Hairy Business

I got my hair cut again recently and was so glad to have the fresh "do."  I wear my hair short enough that it looks the same, whether I've been in the wind, just gotten out of bed, or am on my way to a meeting or church.  I wear it short enough that I don't even have to part it.  My hairdresser Bruce is fantastic at making me look presentable, despite the fact that I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to my hair.  As a young girl, I wore my hair in a variety of ways, including parted in the middle, down nearly to my waist.  I curled it, straightened it, parted it on the side, wore pigtails, ponytails, barrettes, braids and even a bun high on my head.  I've even been bald twice from chemo treatments.  Perhaps it's those last experiences that made me realize how unimportant hair is in the big scheme of things. Thus, I'd really rather be doing something else, anything else, than fiddling with my hair, because it just doesn't matter to me.  Recently, Larry and I were watching a PBS special of old Ed Sullivan Shows from the 1960s featuring pop musicians of the era.  Of particular fun were the many ways that young men wore their hair during that decade, beginning with fairly conservative short cuts to long hair that curled around their faces.  Seeing the many male hair-dos of the 60s sparked Larry's reminiscences about his own hairstyles over time.  Laughing, he recalled that his dad would comment to him and his brothers while watching The Ed Sullivan Show, "You boys wouldn't want to wear your hair long like that, would you?"  No matter his real opinion, Larry, in his crew cut, would reply, "No."  As it turned out, as time went by, like so many other young men of the 1960s and 70s, Larry's hair grew and grew and grew, as did his beard.  Today, he wears his hair in a pleasing cut that suits him perfectly. Our hair-dos express how we see ourselves and how we wish to depict ourselves to the world.  Whether I like to fuss or not, it was indeed nice recently to have a freshly cut, new "do."