Lara has been cutting hair since she was 19, 34 years ago. She looks forward to each day. She loves the act of cutting hair — the shaping, the use she makes of scissors, the use she makes of her practiced eye to create balance, to make even the jowly old feel better about looking in the mirror.
We told stories to each other, mostly about children and their resilience and joyfulness.
She spoke of one of her daughters who had been functionally blind from age 2 but who never allowed herself to be told No, she could not do this or that, she could not see. She did gymnastics and diving. Able to see shapes, wearing thick shades to protect her from the light, she flew through the air.
I told her about a boy 10 years old who came into the bookstore with his mother. His back sloped up at his left shoulder. His mother told us he had endured 14 operations for a curvature of the spine so severe he was developing a hunchback.
He was radiant. No other word does him justice. The suffering, the hospitals, the tests, on and on and on, and still he gave off the energy of purest joy, an elation that was internalized, simply there, as much a part of him as the color of his hair.
Lara finished cutting. We took each other’s hand and said how much we had enjoyed this, our talking, the stories, this company. I didn’t say this, but I wish I had, that this haircut, decided on an impulse, tenderly smashed through a funk and pessimism that had been brooding in me for days. It gave me a taste of flying that I needed.
