K hailed me from her porch and bequeathed me a pale, cream and green magnolia hair clip, which magically transformed my outfit into that of a tropical goddess. In fact, there were many tropical goddesses around our apartment complex that day wearing gardens full of poppies, roses, daisies and orchids; I don’t think that she understood how inspiring the clips were until we blackmailed her into teaching us to make our own.
Force a man to teach another man to fish, and all that.
So we settled ourselves at her kitchen table and learned the ancient hair-clip craft.
“It’s really very easy,” she said repeatedly as I burned my fingers on the glue gun.
And, under a little direction, a little ribbon, a little clip, a little flower, and a little glue, it was easy. Suddenly, I had a red-orange poppy that, though clashing badly with my outfit, reminded me of springtime and my brother-in-law’s poppy field behind his house.
Unfortunately, all the craftiness invaded my brain—I noticed that S had a great red-orange-poppy-appropriate shirt on, so I wrestled my clip into her hair. I decided it was better for it to be of good use—plus I could see it better in her hair than mine. After all, what’s the use of learning how to fish if you can’t enjoy the view?
