When I was younger I had long hair. I wasn't so young that it had a certain element of carefree jubilation, but more an testament to the complete hatred for all the existed around me in my teenage years. At it's longest it fell just below my shoulders. I would be lying if I said it was a thing of glory. More accurately it was a tangled, greasy rats nest, the unkempt nature of which I felt accurately expressed my general malaise with my own existence. I didn't like myself and it was a means of ensuring that not too many other people like me either. I don't remember this being a conscious decision, but things always seem more clear in the rear view. My parents always begged me to cut it. They would do anything to be rid of the horrific mop that adorned my head. As any good teenager, I resisted. It was a tragedy, but it was my tragedy and I embraced it like a child with a new puppy that hasn't been told yet that if you squeeze him too hard he might die of asphyxiation. It began as a sort of security blanket, but as with all things that give us a false sense of comfort in time it became a burden. I remember one specific day as I was lumbering between classes, out of the corner of my eye I could see a group of other kids chuckling in my direction. I gave it little bearing as it was common place for the social elite of my high school to look down upon those that were of a lower caste. I could see that one of them had broken from the group and was heading in my direction. I can't remember exactly who it was, but it could have been any of them as a major tenet of being a part of the upper echelon required that individual thought be suppressed and replaced by that of the collective. "Are you a boy or a girl?" Engaging in this conversation was futile, but I felt an obligation to respond. This is an ongoing thing in my life and maybe it's a character flaw, but in situations of conflict I am unable to simply ignore the problem. It doesn't always make things better, in fact it generally makes them worse, but it's not something I could change then and I'm not ready to change it now. "What do you think?" A grin reminiscent of the Grinch crept across his face, never have I seen a greater physical display of schadenfreude, "A girl right? I've wondered for a while but could never tell." At that moment I wanted to embed my fist into his face, wanted to tackle him to the ground and repeated beat his fragile face into the cement until blood covered the ground around us and anyone within view shrieked in terror as they realize that this is the first time in their life that they will see someones life end before them. Just the thought of it made me crack a grin so subtle Mona Lisa would be jealous, "Go with that." Laughter erupted as the boy returned to his group of friends, "IT'S A GIRL!" I shook my head as I trudged on to class, the sounds of their elation still ringing in my ears as I entered the building. I made my way into my math class, where I never participated in class but instead spent the hour sitting on the teachers computer composing a sort of murder mystery. I always finished my assignments weeks before they were even assigned and when it came time for the test the only time I would have to study is when I'd completely the material so long ago that I'd completely forgotten what it was. For that entire year it became a sort of refuge in my day. I miss that. It wasn't long after I decided to forgo my senior year of high school, to take classes at the local community college, that I cut my hair. My father joy's may have exceed that of the mocking children, but this was a more pure joy, without the flaws of malice. He took me to a small salon, there were only three chairs, in Bellevue and introduced me to one of the most animated people I've ever met in my life. He cut my hair with a fervor greater than anything I'd encountered. With each snip of the sheers his jaw would clench and release, like some demon faced insect feasting on a field of freshly fertilized grass blades, his joy was the greatest I'd seen thus far. I left with hair shorter than I'd had in nearly a decade, dyed red as the fire that was beginning to grow inside, of self acceptance and contentment that still has yet to reach it's full fruition. A few weeks later I was sitting down for dinner with my father. As we sat waiting for our food an elderly woman, who was as much 85 as she was 110, walked passed our table. She more struggled with her walker than walked as we are accustomed to doing. It was then that she made an unexpected detour. We were maybe 8 feet out of her path, but she painstakingly made the adjustment necessary to come right up the edge of our table and with a voice as wise and understanding as it was serene she said to me, "you have the most beautiful hair." I could tell from the look behind her eyes that she wasn't talking to me, but to some lover, long dead, that now only exists in her memories. She saw him again in me and for that brief moment we were what each other needed. To this day her face is one of my fondest memories.
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| Samson and Delliah - Peter Paul Rubens |
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