I wrap my towel like a turban around wet locksand suddenly I am ten again, tossing rocks with the new girl who wore a turban and was not allowed to ever cut her hair.
We were fast friends, for those short months just shy of summer at the end of our fifth grade year when the sun filled the afternoon with dry heat and even under the sycamores the shade was warm.
She joined the class late, and left before the autumn brought us back, our shoes brand new and pencils sharpened. But in the time between, we played hard and did not stop to ponder how our worlds were really separate stanzas.
Instead, our friendship took place between the parentheses of joy; where sparkly black eyes met blue and spelled out mischief.
It didn’t matter that she wore long cotton pants under her dresses, or wrapped her hair in yards of cloth. What mattered was our wildness, running together faster than any of the other kids, or hiding in the barn where, (I offered her a silver pair of scissors and she cut some of her hair.)