Thoughts

Another summer day. More heat to endure. More hair to cut. But not mine unfortunately. That week was really hot and the humidity from the recent rains had contributed to adding more sultriness to the air. It would have been the perfect week to do away with this hair once and for all. Unfortunately other women and girls also thought like me, and so I found myself full of work and hot. You couldn’t even imagine the torture I underwent in those days. Imagine me, cutting the hair of girls who reluctantly came in because they didn’t want to have short hair, while I, who wanted to be completely shaved, had to cut the hair of those immature girls. Short… for them short meant just below the shoulders. I felt so angry that I was tempted to grab my nice electric razor and run it across their foreheads. ‘Lucky you that your head is breathing now’ I would have told her. But whatever the case, it’s been a really tough week.

 

The following week was in the average. Just saying.

 

It was Friday, late afternoon. The sun strangely was already setting at 5.50pm. A more unique than rare fact. I had just finished a client and was sweeping up the remaining hair on the floor; as usual there were very few. It was pretty much the opposite of when I shaved someone. The very short hair was on the ground instead of on the head. It was kind of a paradox. Two elements that cancel each other out. The brave and the cowardly one.

 

After I finished sweeping, I took a well-deserved break before finally calling it a day at 6:30 pm. It seemed like no one was coming anymore. I was tempted to close even earlier that day. But I didn’t. I preferred to go and sit on one of the waiting chairs. I stretched my legs out on the small magazine table and relaxed. I thought about the moment when I would finally get rid of my hair. By now it had become a fixed thought in my mind, a purpose. Would the electric razor running over my head really be a relaxing sensation? And would the manual one have been even more so? I couldn’t wait to find out. I was seriously thinking of taking a moment to myself at that closing time on one of those days and doing what I should have done a long time ago.

 

That’s funny. Me cutting my own hair. I’ve never tried to do it. Now that I think about it…it would be very complicated to do it all alone. It goes for the electric razor, but when the time came to completely shave everything off with the straight razor… what would I have done for the back of the neck? I didn’t have time to think about it. Someone was entering.

 

A girl with magnificent shiny blonde hair entered the salon. It was about as long as her shoulders. The setting sun gave the reflections a color that was very reminiscent of honey. I quickly stood up and welcomed her.

 

“Hi, welcome to my salon. You can make yourself comfortable while I see what we can do.”

 

“Greetings.”

 

From the looks of her she didn’t seem like an out of the ordinary girl like the girl and woman I had happily shaved. Her clothes were pretty normal, nothing out of place.

 

“You are lucky. I was just thinking of closing.”

 

“I am sorry. It’s just that I’ve only now freed myself from work after weeks.”

 

“Wow, so young and you got a job right away?”

 

“You’re also not much older than me, yet you’ve already had a job for some time if I’m not mistaken?”

 

“Touché. What job do you do?”

 

“I work at a bakery that does everything. It seems strange that I work so much for a trivial job like this, but it’s summer and therefore time to celebrate the end of school and exams, so many kids arrive and buy sandwiches and sweets to prepare various celebrations or simply to have breakfast. These guys are a bottomless pit!”

 

“I understand you. Well, what did you want to do?”

 

“I was thinking of a very short bob, like up to the cheekbones, and as short as possible underneath since I don’t want to feel the heat.”

 

“Short bob with shaved undercut. Got it!”

 

I pulled out my primary tools. The clipper and a pair of scissors.

 

I started cutting away all the hair that wasn’t needed for the cut. To make things easier for myself, I took a bowl of the kind in which you mix the color for the dye and put it on her head. Unorthodox, but effective.

 

“Sorry,” I said, looking embarrassed.

 

The girl smiled. I picked up the scissors and began cutting along the edge of the bowl. Zac, zac, zac, and immediately a nice bob emerged. I decided to give it a fix later. First I had to do the sides and the back of the head. Then I picked up her bob and fixed it on the top of her head with a hair clip. I made sure everything was in line. Then I took the clipper and turned it on. The buzzing sound it made always managed to instill in me a deep sense of calm and relaxation. I started running it on the back of her neck. Her hair fell into my hands, then ran down the back of the chair covered by the cape and onto the floor. As we went along I noticed that she was getting goosebumps. She too was noticeably relaxed by the sound of the clipper.

 

“Do you like it?”

 

“Oh yes. It’s the first time I’ve tried it. Is fantastic.”

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

“Have you never tried it?”

 

“I wanted to do it one of these days, but like you I’ve been busy at work so I haven’t been able to do my hair.”

 

“Do you have any cuts in mind?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Shorter than that? I can’t imagine anything even shorter than your bob.”

 

“Then try to imagine no cuts.”

 

It took her a while to assimilate those words of mine.

 

“Do you mean…”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“…that you want to shave completely? Damn, what courage! I wouldn’t have all this audacity.”

 

“And not only. After I get it as short as you have on the sides, I’ll make it even shorter with a straight razor.”

 

Those words did not fully reach the girl. She was very confused. ‘How can a beautiful girl like her completely shaves her head? Even the heat has its limits’ she thought.

 

“Are you really sure about that?”

 

“100% sure!”

 

“In my opinion it is better that you think again. Such a beautiful girl shouldn’t throw her hair away like that just for the sake of it or because she’s hot. There are better solutions to this heat than shaving your head.”

 

“It’s not just because of that.”

 

“And for what then?”

 

“You see, I want to get this cut not only for the heat, but also to show who I am. I would also like to give other girls the opportunity to review their positions. Show them that it doesn’t matter what others think of themselves, but that if you are convinced of what you do and want to do a certain thing, you can do it, regardless of what they think of them. Demonstrate that you can look beautiful even without hair during the summer, instead of suffering for three months with hair that reaches down to your feet. Simply put, what I’m trying to say is that if you want to do something, just do it. Don’t be held back by people’s thoughts. Be free to be yourself.”

 

The girl didn’t know what to say anymore. But then she said it.

 

“However, I prefer to express myself in other ways.”

 

I was a little disappointed by the reaction.

 

“Anyway…”

 

I leaned forward to look at her.

 

“…I really appreciated this idea of yours. There aren’t many people like you nowadays. Having this determination also means a lot of courage. For this reason, even if my thoughts are different from yours, I respect you.”

 

I hadn’t heard this word in a long time. ‘RESPECT’.

 

Once the cutting was finished, the woman left, but not before paying.

 

That day ended with an unexpectedly engaging event for both of them. An apparently normal day ended in an equally normal way, but only apparently.

 

We had learned that despite having different opinions, two people could still have a feeling of mutual respect.

 

 

More long days at the salon awaited me and I couldn’t wait to experience them all. Naturally with the shaved head that sooner or later I would have had.

 

Next part — Freedom