Day 40

It is not a good day to cut my hair outside. The weather has dropped by ten degrees and the clouds are stubbornly grey. Yet, I sit on a garden chair with only my bra to cover my top body.

‘Are you sure about this? I’d rather be sitting on the sofa, digesting properly.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure.’

‘Okay then,’ my partner answers resigned.

I have been irritable all morning, my accumulated week-end restlessness in search of an escape. I had kept myself occupied, my mind learning about alternative photographic process, my body moving around the house to clean and tidy, but it didn’t work. I still feel trapped. It is necessary I know but deeply anchored routine of days out and freedom of movement are difficult to reframe.

My parner cuts my fringe, each snip of the scissors a wave of anxiety dropping away from me. I have to remain still. She cuts and she cuts. It feels like I’m going bold at the back but I say nothing. Cut it all I think, make it go away.

My partner stops and I shuffle my hair trying to get a feel for my new look. The right side of my hair is heavy, my fingers going through it as if molasses.

‘Can you make this bit thinner?’

We have none or the tools required, none of the techniques either. We haven’t bothered to research how to perform a haircut. We’re following our instincts and gestures felt while at a hair dresser.

‘Better?’

I slide my fingers through like through liquud honey, my skin catching on every stray strand of hair.

‘That’ll do.’

Thin droplets are beginning to fall on the wooden table nearby. We hover my exposed skin, trapping hair inside the vacuum cleaner, its belly growing black with my discontent.

I glean my new haircut in the reflection of the window. Still too long. I climb the stairs two at a time and jump on the landing, my feet quickly swerving to the bathroom. Yeah, too long.

I grab the scissor from my back pocket and attack my fringe. I trim it there, chop it there, take off some clumps at the side. The sink is dark and I am light. I stop for an instant to observe the result. It is short. Much shorter than I had intended it to be but I like it. It makes my face appear boyish, like the wild child I used to want to be but couldn’t conform to with my dangling ponytail.

‘Come have a look,’ I call to my partner.

‘You look like a monk,’ she comments laughing.

I kind of do. ‘Yeah.’ We laugh for a bit.

‘Do you want me to tidy it?’

‘Yes please. Is the back okay? I couldn’t see anything.’

I hand her the scissors and she trims my hair some more. There ia nothing to be done about the monk look apart from shave the back of my head for a tonsure but I’m not ready for that.

‘There.’

‘Thank you,’ I reply to her reflection in the mirror and for the first time of the day, I smile.