Losing It

Somewhere I have a photograph of my father's mother. She was a redhead, an imposing woman almost six feet tall, with hair that went down past her knees. In the picture I have, she is standing in front of a mirror, brushing it. I don't envy her the task: when I first saw the photograph, I thought she had on a veil that rippled and flowed over both sides of her body. Brushing that lot must have taken her ages every day.

The story is that my grandmother's parents met over hair. Her father was a Civil War veteran and short on cash. Possessing a good, thick head of red hair, he decided to sell it and make some money, so he went into a pharmacy and approached the young woman at the counter -- my great grandmother. I don't know if he ended up getting shorn on that occasion, but by all accounts, the meeting must have gone pretty well.

Everyone in my family has thick hair. If you've seen Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies, then you have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. Both of my parents had great, thick manes, and my sisters and I were cursed with bushy, unruly hair in an age when straight, thin hair was in fashion. It was also an age before hair straighteners could be purchased by regular people, and we sometimes took turns ironing each other's hair -- and ruining it, too -- on the ironing board. It looked awful. It never stayed straight, either.

At some point, I made peace with my hair and stopped getting it cut short and periodically thinned. I let it grow.

And boy, does it grow.

Ten years ago, a friend told me about the charity Locks of Love. The good people at Locks of Love supply needy children who suffer from hair loss with wigs, either free, or at very low cost. She commented that with my thick, fast-growing hair, I could supply a good quantity of hair. I remembered my great grandparents and their felicitous hair meeting, and decided to give it a go.

For the past ten years, I have grown out my hair and periodically harvested it. I've sent quite a few ponytails and braids to Locks of Love in that time, but this Saturday, I really sent them a whopper. I did it in style, too: I invited the town to come and watch me get a haircut -- for a price. And I donated the money to another worthy charity, Action Aid. The hair went to Locks of Love, and I honestly don't know when I've been happier to get rid of anything in all my life. I have no idea how my grandmother could stand having hair down to her knees; I only know that since Saturday I've been shaking my head about and crying "Free at last! Free at last!"

Here are the photographs. I live in a small town, and believe it or not, this made front page of the local newspaper:

I don't know whether you can see it or not, but I am clapping.

"I bet this is a sad day for you!" the photographer said. (Au contraire!) Some people seemed to believe that I wanted hair that length; that I was growing my hair because I liked the look of it. You'd think all the whining I've been doing might have convinced them otherwise, but no.

Once the hair was off my head, I was struck by what a creepy thing it was -- like a living entity. For the past couple of years, I've been dragging this thing around with me, gardening, hiking, sleeping, swimming. Swimming! I cannot wait to go swimming!


"You're doing a very brave thing, my dear," several people commented, and I was touched by this, but also mystified. Offering to have my head cut off in public -- now that would have been brave. Getting my hair cut off in public was merely a little weird, and it was also very much a win/win deal: I got to be the center of attention for a couple of hours, I sent £305 to a good cause, and my hair gets a permanent holiday in Florida, home of Locks of Love. And now I get to blog about it.

I'm working on my next ponytail even as I write this.