Hair Apparent

Hair Under Wraps: Still smiling after two hours of Ultimate Frisbee in Uzvara Park.

Dear Friends,

In the summer of 2004, my family and I vacationed in Hawaii. I have many fond memories of that trip, but one of my happiest involves something I didn't witness but only heard about when I arrived late to the breakfast table one morning and found my brother and mom laughing uncontrollably. The cause of their cachinnation: my father. When the server had placed the basket of sweet rolls and biscuits on the table, Dad had enthusiastically responded by saying, "Thanks! We'll eat these!"

Apparently, the half-asleep busboy kind of paused, squinted his eyes in confusion or surprise, and lingered a second before walking back to his station, shaking his head. Mom and Andrew exchanged looks: No duh! Of course we'll eat these! What else would we do with them, take them home in our pockets as souvenirs?

Enthusiasm, as it turns out, is Dad's modus operandi. Happiness -- nay, joy -- is his way of life. Tim, is your dad always that happy? friends used to ask. Yes. So, sure, he was stating the obvious when he proudly proclaimed his gastronomic intentions before his wife, son, and that bewildered Hawaiian busboy, but knowing Dad, what he really meant was, "Here I am in Hawaii with the people I love, it's a gorgeous Sunday morning, and you know what? I am going to eat this bread and enjoy every last crumb!!"

This story came to mind Saturday afternoon when I strolled up to Sapnis ("Dreams"), a hair salon on Terbatas a couple blocks from my flat. I felt it was time to get a haircut -- my first in Latvia. You see, back home, I'd grown quite accustomed to Linds, who had become a sort of a Hair Therapist. Just before I left, she'd given me one of the best darn haircuts I've ever had, and well, quite frankly, I wasn't sure if I was ready for the touch of another.

My mirror told me otherwise. Unless I had intentions of growing the groundwork for a very fine and flowing Euro-Mullet -- you may laugh, but I jest not. The mullet is alive and well and dwelling among us -- it was high time to do something.

So I did. As I opened the door to Sapnis, I was greeted by a falling broomstick and a gaggling woman. The broomstick was slender and green. The woman was not. She was built like Joe Montana with the face of Bea Arthur. Thinking perhaps I should move along to the next salon, before I could turn around, blond Bea took me in her arms and escorted me around what turned out to be a patch of wet concrete just beyond the threshold. I must have said "thank you" or something because she immediately picked up on my English language and began thanking me profusely. She led me to a small couch, sat me down, offered me a cup of coffee and told me Anna could take me in fifteen minutes.

I caught my breath.

A Brief History of My Hair flashed before my eyes. My first official haircut came from a neighbor lady who lived in the subdivision where I was born. Maybe I was four. I have no memory of the event but can only envision the photographs of it in the family album.

Flash forward a few years when I had two barbers, back-to-back, each named Gary. A good name for a barber, I think. I remember the second Gary quite well, in fact. He was a man's man's barber. His shop, in downtown Jacksonville, was a short walk from Dad's office. The shop smelled like Old, very old, Spice blended with the wafting aromas of smoke and Miller Lite from the surrounding taverns. A haircut with Gary lasted fifteen minutes. No more. No less. The cut was always the same. There were no surprises. Andrew and I each left the barber shop with one stick of Wrigley's Spearmint gum (our prize for enduring the extremely coarse neck brush and potent baby powder, I believed) and shorter, slicked, and parted hair, still wet as the ocean. Gary's haircuts were timeless, I suppose. Cuts that unsuspecting men and boys have been wearing for centuries. A good, ol' Schuyler County cut, Grandpa would say.

Somewhere in my middle school years, my family transferred to a salon where my parents would book back-to-back haircuts for all four of us. Gone were the days of barbers. Enter in stylists. As I recall, every third Tuesday was haircut day. Somewhere in high school, I grew weary of the "family hair plan" and shared stylist. So I rebelled. I switched to a different stylist on Tuesdays.

In college, haircuts happened spontaneously -- from a girlfriend or a guy on the floor having recently returned from the army. Life was carefree and each cut brought with it the air of delicious uncertainty. But, somewhere in my late college days, I think, I encountered Linds and fell into the mature routine and happy familiarity of her cuts. Leaving her in August was sorrowful. I felt condemned to suffer a series of bad Baltic hair days. I'm not going to lie. She'd seen me through bowl-cuts and buzz-cuts and break-ups, the good, the bad, the shaggy, and a host of other coiffure crises.

Meeting Anna, then, in Riga, brought with it all of the usual first-cut feelings. My nerves were jarred. Was my hair clean enough? Thick enough? Too American? When was the last time I conditioned? Would we hit it off in conversation? Would we be able to converse at all? Was I to make the first move? What about her touch? Would I leave a new man with a new do or ambivalently mussed and unfussed?

Anna turned out to be lovely. A real professional. She led me back to the sink and faucet where I received The Most Gentle wash of all time. I don't know about you, but when I wash my hair, I really wash my hair. I dig in with my finger tips, I swirl around that hair, I show the scalp who's boss. Anna's wash was like being tickled by a peacock feather held by Mother Teresa. Just picture it! I had to stifle my laughter. Better this, I thought, than the alternative, for out the corner of my eye I saw Bea watching enviously from behind her desk.

Emerging from the wash, Anna led me to her chair. She asked me what I wanted. I showed her with my hands and so many words. We engrossed in a quick game of charades and well, before I knew it, the haircut had ended just as sweetly as it had begun. Anna even blow-dried my shortened locks. When I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror, I didn't mind that I resembled Cosmo Kramer's younger brother. The cut was a good one, I could tell.

Deep below my hair follicles, however, a familiar sentiment was brewing. My heart, as it so often has in Latvia, was welling with... what? Gratitude? Gladness? Enthusiasm?

I knew what I wanted to say... Hold it in, Timmy. Hold it in! I told myself. Don't let it out! Be cool, be cool...

Oh, but the urge was powerful. I couldn't suppress the feeling, the words...

As Anna drew back the cloak and I watched my severed hair tumble down to the floor in slow motion, standing to my feet, I looked Anna right in the eyes and said, "Thanks, Anna! I will always remember my first Latvian haircut!"

Dad, I think you know the feeling.

As they say, the hair doesn't fall far from the head.

Yours,
Tim

P.S. Linds, keep your scissors sharpened, because I'm coming back next summer. Anna is only a temporary fling.

Voila!

Happy hair and a happy man at the National Opera House

before the production of Madame Butterfly Saturday night.