Nailing It

I woke in a start around 4:30 this morning, my foggy eyes focused intently upon my fingertips.  Could it be true, or had I simply had some reality-bending kind of dream?

Indeed, each nail was blanketed in a rich swath of Indigo Blue.

I can recall exactly five times in my life when my fingernails have donned enamel paints.  Today, it turns out, is one of those times.  Really, though, what could I do but wander towards the next-door neighbor's home last evening, five wrinkled dollars jammed in my fist?  It was, after all, a legacy moment, the passing of a small yet significant torch, and I needed to support the event.

Six or seven summers ago, Allison and her friend Bailey started painting nails for the neighbor ladies (guys, too, on one occasion--an East High faculty function, in which a good cause was on the line and cheap beverages were available to provide courage).  The business, which flourished despite its sporadic operating hours, was evidence of at least two things:  These girls knew how to do nails and how to do them inexpensively; and our neighborhood was a happy place.

Still is.

Off and on, then--over the next two or three summers--a salon would appear in our tree-cooled front yard, and, like Kevin Costner in Iowa, the girls learned that, if they built it, people would come.

I could care not two whits about manis and pedis, but I know a glorious and symbolic thing when I see it.  Like some perkily stylish GDP indicator, this nail stand provided hard proof of the wellness of our local environment.  I'm happy to say that the indicators have been quite positive ever since.  And probably long before that stand first appeared, as well.

Which is why it was so heartening to see a new generation of nail artists emerge last evening.

What if it turned out that the answer to all the crud in the world--the cancers, the bombings, the immigrant children turned away--rested in a $3 bottle of OPI nail polish?  What if we could somehow find solace and strength and hope in the colorful brushstrokes of bright paint enthusiastically applied to our time-worn hands?  Who would turn away from such an offer?

...certainly not I, despite my general aversion to dolled-up fingernails.  Indeed, I think I would be first in line if such a simple act held even the tiniest prospect of tipping us back into the realm of a kinder, gentler, brighter way of living.  And I rather like the idea that a couple of pre-teen neighbor girls will be leading the charge.