From Hair to There

When Fenya was a little girl, if she told me that she would be going out for a haircut at some point, I would invariably say, "Go out for a haircut? Now, why would you want to do that? I can cut your hair here at home and for free too!"

"Really?" she asked (the first time, anyhow).

"Absolutely!" I would reply confidently. "I can't do any fancy stuff with it, but if you want a haircut like mine..." I would add while running my hand along my shaved head for emphasis.

Her responses would vary over the years from shock to laughter, to disgust, to eye rolls and similar dismissive gestures, but sometime around junior high she started saying, "Hmm...not this time, but thanks." Somewhere along the way, she had glommed onto the idea that hair was more a matter of expression than identity, which is also when she started colouring it (after talking about it for years). Did this mean someday she would actually want me to shave her head?

Last week, she brought up the idea again, largely because there would never be a better time to try it out. She was not working a full-time job, she was not attending in-person classes, and the vast majority of people she knew would think it was pretty cool, myself included. By this fall, even a close-cropped shave will have grown into something short but styleable. And besides, multiple colourings had damaged her hair enough that a healthy grow-out from scratch over the summer made a lot of sense.

So when she finished her most recent exam this week, she said, "Hey, let's shave my head this weekend."

As always, I was happy to help - and frankly, when it comes to the girls' hair, shaving it off is really the only thing I am remotely qualified to do.

So we brought the stool and clippers out to the back patio, draped one of my old t-shirts over her and tightened the neck opening with a clothespin, and got to work.

We started out with scissors, and we took turns cutting off some tendrils of her hair. 

We tried to leave a mohawk, but without product to make it stand up, this side project was doomed to fail. We did manage to leave her a proper '80s rat tail long enough to photograph it, which she appreciated.

It was soon time to switch to the clippers, my one area of 'expertise', having used them at least monthly for about a quarter-century now. We ended up trimming everything down to my second smallest comb (the #2 - for reference, I use no comb and come away with a proper 'pig-shave' as the kids used to say,  which was more severe than what Fenya was looking for. 

On more than one occasion she remarked on how soothing it felt, and I had to agree.

Before too long, her curly locks were all gone. She was happy and I thought she looked great.

This morning when I went to get her for breakfast, her hand came up reflexively to her head and after the briefest of pauses, she smiled broadly and said, "I don't have to do my hair!"

"Liberating, isn't it?" I said. And she agreed.

To top it all off (so to speak), tonight she asked me to give her scalp another go-over with the number 1 comb, for no other reason than to see what it felt and looked like.

I told her it was maybe a little more government-issue looking, but still tidy and cool. Now to see how long it takes to grow back in - an endeavour there is, sadly, little point in me joining her in.