.
Living in a house with three persons who have hair on the tops of their heads, it would be easy to find myself excluded from the many rituals associated with hair. I have instead tirelessly forced myself into the world of hair on the head.
I do, however, find myself generally sidelined into hair maintenance. I brush and comb other people’s hair. I wash other people's hair. And it is within this narrow role that I have had to find my own style. For instance, I do not and will not use hair de-tangler, chemical, organic or otherwise. This was not an attempt to be the parent that is never picked to brush hair. I am fairly hair aware.
I am also the cutter of hair in our house. I will probably never be trusted to cut adult hair, but I have exclusive rights for the bang-cutting of our offspring.
I have developed my own style of bang-cutting. I have perfected the cute-crooked-line bang. Like all things made of great skill and talent, each haircut appears that it took no effort whatsoever.
I also prefer what we call the 90-day cut. The 90-day cut, applied only quarterly, provides the whole family with more time to spend on things beyond hair. This cut at first strikes the observer as severely short, but as each day passes it slowly and subtly becomes less and less short.
As a family, we recently watched a YouTube video of a glam-rock star from the era of my own youth. Karen half-mockingly queried if the singer’s large heap of hair was his own or a wig. Before I could reply, Havana confirmed that it was his real hair. “Mommy, didn’t you hear him sing, you can run your fingers through my hair. He didn’t say you can run your fingers through my wig.”
Hair consciousness.