I live in a pretty wild and remote place. Living out here can lead to wild hair and a good tangle every once in a while. The other morning I slid and climbed down a steep hillside while tracing the line that brings water to the camper. Somewhere along the way it was blocked and I needed to disconnect the line at the joints to see at what point it had stopped.

There’s lots of cat briars on that dry and south-facing hillside. And it’s very steep. Footing isn’t very stable not only because of the steepness, but also because of the shale. The shale pieces slide across one another fairly easily.

So at one point I’d lost my footing and began to slide. It’s not like I was in fear for my life – the hill isn’t that high and I knew sooner or later I’d reach a shrub or tree that would give me a stopping point. But the briars!

I managed to slide underneath a tangle of briars. All except for my hair. My hair is usually braided, and it was that way this day, too. As I slid down, the briars snagged a hold in my hair to slow me down. Thankfully these particular bunch of vines were old and brittle and so they snapped and let me go.

But when I got out of there I had a tremendous mess in my hair!

The hour was still early enough for the rising sun to make long shadows. Here’s one of me after I’d taken out the braid and was trying to remove the briar tangle in my wild hair. I thought it made pretty good shadow art 🙂

(P.S. Thanks, Aunt Ermalie for the idea to incorporate this imagery into my writing. I’m sure sooner or later you’ll see it in one of my books 😉