"A Haircut For The Ages"

I was pretty sure he could do it.

He’d been practicing for twenty years.

That’s how long Matthew’s been cutting my hair.   Not continuously.  Intermittently.

He’d move to different salons, and me and my hair would move with him.  Although as I got older, there was increasingly less to transport.

Why the longevitous loyalty?  Because Matthew was a Maestro.  He was not just the consummate “Sultan of Scissors.”  He did exactly what I wanted him to do.

And I was ruthlessly specific.

Random examples…

“I am traveling to Toronto.  I want a haircut that says, ‘I don’t live here anymore, but I am still the same person.’”

Indiana vacation?

“I want a haircut that says, ‘Not L.A. – local.’”

Passing a milestone birthday, I’d announce,

“I just turned seventy, but I want my haircut to say I am sixty-eight and-a-half.”

Unfazed by these rigorous demands, Matthew’d professionally reply,

“You’re in luck.  I have one left.” 

Was Matthew ready for this one?

I hoped so.

But no question. 

It was his greatest challenge to date.

Here’s the story. 

Call it a follicular “Perfect Storm.”  It came flyin' at me.  But I handled it. 

(I spontaneously smile when I say, “I handled it.”  It happens so rarely.  But it delights me when it does.)

Okay, back on track.

Every year or so, Matthew, a transplanted English bloke, travels to India, studying meditation, and cutting monks’ hair.  (His longtime practice resulting, at my request, in my receiving a spiritual “blessing” after each haircut, where Matthew cups his hands gently atop my head, causing a palpable transfer of energy.  Try asking for that at Supercuts!)

Anyway, Wednesday afternoon, I hear that Matthew is soon leaving for India, which I assiduously note, because “No haircuts while he was gone.”

Thursday afternoon, I hear of a just scheduled family “Photo Shoot”, Saturday morning.

I mean, is life crazy, or what?  One minute, I’m sitting there.  Next minute, it’s “Haircut Alert!”

Leaping into the fray, I make an immediate appointment for a “pre-‘Photo Shoot’-Matthew’s-going-to-India” haircut, Friday afternoon.  Then I begin pondering the haircut I want. 

Make that the haircut I need.

Which unequivocally was this one.

“Matthew, I need two things”, I began, slipping in the chair, after being shampooed,  (water trickling down my back, though I tip the shampooer anyway.)

“First, I need a ‘Retroactive’ haircut.  Because of the short notice, I am getting it today, but I want it to look like it was two weeks ago.  This is no threat, or anything; I won’t ask for my money back.  But I’ll know it worked if, at tomorrow’s ‘Photo Shoot’, nobody says, ‘Did you get a haircut?’”

“You’re in luck.  I have one le…”

“Not yet.  That’s the easy part.”  (I actually sighed at that point, continuing after the sigh.)  “We’re talking about what may become my ‘On Record “Family Picture”’, clustered beside long-passed relatives, some of whom I don’t know.

“Decades from now, when my descendants look at that picture, I imagine two questions: 

‘Who is that?’ 

And

‘Who cut his hair?’

“What’s at stake here is immortality for both of us.”

I could tell he was nervous.  No jocular “I’ve got one left”, he instead got straight down to work, focusing intently, and not talking.

(While still remembering the blessing.)

You know what?

Next day at the family “Photo Shoot”, nobody said,

“Did you get a haircut?”

"Step One" accomplished.

Posterity awaits.