For the Birds: This one's about getting a haircut

Part one of a two-part issue

I remember for many years being too afraid to shave my head. And then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t.

What I didn’t know was that the tiny scissors I chose that evening would not be strong enough: that my vision of elegance and the measure of slowly unfolding change would turn strained, ugly, that I would cut and cut and cut and cut, the braid too thick to cut through all at once (how could I have anticipated this?) & Lady Gaga singing in the background as everything became teeth. I remember thinking, who cares, and pulling out some gardening shears, reciting a magic spell as I grew less romantic and more goal-oriented. How is my head not like a garden, anyway?

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I remember dying my hair: red, then red, then red, then red, then red, then red, then pink.

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I remember being asked if I was having some kind of breakdown? I remember just like it was yesterday: the implication that a woman changes only at the intersection of inadequacy & panic.

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I remember my mother cutting all her hair off shortly after the divorce was finalized. In the image in my head, she is waking up on the couch and I am seeing her, as if for the first time, exhausted, exposed.

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I remember hearing stories about Sinead O'Connor; about Britney Spears; about women who were accused of being lesbians; about women who were lesbians. About the things we are and are not. And which of these things are born on the inside of us.

Which of these things, by the time they show up on the outside, were in fact a long time coming.

Which of these things, by the time they’re being apprehended by the world, are the exact opposite of surprising.

And which of these things are assigned from the outside. And which of these assigned qualities intersect with the things we actually are.

And which of them don’t. Couldn’t. Would never.

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O and I discuss the intersection of "science" and "creativity." What can be found—what can be expressed—when they are woven into the same braid. That there are things that exist in this world disguised as oppositions, things that are disparate on the surface alone. The unlearning, O says, that we must do in order to "see the world as whole again."

Once the braid is gone I shave my head entirely, and the world looks whole again.

Or I die my hair pink, and the world looks whole again.

Or I cut my hair too short—an accident this time—and the world looks whole again.

I change something about myself, and now I am new, and I am still the same, but also more. The world has been whole all along.

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What we come to be known as. Known for. The summaries that communicate. And the summaries that restrict.

When summary becomes a kind of amputation—usually when the summary isn’t written by you.

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Of course, there are things in this world that must be summarized in order to be taken in, the way summary facilitates understanding. And in this way, certain things must also be made occasionally smaller, the way understanding + simplicity can facilitate coping. 

I cope by simply cutting the majority of my hair off, and the world feels understandable again.

"It's not a big deal," I would sometimes say, trying to communicate an easy idea. Trying to normalize with words what I had denormalized through my appearance.

What kind of deal is it? A small one? A sneaky one? A permed one?

Is it a quiet deal? Private? Or secretive (what's the difference?)? Does it balance on its tip-toes? Is it wearing a too-big coat, hiding itself in fabric & fleece? 

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Are you, like, going through something? a man asks me after noticing something different about my hair.

"It's not even that pink!" O observes after I share the anecdote, followed by a selfie. "It's basically what your hair would do if it was made of leaves. Like how leaves turn bright colors before they go away. You are just keeping up with the trees." I consider that a common definition of normalcy may not involve the effort to mimic nature with our bodies, but the thought quickly bores me, so I let it fall to the ground.

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Falling, dropping, cutting. It is an accepted component of seasonality that things change in order to also continue being what they are. That this is both a recipe for growth and balance: that the two are more alike than dissimilar. How shocking! The way not-me still manages to have something to do with me. The way my center also relies on my extremes. As if I could make up something new about myself only to be more revealed, not less, by the performance.

“Fiction,” wrote Virginia Woolf, “is likely to contain more truth than fact.”

And I know she must have dyed her hair, at least once. Or gotten a cut that didn't suit her but she loved anyway. Or leaned a little too far into personal summary only to run scared in the other direction, knowing in her bones that the contradictions and conflations of personhood are where we often feel the safest, within the crafted mess of poetry. Who could possibly write The Waves and find anything but extreme displeasure with the solidification of personal branding?

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Falling, dropping, cutting. There are things that come off of us or go away from us, things that once were us but no longer are; things that just plain never were or could be, no matter how close in contact we once came.

Things go away. Some of them come back. Some of them remain all along, but differently. Some of them are dynamite. “I am my hair.” Which is to say: I am my choices. The self-propelled intersection of more and less of me.

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I remember the various ways I have tried to cut pieces off of me throughout my life. & tried to keep close what tended to slip away a little too easily. & tried to make space for the parts that needed more breathing room.

Tried to get my "no's" and my "yes's" a little more lined up.

So that the internal world of me could say, finally, yes. So that the visible surface of me could say, finally, yes.

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Suggested homework

• Tell the women in your life that you love them

• Change something temporary about yourself that doesn’t matter too much but still feels scary and matters a lot. Enact / enable this change for a full week. At the end of the week, use the page to reflect on the follow:

  • What’s different

  • What isn’t different at all

  • What you might wish to change next

Share your creative results with me!

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• By email: Hit “reply” to keep the conversation one-on-one.