A number of friends have asked me why I shaved my head last month; several were concerned about my health, because they automatically associated such a suddenly-bald head with chemotherapy. Others assumed I had taken some sort of spiritual vow; some asked jokingly if the new hairdo was my way of trying to beat the summer heat in South Texas.
GETTING CLEAR
The truth is none of the above. I had contemplated shaving my head several times in recent years, as my hair grew thinner and my hairline crept higher. As a long-time professional musician, I've always taken care to maintain a hairstyle that matched whatever "headshot" photo I was using at the time, because that's what professional entertainers do. But as I got older, it just seemed silly to spend good money going to a hairstylist once a month to have ever-fewer hairs manicured into place, and then spend time washing, drying and shaping them before every public appearance, just so I could maintain a particular image.
LOOKING BACK
But, each time I mentioned the possibility of shaving my head, Zet was quick to nix the idea, saying it wouldn't look good, given the shape of my head. That, in turn, always brought back memories of being teased in elementary school for having big ears, buck teeth, and the bad haircuts I got from my dad, who lined his six sons up in the backyard and sheared us on the first Saturday of every month. I clearly remember that after watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, I vowed to start earning money by mowing our neighbor's lawns, so I could go to the barber shop and pay for a "mod" haircut, in part to emulate my new rock-n-roll heroes, in part to cover my big ears. Which I did. And ever since then, I've made a priority of going to the best hairstylist I could find, even when money was tight.
LOOKING FORWARD
Fast forward to last month. On successive days, I turned sixty-six, filed for Social Security, made an appointment to be tested for hearing aids, watched our son move back into our house, and put to rest a long-submerged dream of becoming a touring musician again someday. Unrelated facts, with complicated back stories, but all tied together with the ribbon of Conscious Aging, which involved making a conscious choice to embrace what is, instead of longing for what was or what could be. Suddenly, it seemed like shaving my head would be a good punctuation mark for moving onto the next chapter of my life story, as well as a handy tool for coming to peace with another layer of my old, childhood programming. So, I did it.
MOVING FORWARD
It's no big deal; just another opportunity to be present with whatever IS in the moment, rather than re-inhabiting the illusions of either a stigmatized or glamorized past -- or drifting off into an idealized future. Young or old, it's a valuable lesson, and I'm doing my best to learn it, one small choice at a time.
With blessings,
Rudi Harst
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