Whirlwinds of my Septembers

                             
In September of 1989 Hurricane Hugo swept through South Carolina leaving in its wake a path of twisted pine trees, damaged homes and unrecognizable landscapes. The days following still seem a bit surreal to me; as if I dreamed it and awoke to distant bits and pieces. But much of it I remember as if it were yesterday.
The week before the storm I had just began my career in a small salon in Sumter. I was spilling over with hopes and dreams of what the future held for me. I literally worked in that salon for four days and then spent the next three weeks sawing branches and moving debris as we tried to salvage our home and rebuild our lives. This was a difficult time for us…the work was hard and the weather was hot. We had little to eat, no water, no electricity and no bathroom facilities. This was a far cry from what I imagined would be my entrance into the glamorous and fast paced life of a stylist, but a humbling experience, none the less and it a pattern that would seem to dictate how my life would be guided by the whirlwinds of my Septembers.
Almost twenty- two years to the week later I found myself uprooted once again from all I knew that was familiar and consistent.  I left my well paying job, solid clientele, strained a few long standing relationships and ran headfirst into building and operating a business which I knew very little about at that time. I knew how to do hair and I was quite good at it, but now I was dealing with budgets and loans, staffing and working with suppliers and lawyers…all a foreign concept to me. It was a very hot month and we didn’t have electricity yet and there was also a great deal of physical work involved.  Old carpets had to be ripped up and pulled out to the dumpsters along with gallons of crumbled press on floor tiles, and broken pieces of a large desk, which was bolted to the floor and had to be dismantled with a sledge hammer. We deconstructed this building from ceiling to floor so that we could reconstruct it into what you see today. The days were long and the work was hard but we remained dedicated to our dream. The rebuilding process reminded me in many ways of days just following Hurricane Hugo.
I am so very proud to step back and see how far we have come in the last two years. I am proud of my staff and what we are continuing to create together as a team. I am proud of Christine for her continued dedication and hard work behind the scenes, which most of you never get to see, and I am proud that so many of you have remained happy and loyal to us after all this time. It is hard to imagine that such difficult and painful experiences could ever result in a place of joy and great awareness. I suppose that the whirlwinds of my Septembers still continue to direct my path and lead me to the place that I am intended to be and so I am learning to just relax and let the winds carry me.
Today is September 26, 2012 and this is OH SALON’S second anniversary. We will quietly celebrate it with a staff dinner tonight at California Dreaming and with the launch of our blog we will call “LAYERS” It has been a dream of mine to be able to share with you, not only the latest in hairstyles and products but also some of our experiences and insights as we continue to build a business. I hope that you will find the layers of our lives informative, insightful and humorous and if just one thing that we say makes you say to yourself, “Wow, I never thought of it that way”, then we will have succeeded with this project. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY EVERYBODY!!!!

~Kiah