Day 105

Rewilding today was spent organising the bake sale, and then a brief five minutes outside, because it was really wild and windy today, with slanted rain hurling itself against the window-panes, so that I had to shut the two windows which were open, as everything a foot or more beyond them was suddenly soaked.  I love crazy storms like this, and so we went out on to the stoep where I thought we could talk about how such weather made us feel, and then we could stand on the edge, and breathe, and maybe scream if we wanted to, but softly, as there was a Lower School concert taking place just inside. And there might be some irate teachers storming out into our storm, but with worse consequences.

The three girls huddled next to me and one of them said that she couldn't go in the rain because her hair would be messed up.  This is a thirteen-year old girl!  I was still climbing trees at that age, and I don't think I have ever worried about my hair being messed up by rain! 

The five boys were of course delirious with the wildness of it all, the wind buffeting us as we stood in the little alcove.  They ran out into the rain like the happy puppies they resemble, and I had to call them in after a while as I couldn't really send them back to class sopping wet!  They took to climbing pillars and leaping off. 

When I went out on to the edge and let the rain and wind take me, two of the girls followed suit, and then they got into the wondrous crazy energized excitement of it all and leapt out into the storm too, so that everyone, except Miss Hairdo, was a little bedraggled when I had to unlock the door into the school too soon, and send them off, their bodies singing, to their next lesson. 

Why do boys have short hair?

I was supervising recess the other day and had that thought, which  I have had several times before in my life.  When I was little I thought boys just had short hair, that it didn't grow in the same way, just a little bit and then stopped.  Whereas girls had long hair because you couldn't really be a princess like Rapunzel with short hair, now could you?

It is peculiar, and I suppose if you look through history and across cultures there are many instances where men have long hair, like the Native Americans with their long flowing hair blowing in the wind as they rode their horses bareback, or the Sikhs, who bundle it all up in a turban, defeating the purpose, it seems to me. 

The length of men's hair bears a strong link to social standing in western society, with short-haired men better integrated into business in a general way, and long-haired men still thought of with suspicion. 

Whatever, it's time for bed.