Winter gardening.

I’ve been thinking a lot about eyebrows lately. That’s what winter will do to you, allow you to think about details you have no time for the rest of the year.

A close friend suggested a few months ago that she’d love to see me do my eyebrows, that it makes “such a difference.” Later that week, a friend who does facials, and is one of the most impossibly fashionable women I know, said she knew EXACTLY who I should see, and that I would LOVE it.

Since I’ve never let another person near my eyebrows, I figured, why not? I don’t cut my own hair, after all. I made the appointment. I nestled into her beautiful chair and had to hide my shock when this extremely glamourous eyebrow person said she wanted me to grow them out.

Grow?

Images of my awkward middle-school years flew by me – bad haircuts, bad blue eyeshadow, badness on every level -- before I grew into my long-haired, freckled, Bonne Bell lip-smackered, Love’s Baby Soft self.

“You used to have a youthful, naturally full brow, and that’s what I’m going for. We can always make them more sleek, if you really want that. But first, let’s let them fill in and go a little wild and see what you have.”

It strikes me as being a lot like gardening, this brow stuff, and when I tell her this she laughs and confesses that it’s satisfying in exactly the same way. And after a few appointments, when I start to see the difference, I realize that her advice is a lot like writing advice.

First you have to go a little wild and see what you have.