I am trying out all sorts of
wild and crazy living on the edge with reckless abandon activities of
late. You might recall, I recently wrote
about eating tongue. Not that I did, or
likely would, but I did talk about it-that’s surely wild! I enjoyed a fairly successful art opening
with a room full of positive energy and encouraging feedback. OK, I am being painstakingly modest- the art opening
was absolutely fabulous, and I am not typically one to do fabulous, not
seriously anyway, but the opening was totally kick-ass. It was serious and amazing and fabulous. I also submitted a painting to a gallery, in
the small urban setting of Kingston, N.Y.
which was well received and generated an immediate, impassioned
response. I started biking, well a
little, but a start just the same and I did make it the whole 8 miles with speed
and delight plastered across my wind blown face. So I did it again. I logged a few "dates" that
I thought were great fun. We all have our own take on things, for me the great
smile I was receiving was a fresh new start after years of forlorn sadness, and
pale, strained grief. So, I might try a few more soon.
All of this living on the
edge and not taking too much seriously led me to say these words out loud yesterday, “You
have been doing my hair for years, I want you to do something different, I
totally trust you.” I guess I thought
that meant she would also know my inner most insecurities and fears, being all
trust-gaining and such. This trust of a
hairdresser parallels the trust in intimate relationships and the belief that
when we do finally “trust” we imagine that to mean; the other bloke or broad in
the inner circle of trust can read our minds and know our inner selves and
inner fears. The very dark and secret
part of us that we can’t quite look at directly will be understood and honored
and protected. That's kind of hard to really master. But then that’s what living on the edge, all reckless
is about isn’t it? Embracing the feeling
that we are OK in spite of those deep dark secrets. We have very little control of very few
things so why exert so much energy trying so hard to make everything just so,
or just soooooooo hidden?
Something different. That’s all she needed. Well, actually, she went on a mission to find
a few good magazines and hair style catalogs to choose a perfect style. She handed me one and told me to see if I
could find anything. I decided not to
really look. I wanted to give up and
just let the “expert” decide. She was getting more and more
exhilarated. She did in fact have a
great idea.
Around the halfway mark, I
thought of saying “OK, great you did it!”
But again, I fought the urge and just decided to wait it out. I did not have long hair to begin with but
when all was said and done, you could have created costume and design for 2 – 3
Planet of the Apes characters. Let’s
just say my hair is, or was thick.
Extremely thick and now it’s not.
It’s not thick, it’s not there, or here, anymore. It’s just not.
I survived it in her smiling
presence. I am a sucker for smiles it
turns out. An easy mark at the end of a
smile. Very easy, it seems. I don’t
often enough give them, so they are typically hard to come by, but maybe I am
smiling more of late, because I seem to be getting more. (I’ll have to make a mental note of that, am
I smiling more? Are others smiling in
happiness or something more akin to shock and fear?) I left the salon with the sinking reality
that when I woke from my spritz of valium-sprayed-smile, I would be greatly and
deeply traumatized and traumatizing.
When I got home, my son who favors crew cuts, (which incidentally drives
me crazy,) said “WHOA” in that smiling, deep, way that doesn’t really mean good
or bad but it surely means DIFFERENT. I prefer good or bad when it comes to
feedback, DIFFERENT is hard to pin down.
I like pinning down, and
smiles.
In the late 60’s the “pixie”
was a hairstyle in vogue. Twiggy wore it
best. Her big deep eyes distracted you
from her short hair, or were made to look deeper without some big, distracting,
flip, wave. Her Peter Max inspired
fashions also brought your eyes away from her hair or lack of it. Florence Henderson, as Carol Brady added a
little length and popularized the “shag”.
In those same late 60’s my mother, frugal, efficient expert that she was,
marched us downtown and had a barber cut our hair quickly and cheaply, once.
I was too young to complain or grasp that this was not exactly normal
girlish fanfare. The second time
however, was traumatizing. To me, and
more so to Mrs. Hunt, my best friend’s mother charged with taking me. She was on her way downtown and needed to
take her son to get a haircut. My
mother, frugal efficiency expert that she was, handed Mrs. Hunt the cost for a
haircut and requested that I get mine too.
Mrs. Hunt appeared a little reluctant, due to my status as a “girl”, but she was headed there anyway, and what are
friends for?
So off we went. It came back to me quickly but apparently too
late. Maybe it was the clippers, maybe
it was the fact that I was with a different boy, not just boy brothers that did things with me out of
familiar tribal ritual or the privacy of our own family oddities. Suddenly it became clear this was a “boy”
hair-cutter and a “boy” haircut and now what?
Was I a boy? No! I was not a boy. But from the looks of things in the barbershop
mirror, you could have fooled me and probably everyone else in the
universe. I was probably 5 or 6 at the
time, cute - sure, but a bit on the rough and tumble side of things, skinned
knees and wild abandon.
If you ask young
children now the difference between boys and girls they often say, “Girls have
long hair. “ I can assure you, the rules back then were even more defined. Girls had long hair, well except, Twiggy, and
Carol Brady, but I don’t think they went to the barber. When I caught a glimpse of myself, I did what
any traumatized girl does. I
screamed. I cried a shrieking, screaming
cry and tried to grasp the utter act of violation that had been committed. I could do no more. My hair, thick and long, was gone. It was not there, on my head, and could not
be returned or fixed or salvaged. Worse,
I felt like I was stripped of my girlness.
I walked home, sulking, down trodden, several steps behind, Mrs. Hunt
and her son. Knowing the neighboring “foreigner”, (I think that once meant “Italian”)
girls could at least wear earrings to stake a claim toward gender clarity, didn't help. I was stuck, hairless and nationalist without
the old world pleasure, or disguise of pierced ears. Sulking and down trodden with minimal
nationalist expression, I tarried homeward.
I don’t hold on to many feminine pleasures or pursuits. I was not primped or pampered. Feminine mystique is not an area of expertise
for me. I am not high maintenance in any
stretch of the imagination, but I do like a little more hair. I have a few different quirky rules about
what NOT to do to it. Of course if you
don’t share these rules and you say, “I totally trust you with my hair” you
have to just take it with a grain of salt, or scream bloody murder, or suffer stoically. Maybe I just need a thick, Peter Max-inspired
headband or a big floppy hat for the next couple of weeks.
I went out to pick up a few things from the
grocery store and the local high school teacher looked up from his cart and
smiled widely, and said, “Oh, I like your new do!” Of course his hair is thick and long, and I think he
was caught off guard, but he did smile.
Maybe it was ok to trust someone with sharp scissors near my hair. Maybe I need to lace up my high heeled boots
and twirl around in my new.... wait, according to fashionising.com I am "in". The trends for 2012: wide eyes curtained by big false
lashes, bright block colors, graphic
prints and colorful abstract geometric patterns, AND short, boyish hairstyles.
Maybe I will check in on
Mrs. Hunt. I imagine if pressed she
still has pangs of guilt about taking me to get my haircut some 43 years
ago. It might please her to know, I
finally outgrew it, sort of. I’m just
happy to know, my hair grows quickly, in thick, waves that will soon cover my
ears and hide my, I mean frame me just so!
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