Today was a day of beauty for me. I was indulging my vanity at the hair salon. My daughter’s day of beauty was yesterday at the nail salon. Pink Mermaid now adorns her nails.
I’ve been going to the same stylist for many years. We both love gardens and often talk about them. As she did my hair and we talked, the song, A Rose is Still a Rose by Aretha Franklin, kept playing in the background of my mind.
My stylist’s name is Azy. Today it dawned on me to ask her whether her name was a shortened version of another name. It turns out her mother named her Azam. At her first hair salon they suggested she shorten it to Azy. Her family still calls her Azam.
She speaks Farsi and is Iranian by birth. She has lived here in the U.S. for a very long time. She has two grown daughters. One is a dentist and the other is a lawyer.
I had been told a long time ago that my middle name, June, means ‘dear’ in Farsi; so today, I asked her if this was true. She smiled and said, “it means ‘my dear’.”
I asked her what her name Azam means. She wasn’t clear in her answer, so I looked it up when I got home. It turns out it means “greatest”.
While still online, I decided to look up the complete lyrics for the song, A Rose is Still a Rose.
Now, my motivational message is: “Baby Girl, you hold the power.”
movingforwardslowly 