Of Hair Salons and “Soylent Green”
a fable of reentry
Bethany leaned in closer to me, and in a soft yet emphatic, conspiratorial tone, whispered into my right ear,
“You know what? It never really bothered me!”
Time slowed down, and I watched this scene — this unexpected moment of intimacy between two people who had known each other all of sixty seconds — in cinematic slow motion, as it played out in the large wall-mounted mirror in front of me, seated in a barber chair of a suburban chain hair salon.
She read my first name off the online reservation queue on her computer screen when I walked in, and after she introduced herself, the foundations of our ten-minute friendly chit-chat were firmly in place.
This wasn’t the first time that I had gotten a haircut since the start of the pandemic. Much to the amusement of coworkers and friends, my then 11-year-old son and I made a weekend road trip of it back in June of 2020, bikes in tow, driving across four state lines to scenic Keene, New Hampshire, when that state became among the first to reopen barber shops and outdoor dining.
But that milestone of reentry into the realm of self-care, and several more that followed, always involved masks, and sometimes surgical gowns and plastic face shields.
