Someone on Flickr “favoriting” my photo of an Avon hairbrush might be even creepier than my taking the photo in the first place.
The first morning during my mom and grandma’s visit in May I met them at their airbnb apartment four blocks from me and was startled to see this plastic brush, the same brush I grew up using in the ‘80s. How on earth was my mom still in possession of it? It turned out she had the same question for her mom. I guess my grandma has been using the same hairbrush for 30 years? All my plastic tubs of old make-up don’t seem so odd anymore.
Heirlooms are nonexistent in my family. We joked that it would be my inheritance (I texted my sister to let her know we’d have to fight over it) but based on the death of my dad, whom I would consider a closer relative, I received less than a hairbrush so this was more truth than anything.
Over the course of this visit plus the trip my sister and I took to the Bay Area in October to see paternal cousins, I learned a lot. A lot of minutiae. No big answers. I’m not sure what the questions were we were trying to answer anyway.
I had a bunch of that minutiae piled up in short paragraphs but now I don’t feel like unfurling it. I’m about to head out of town and all of a sudden am more forward-looking.
There are quite a few “vintage” Avon hairbrushes on eBay, by the way, but not that exact model. Clearly, it’s rare.