Love My Bouffant or It’s Over
Who’s by your side when the beach gets windy?
The bouffant appeared without effort or fanfare — uncharacteristic of a bouffant, which is often painstakingly deliberate and accustomed to making an entrance even before its bearer.
But accidents do happen.
The day my bouffant materialized was an unseasonably cold one in July.
Arctic winds seized upon the New York coastline, turning all 32 coastal miles of Fire Island into a tab of Alka-Seltzer plunked in a glass of ice water, relentlessly spraying sea mist from its surface with the velocity of an industrial fan.
For weeks, I’d anticipated the Fire Island trip with two of my closest friends, Marnie and Patrick. But our flights were delayed getting in, leaving us less time than we’d planned on the island-now-ice-cube afloat in a frothy sea.
I chalked up the vacation travel delays and ill-timed Yukon vibes to an 18-month streak of tragic events — my beloved dog’s death, “my” feral cat who’d set out for greener pastures (presumably those with more field mice), my acrimonious divorce, my wrecked car, and a panic attack resulting in a call to 911 and a visit from five paramedics.
This vacation was to be my great escape from what seemed a hapless stretch of existence, a chance to turn the year around and salvage the latter half of it.
Not to mention, I rarely get to see Marnie and Patrick, and, being the Beach Betty I am, I was not about to miss a single day on the sand with them.
I donned a tankini, applied a generous, needless coating of SPF50 to my exposed flesh, and set out with my friends under the cover of thunderclouds, determined to enjoy a sunless day by the sea.
At the water, the wind made quick work of my hair, lashing me with salt and sand until my strands became the texture of damp corn stalks, of which I was unaware because I was busy locating every towel and article of clothing in our beach bags with which to cloak my frostbitten body. Nonetheless, Instagram was cajoling us to share a happy-on-vacation post, so Marnie obliged and snapped a selfie of the three of us, oblivious to my hair, which I will describe to you in three words:
Anne, Princess Royal
The picture of my bouffant was then cheerily trotted out alongside that of her highness Princess Anne every five minutes or so for the remainder of the trip, anytime Marnie and Patrick needed a pick-me-up.
But, far from being scorned, I’m emotionally bolstered on either side in the photo by two people full of genuine kindness and affection for me — that bouffant-blossoming moment perfectly reflecting their presence at my side throughout my prior months of misfortunes. With each arrival of heartbreak in my life, my friends had shown up physically or in spirit — with wine, books, balloons, a selenite crystal, gummy candy shipped long-distance, a googly-eyed valentine, cabaret tickets, whatever the situation called for.
And Patrick and Marnie weren’t the only ones. Other friends who’d missed out on the bouffant but had seen me ugly-cry over FaceTime or at the bar blubbering with my hair plastered over my tear-soaked face, showed up with candles, incense, flowers, much-needed used furniture, help with home repairs, and gift cards for towels and dishes. We went bowling and ice skating, saw critically acclaimed theater productions, and ran around Manhattan. One friend sent me beautiful cards and chocolate-covered cookies; another made a trip from out of state to visit.
The gifts and the help were blessings. Even more so was the fact that all my friends, however they could, showed up, period.
In a society that makes a big deal out of romantic love (myself included), too often we’re blind to the platonic love that’s all around us. It takes the blockbuster suicides of Thelma and Louise to even put a temporary spotlight on that love. Still, we singles gush over best-friend films and then refocus our energy on finding a great romance two minutes after the credits roll.
But when your life as you know it accelerates off a cliff, and your hair is whipped into a tragic bouffant, who will actually show up? What will they do when the beach gets windy? People who love you and want you alive will wrap you in an oversized towel, hand you an adult beverage, and laugh at your hair until you can laugh at yourself.
The bouffant photo popped up in Patrick’s iPhone memories not long ago. He texted it to the group again as if the first 30 times over the course of that summer hadn’t been enough. I texted back the laughing-crying emoji and, “I want a partner who loves me in a bouffant as much as you all do. This will be my new standard for lasting partnership.” If someone can’t romance me in a bouffant, well, we’re a ship marooned in ice.
I now find myself in a romantic partnership, one that formed as effortlessly and unexpectedly as my Fire Island bouffant. It’s been six months and the bouffant has yet to make its debut in this relationship. But you better believe I will display that bouffant with grandeur at our seaside commitment ceremony — because my friends have made me realize what love is. They’ve trained me to choose carefully who’s by my side, identify what that person would do on a windy beach, or in the throes of my own embarrassment and in the turmoil that is so often life.
