I finally did it!After two long years of being positively platinum, I’ve taken the plunge and embarked on the treacherous journey toward natural hair. It’s hard to fathom what I’ve been willing to put myself through. Two long years of consistently tolerating the cruel scalp scald that inevitably accompanies platinum locks. Two long years of being tethered to bleach and toners and latex gloves and occasional orange hues that have no place on my agenda. For the last 6 months or so, every time I’d get my roots bleached (by my longsuffering boyfriend—MAJOR kudos to him!), I would say, “OK, after this, I’m done.”

But it’s like sliding down an icy hill, my friends, and realizing halfway through that it’s not as easy as it looks. You’ve already got momentum, so you figure you may as well keep on going. You are fully cognizant of the painstaking efforts it took to arrive where you are, so calling it quits and, in essence, throwing all that work away is difficult to do.

There’s a line between beautiful two-tone (call it ombré call it balayage, I don’t really care) hair and just plain grown-out roots and frankly, it’s not so fine. I knew I wasn’t willing to just grin and bear it as my roots creeped up on me and made a statement to the world. So I decided to accelerate that process while slowly weaning myself away from lavender by doing a root stretch.

I hadn’t heard of one either, but I figured if people with dark-all-over hair can get light tips, people with light-all-over hair can get their root color extended. So I did a little research and saved about 7 pictures for my girl to mimic (I’m pretty sure one of the required skills that make a hairdresser successful is the ability to take nebulous, seemingly contradictory instructions and make magic out of them anyway). Though I was perfectly prepared for a disaster, I'm pretty pleased with the result. And I'm pretty sure my hair follicles are ecstatic!

Here's to making transitions as smooth and un-awkward as possible.

Root stretch on lavender hair before and after

photo by Benjamin Vargas

It’s odd to me the way the phrase “time is money” gets thrown around so non-chalantly as if the formula were that simple. I’m positive it’s much more complicated than that.

I find that when I am making money, I don’t have a whole lot of time to do much of anything, and when I have time, I usually don’t have a barrel of money.

It is true that the more time you are willing to give up, the more money you are able to obtain. It is also true that spending money can contribute in a way to how you enjoy your time (alas, no matter how much I try to fight this one, there’s no way around it). However, at the end of the day, money can flow in like a river just as easily as it can float out like a hot air balloon – what holds true value in this equation is TIME. Opportunities are the real treasure. One MUST take advantage of them whenever possible.

And that is exactly what I did when given the opportunity to crash my mom’s Peru reunion. (She met up with some of her old buddies from Yarinacocha, a small town along the Amazon river in Peru where she spent a large chunk of her childhood). I mean, WHEN will I ever get another opportunity to meander through the Machu Picchu ruins in the rain with mom and dad while learning all about what we think we have figured out about the Incas? (“...so the Incas took advantage of that” was our tour guide’s favorite phrase—he said it about EVERYTHING!) So I made like an Inca and took advantage of THAT.

What a delightful, surprising, inspiring trip. I expected the unexpected, but the trip somehow still managed to seriously blow me away. I met some incredible people, heard some awe-inspiring stories, was humbled and fascinated and dumbfounded and intrigued and forever changed. (And this, my friends, is exactly what traveling is all about.) But anyway I’ll let my pictures do the rest of the talking :)

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Me parece curioso que la gente use la frase “el tiempo es dinero” como si la fórmula fuera tan simple. Estoy segura que es mucho mas complicado que eso.

Yo encuentro que cuando estoy haciendo dinero, casi no tengo tiempo, y cuando tengo tiempo, pues digamos que no me llueve el dinero.

Es verdad que si estás dispuesto a sacrificar tu tiempo, puedes obtener mas dinero. También es verdad (aunque no me gusta aceptarlo) que el dinero tiene mucho que ver con cómo disfrutas tu tiempo. Sin embargo, al final del día, el dinero puede entrar como un río y salir volando como un papalote—lo que realmente tiene valor en esta ecuación es el tiempo. Las oportunidades son un tesoro. Uno TIENE que aprovecharlas cada que se pueda.

Y eso es exactamente lo que hice cuando se me presentó la oportunidad de colarme a la reunión de Perú de mi mamá. (Se encontró con algunos de sus amigos de la infancia con los que creció en Yarinacocha, un pueblo al lado del río Amazonas)

O sea, cuántas veces en la vida voy a tener la oportunidad de andar por las ruinas de Machu Picchu en la lluvia con mis papás mientras aprendemos acerca de los Incas? (“... asi que los Incas se aprovecharon de eso” fue la frase favorita de nuestro guía—lo dijo como 37 veces!) Asi que le hice como Inca, y ¡ME APROVECHÉ de ESO!

¡Qué viaje tan agradable, sorprendente, e inspirador! A pesar de que había decidido esperar lo inesperado, el viaje de alguna manera logró dejarme totalmente asombrada. Conocí personas increíbles, escuché historias impresionantes, quedé fascinada, intrigada y por siempre cambiada. (Y esto, mis amigos, es exactamente de lo que se trata el acto de viajar.) En fin, voy a dejar que las fotos cuenten el resto de la historia :)