Summer Haircuts

Before

I came across an old photograph recently of myself at about age 4, posed in a pretty pink dress, with my long, platinum ringlets framing a face smiling so sweetly no one would ever suspect I was about to break a lamp over my little sister’s head. (kidding, I was too little to pick it up) I remember that long blonde hair, the curls, the ribbons and bows, the barrettes…and I remember painfully the day it all came off.

Mom was ever the practical sort. One summer day, she got tired of my tears as she tore through my hair with a harsh pig-bristle hairbrush, or maybe it was the screams of agony as she yanked it into French braids. (Why do they call them French anyway, when they make your eyes look Asian?) So she got out the hedge clippers, and hacked it all away. Actually, I think she might have even shelled out a dollar or two for the local hairdresser to turn those treasured tresses into the fashion of the day, the dreaded pixie cut.

I’ve never understood the name, or the style. It’s one of the ugliest haircuts known to woman, unless you’re Audrey Hepburn. Boring, hideous, unfeminine, androgynous… every adjective for that particular hair arrangement is everything I am not, nor ever have been, even at age 6! 

The crowning insult was when my adored father came home from work, looked over my head, and asked my mother where I was. He didn’t even recognize me!

This was a week of haircuts around our house. After cutting 2 or 3 inches off my long hair last month, this Friday I had Tera cut off another 2 or 3. It isn’t short by any means, but is much lighter and bouncier and fluffier than it was in May.

More dramatic by far were the haircuts inflicted on Sophie and Dickens yesterday. Our two Norwegian Forest Cats get a bit matted up from time to time. When this happens, they can’t move as freely, and yarked up hairballs increase in frequency and yuk factor by the day. Shearing them like sheep solves all problems, and keeps them cooler for the summer as well. To judge from their disgusted expressions however, I’m sure they like the new look as much as I liked the dreaded pixie cut when I was six. But by November, they will be back to their magnificent fluffiness.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working through the contract process on one of several properties I’m trying to sell. The buyers are, well, difficult, to be kind about it. And in this market, they can get away with it.  It has been a painful and humiliating process, and no one deserves to be treated in this way. I’m that close to calling the whole thing off. But as I noted in an email to my real estate attorney, I’d probably regret that worse than a third margarita.

So on the way up to Bangor to get the cats shorn, what to do next, how to get through the insults, the bullying, the sheer ugliness of the transaction were major topics of conversation.

After a relaxing couple hours at Starbucks waiting for the cats and talking about life and real estate, we headed home feeling relaxed and refreshed. But soon David started a long lament about how undignified the cats looked, and how dreadfully it would hurt their pride to be seen looking like cast off stuffed animals with pumpkin heads. I reminded him of how much he loves to clean up hairball gak, and how much he would miss it. That stopped him cold.

It stopped me, too. For suddenly I realized that, no matter how awful this real estate transaction is, no matter how deeply my self-respect suffers, I will be done with this property. My spirit will grow back, as will my bank account.

The sale is nothing more than a bad summer haircut. 

                

After