“Once in Mexico I saw a fine fierce man sitting on the steps of a straw jacal. A girl lay on her back, her head in his lap and with such an infinite tenderness and great skill, he combed the black and shining waterfall of her hair. Her mouth was half open with pleasure and her eyes closed, and it seemed to me I had never seen or felt anything so beautiful and I wished that some day I could be a part of such a closeness, but of course I never can nor will. Maybe it's enough to have seen it.

Some things there are that continue happening forever. I can see them now, his left hand supporting the hair, his right hand combing, and I can see her breast rise and fall as though the air she breathed had taste and texture, as though the light around them was beloved. That hair was combed over twenty years ago and it is still being combed.”

– John Steinbeck, in a letter to Frank Loesser, 1960