When I was a girl I had straight-as-a-stick hair. I was jealous of my sister’s curls. When I was a teenager my hair was long and thick, and a body wave fixed the stick issue. During college I chopped my hair off to my shoulders, then around my ears when I had children. My forehead was short, so any bangs were in my eyes straight away. I detest hair in my eyes because I am so visual, it drives me crazy to not be able to see clearly.

After chemo, my hair grew back in curly. Temporarily at least. But it also grew back fine and thin. My hair line changed completely. There was no thick mane to control. It was soft as a hamster, so my sons told me. It has been 17 years since then, and nothing has changed much. It is fragile, thin, and oh so fine.

Have you ever seen cotton candy being made? The tiny strands of sugar float on the air waiting for the tube to cling to. They blow in every direction. The spinning of the machine causes these tendrils to hang, mid-air, gathering randomly in a storm of spun sugar. My new hair is like cotton candy. It flies in the wind. In every direction. Randomly. No order to it. Wild and free.

I only mind this when it affects my vision, which is all the time. These tiny web-like fly-aways find my eyes. Drawn like a magnet, and I cannot see. Like walking through a spider web in the forest, it is impossible to get these hairs off of my face because of their tiny invisibility. I appear a mad woman swatting and grabbing at things on my face no one can see.

But I am not complaining…not really. I am so grateful to have hair, no matter the type. I was just so used to it being one way that the differences are notable. I have adjusted for the most part to my new locks and how to work with them. However, this windy climate in Ireland has given me a run for my money.

Now that I have given you the background, you have to use your imagination for this next part. I am in Ireland. Land of the wild and free. My hair is quite happy here. It is blown with the untamed winds and it thinks it can fly away. It feels freedom in the wind and reaches out to grab it. Every strand has a mind of its own, but they all want to be liberated…from my head. It is an uninhibited jig upon my noggin.

Every step outside brings a shocking amount of wind which whips my cotton-candy hair into a frenzy. When the wind dies down, for a second or two, my hair is a tangled disaster. It looks like the finished product of sugar threads on a stick. Running a brush through it is the equivalent of trying to separate cotton candy back into individual strands. Once I have semi-successfully tamed the wild pile, pulling half of it out in the process of detangling, the wind picks up again. The remaining threads begin the dance all over again. It is an exercise in futility.

One thing I have learned from this daily frustration is that I didn’t pack enough hats. The two I brought have worked ok, but I didn’t quite realize that I would need a hat every day. Several times a day. Fortunately, I did pack a rain coat with a hood, which has saved the day, especially when pulled over one of the two hats I brought. However, when picking a hat, it is quite important to know if it can withstand 40 mile an hour wind gusts as well as being water proof. Because if it cannot, you will see a woman, wild hair all askew, running after a hat that is playing catch me if you can. It is not a pretty sight. Truly.

Truth be told, I am not sure I have represented our country very well. The good news is that there are so many countries represented here I can just pretend I don’t speak English and none will be the wiser.