Spiritual Haircut

I've always looked forward to them, but never more than now.

Typically my Monday morning work schedule isn’t very full, so that’s when I take care of doctor’s appointments and grocery trips and beauty treatments, stuff that I can’t do on other jam-packed work days. Last Monday I got up early, jumped into the car and rolled down all the windows, willing the fresh Spring breeze to come close while I drove to the hairdresser.

Whenever I get my haircut, during the part when the blades are close and snipping, I close my eyes and visualize that I’m being pruned of all stress and anxiety. As the trimmed strands take shape and my new head emerges, I shake off any lingering crap from the past few months, disappointments, grievances, and any dips in self-confidence that may have been tugging on my wellbeing. I greatly look forward to this ritual, but I also like the part that leads up to it, the journey that takes me there.

There are several roads to the salon, and I always choose the long one, even though it mostly takes place on a road with a 25 MPH speed limit. The slowness feels like a spiritual pilgrimage, and I turn up the radio and hope for a sign.

We can never know what is coming, just up ahead, if we hold on and have faith. After a few bland indie rock songs, the DJ started talking about a show he binged watched over the weekend, “Dying for Sex” on Hulu. I haven’t seen it, but of course I’ve read all about it, and it sounds terrific. The entire premise seems important, crucial, even, for women defining our lives on our own terms. The DJ raved about the show, specifically the last episode, in which the lead characters, two female best friends in midlife, dance and sing to a particular song. Then he played the song.

Reader, there on the slow road to my spiritual haircut, I burst into tears. The song was “Heart and Soul” by T’Pau, a rip-roaring 80s classic, two women singing an unforgettable cri-de-coeur for the world to meet us with love and respect.

Have we ever needed it more? Short of all the political calls, emails, and votes, I don’t know what to do about any of this, the Big Shit that is taking place in our country and in the world at large. Everything feels unstable, ungrounded, ungoverned, and I’m fucking scared a lot of the time.

But when that song came on I saw it all clearly for a moment, the girl I was in the 80s, the women in the TV show I’ve never seen but instinctively understand, the women in my life, all singing and crying and holding each other together:

Give a little bit of heart and soul

Give a little bit of love to grow

Give a little bit of heart and soul

Now don’t you make me beg for more!

I sang all the way through till the last chorus. Then I wiped my eyes, hoping my mascara wouldn't give away my fragmented emotional state. I try to be calm and smiling for my hairdresser, who definitely deserves love and respect. She is South African, and six years ago she left a violently abusive marriage in Johannesburg and brought her two children to America, seeking a better life for them. Because of the danger of her husband's wrath, and to protect her family’s safety, she was advised to change her name. She wanted to believe in this country, and herself. The name she picked is Faith.*

*Some details changed for privacy.