Hair Yesterday, Gone Today
I cut ALL my hair off. It’s not as dramatic as it might seem; I’ve had my hair so many different lengths that nothing is new anymore. My hair has been shaved, permed, feathered, bobbed, bleached, layered, banged . . . you name it. Still, it is all gone (and last I checked, Sikhs-a group I stubbornly continue to count myself among-still aren’t supposed to remove a single hair on our bodies).
I finally got tired of my Cleopatra bangs and traded them in for a Halle Berry/Sharon Stone crop (just the hair, although I’d trade my waist for Halle’s in a heartbeat). I look just like I did when I was eighteen. And twenty-four. And thirty-three.
The hairdresser at my favorite satellite Japanese salon looked at me quite dubiously when I made my request. “You sure?” she asked, “short hair hard make long.” Last time I went, said hairdresser was sporting a bona fide G.I. Jane.
I assured her that I was sure. She begrudgingly began thinning and layering, then stopped abruptly. “No, no, no,” she said, firmly shaking her head. One side of my head was layered-spiky, Cindy Lauper-like-and the other side was still Cleopatra. “I cut hair, see too many gray.”
Let me just say, here, that I've had gray hair since I was twelve years old. Still, I've been dying it religiously because . . . well, you just don't see gray hair epitomizing sexiness in Vogue and Cosmo and Elle. But, as unsure as I was about letting my gray all hang out, I assured the hairdresser that I was sure about my cut.
She peered at me skeptically. “Lotta gray . . .” she said, flipping through my hair like the pages of a book.
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure,” I said, in something close to a shriek. She shrugged, one eyebrow raised to high heaven, and began to work her hedge clippers in a frenzied, yet controlled rhythm. She furrowed her brow, channeling both Ludwig Van Beethoven and Edward Scissorhands.
When she came up for air, she stood back to appraise her creation. She was an artist in the truest sense of the word. I looked like I used to all those years ago, but she put these wonderful wisps around my face to frame it and bring out my features.
That hairdresser revealed to me a version of myself that I had never seen before. In spite of her reluctance to show my grays the light of day, she stood back, squinted her eyes and, nodding slowly, said, “You right . . . who knew?”
Yes . . . who knew?