Sitting at a college classroom desk, I watch the young woman in front of me.  Every single day she reaches her right hand back and separates her long brown hair with her thumb and forefinger.  She burrows her two fingers down to the layers of hair that are closer but not quite at the base of her neck.  Several times in an hour, I watch as as she pulls a skinny strand up through the gap her fingers have made.  The strand is about the half width of a No. 2 pencil and is sleek and shiny.  Now, she twists and twists that strand until it is a tightly woven spiral.  Every day, I watch her wrap the twisted strand one time around her forefinger so that is makes a brown loop around her fingernail.  I don’t even hear the instructor’s droning anymore because my favorite part is coming up.  One handed, she holds the end of the loop tightly with her thumb and middle finger as she slides her finger out leaving the loop intact.  Every day, every time, she taps the apex of the taut loop with the tip of her forefinger.  She drops the strand and runs her fingers through to her hair to blend and unravel her hair.  She starts from the beginning.  

It’s been more than 20 years so I have no idea what her face looked like (I’m not sure I ever did), I don’t even remember the class but for some reason I have never forgotten that very detailed memory.  

Surely, she found comfort in that weird little routine.  

Clearly, so did I.