Friday 20 May 2011

hair today


What does it mean when your kid tells you to get a haircut? Ed wasn't being mean or bossy -- just expressing an opinion. We were eating in front of a movie (the new place does not yet have cable, so our culture comes pre-packaged from last season) and Ed looked over and said, You know, Dad, you should get a haircut.

I was surprised. Not that my hair doesn't need cutting. It always does. But it would never - never - occur to me to tell my dad to get a haircut. All too vividly do I recall his flashing eyes as he ordered my ten-year-old psychedelic self to get a haircut. (In justice to my father, my hair grows awkwardly. When it reaches my collar it flows out, not down, so that I begin to resemble a bird with giant wingspan. At the time of the edict, my hair was wider than my shoulders. I could barely fit through a doorway. Not quite like the guy in the pic, but you get the idea. What I mean is that my dad had - maybe - a tenable aesthetic argument.)

Really, I said to Ed.
He nodded. Get it buzzed, he said, his mouth full of pizza, eyes back on the TV screen. (We were watching The Fantastic Mr Fox -- charming and quirky but not, somehow, riveting.)

I am not thinking of getting a buzz cut. That happened once, by mistake, and my ex laughed so hard I thought she would die. She made me wear a hat for a week just so she would be able to look at me without dissolving. I am thinking instead about fathers and sons and life stages. I am pleased that Ed feels close enough to me that he can offer personal grooming tips. It makes us more like pals, equals, which is really cute because he is also a little boy who still asks me to cut up his apple for him.

So ... should I call my dad? Because, you know, I've been thinking that he'd look really good in a beard.

3 comments:

Marilyn said...

Hair wider than shoulders is pretty Queen St. West.

One of my kindergarten kids told me today that when she was a baby, she had a shaved head. Funny that
she would think that when looking at pictures of herself.

Another kid sneaks lip balm to school... she often takes her mothers, and today she had it hidden in her underwear. Who would think of that?

Richard Scrimger said...

I like the idea of a baby with a shaved head. Maybe a tattoo ... that kid would rule her Queen West daycare

Emma k-r said...

ED LIKES WHEN YOU CUT UP HIS APPLES STILL?? AWWE what a cutie