Hair

I cut my own hair. It's a long story, but I do. Cutting my hair is rather routine. I've been doing it for decades. Cleaning up after cutting my hair is always a contemplative experience. Hair clippings are extremely resistant to being collected and disposed of. So, molecules of my own DNA are still in the nooks and crannies of every place I've lived. Hair grows about one half inch per month. Seeing a pile of something I've grown unconsciously on my own body always fascinates me. Hair is dead skin. My hair has been many different shades of color over the decades. It is now shot through with white hairs, though overall still a light brown with russet tones. My hair grows thicker on some parts of my head. Cutting my hair reminds me that I am an animal, a biologically aging and changing being. Awareness of the emotional baggage associated with my hair also allows me to challenge my attachment to my appearance and my own resistance to change. Learning to cut my own hair as a routine practice, a chore, has helped me take responsibility for myself in a very basic way. I am the keeper of this body in specific and deliberate ways. And cutting my hair is teaching me in small increments how to let go of my body, which will some day cease to be.