Locks of Love

"Hi, Lodi. It's me. How are you? How was graduation? I saw the pictures; where did your hair go? Give me a call back."

I pressed two to save and hung up the phone, planning to call my sister back later in the night. I was fine. Graduation was fun and my hair waits in a plastic bag on the ottoman, to be mailed to Locks of Love.

As a child, my hair was long, blond and hopelessly tangled. As I grew older, I progressed through perms (a bad idea), layers (a very bad idea), a poodle cut, long, short, curly, straight, and once, in college, a Rachel cut. During the fall of my freshman year in high school, before a varsity football game, I stepped out of the shower and wiped the steam from the mirror. Pushing my shaggy bangs out of the way, I scowled at my reflection.

The bangs dropped, blocking my sight. With growing frustration, I blew it off my forehead and reached for a pair of scissors and started cutting. With each crunch of the blades, my bangs got shorter until I could see again. And shorter yet as I tried to straighten the mess I made.

By the time I finished and my hair dried, I had a fringe of bangs. These were not the days of fringed bangs. These were the days of big, billowing helmets of hair, lacquered with aerosol hairsprays, ozone be damned. My fringe preceded the trend by about a decade and set me apart at Cambridge High School. Tugging the hair did nothing to help and I decided to quit with the cutting. Temporarily.

By the following spring, the bangs fell to the tip of my nose, and the rest of my hair spilled down my back. One steamy night in Mexico, on spring break with the Spanish Club, Terry, Noelle and I wandered down to the front desk of our hotel.

"Do you have any scissors?" Terry asked. The hotelier stared at us blankly. We struggled with our limited vocabulary. (Noelle and I were only three quarters of the way through our first year.) "Tiene usted algo… scissors?"

That didn't help. We pantomimed cutting motions, with two fingers swinging wildly. "Tiene usted?" Finally, a lightbulb moment and the guy got it. "Tijeras!" He disappeared into an office and returned with a pair of dull rusting scissors. "Those will work. Gracias!"

We scampered back to the room and Terry took the clippers to my hair, lopping off about eight inches. One would think I learned my lesson, but I liked the new, shorter hair and the fact that it had been cut with rusty scissors in a hotel bathroom in Mexico. I liked the drama. The shock factor. The look on my mother's face when I got off the plane.

Eventually, it all grew out and eventually, I started to equate drastic haircuts with life change. It might have been reading Deenie, by Judy Blume. It might have been learning about the slash and burn method of farming – getting rid of the old to make way for the new. Maybe it was just me.

Whatever it was, over the years, the tie deepened and I found myself in an endless cycle of growth and shedding. Graduation from high school, from college. Moving to Colorado. Losing 70 pounds. Leaving Colorado. 8, 10, 12 inches at a time. Gone. New hair for a new life.

When I started at my current job, four and a half years ago, my hair fell well below my shoulders. (Honestly, I could have modeled for a painting of Eve; it was long enough to hide my considerable assets.) I decided to cut again. My life had changed again. This time, though, I decided to do something with it and I planned on Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces for financially disadvantaged children. Or, as I like to say, they make wigs for kids with cancer.

Early one Saturday morning, I met my sister and the kids at my brother-in-law's barbershop. Marvin took up the scissors and a handful of long, thick hair. I heard the crunching and watched the kids faces, my sister's eyes widening. The men in the shop stared and I saw the thought streaming through their minds, flashing across their faces. "What is the little white girl doing?"

In minutes, he was done: My hair reduced to a chin-length bob. I loved it but it wasn't quite straight. The more Marvin tried to even the locks, the shorter it got. I told him to leave it. I'd stop someplace on the way home just to even up the back. And, after an afternoon at Frying Pan Park, with my sister, the kids and a farm full of animals, I stopped at the Hair Cuttery by my house. The stylist asked what I wanted.

"I really just want it straightened up. It's a little uneven in the back."

She took one look at my hair and proceeded to cut layers into my already short mop. (Marvin had cut off more than 16 inches.)

"I know you're not going to like it," she smugly declared as she clipped, "But the layers will give it more body."

My hair, my thick, unruly hair, did not need more body. It needed a bit of evening. I watched, speechless as she cut the shortest layer to no more than two inches, crown to tip. I wanted to cry. Instead, I paid. I even tipped the crazy woman and I stumbled out to my Jeep. I drove home and sat on the couch for a while, watching a blank TV.

Overcome, I wandered back downstairs and into the shower where the running water released my tears. I pulled on my hair between the bouts of weeping and gnashing of teeth and stood under the stream until the water turned cold. I dressed and toweled my very short hair.

I climbed back into the Jeep and drove straight to Whole Foods. The vitamin aisle. I grabbed a bottle of folic acid, on sale for only $3.99, and started popping them in the parking lot. I prayed that the power of prenatal vitamins would work on my hair. Four weeks later, it was almost long enough to tuck behind my ears and I had beautiful, long nails.

Eventually, it grew back. All of it. And I almost laughed at my overreaction to the mushroom cloud of hair. Almost. A couple of years later, I did it again. 12 inches. After an initial fear of becoming "fat girl with short hair", I realized that I liked my hair short. So did the boys. That might have colored my opinion as I found myself on date after date before ending up with my boyfriend.

My hair grew out. I pigtailed it. Ponytailed. Barretted. Twisted. Clipped. The boy disappeared; the hair kept growing. Another boy appeared and still it grew. Driving me nuts: both of them. Eventually, he left, too, and I decided to cut my hair. I kept a ruler in the bathroom, measuring before work. After work. Before bed.

One Monday, two weeks ago, give or take a little, I had had enough. I made an appointment, went in and chopped my hair. Gone. All of it. The next day at work, some of my coworkers did double or triple takes. Others had seen it before, the shock worn off but not completely gone. My brother stared at me in astonishment.

"You look 10 years younger. You look 14," he said, math obviously not his strong suit, as I am well past 24. Then, again. I was carded for cigarettes that night.

When I went to Seattle for the graduation, my cousins gaped at me. "Where did your hair go?"

I laughed. I liked the reaction. I liked shocking people but I didn't think much about it. I had done it before. I will do it again. After the ceremony, though, curled up on the couch with an aunt and a couple of cousins, I did think about it.

My aunt Becky has two more treatments of chemotherapy. Under a scarf, her luxurious locks reduced to stubble. Her brows were gone. She mused aloud as to what her hair would look like when it grew back. Under the scarf, short, soft curls poked through the stubble.

My hair still waits in a plastic bag on the ottoman, to be mailed to Locks of Love. My intentions might not be pure – I like me with short hair and I like shocking people – but the outcome is true. Some child might feel a little more confident, more comfortable, more normal with a wig from my hair. Crazy.


Tag: Hair Locks of Love