Gratitude

or: If We End Up Here, Let’s Make the Most of It

The barber hooks me up. Before I got in his chair I had to prep him a little. Sorry, I got a complicated one for you today. Since the last time I saw you I had brain surgery, so now I got this big gross scar and I’m going to be losing my hair on this part, from the radiation therapy.

This is a new experience for me. Going to the barber, I mean. Or rather, it’s been a few decades. In elementary school I found out about this cool thing called a Surfer’s Cut, long on one side, shaved on the other. I didn’t like that bit about shaving, though. At 10 I associated shaved heads with military brats and boys in training to be Men. So I asked the perplexed barber to keep it at a moderate length on that side, and in the back, I dunno, diagonal so the two lengths could meet up?

I was a pretty ridiculous kid. Not sure what’s changed. In any case, excessive teasing the first week of high school straightened me out quick and from then on it was long on both sides, Kurt Cobain style, and I would cut it myself, thank you very much.

And for a long time it worked out. The nerds and then radicals I hung out with were permissive of me looking pretty sloppy, and I definitely didn’t mind cutting expenses. It was better for me to live without money than to mold my life to a job. Starting in my mid-twenties I didn’t pay rent. I didn’t pay for food. I didn’t pay for clothes. I sure as hell wasn’t going to pay for a haircut. Steal what you can and learn how to make the rest. Looks pretty good on paper. Just keep the mirrors dirty and don’t look too closely at the dust that gathers in the corners.

Lately, changing circumstances pushed me out of some of those behaviors, and different viewpoints have shifted me on others. R, in particular, has been an eloquent exponent of the idea that taking care of your body, including on an aesthetic level, can be an act of self-love. In my case, that’s meant getting a damn haircut and trying to enjoy it.

I grew up middle class, and though my parents’ divorce put them both in a lot of debt, I never had acute anxiety around money, even if there wasn’t an abundance of it. R, on the other hand, grew up in a particularly stressful situation of scarcity and precarity, with a single mother doing all she could. R is a big advocate of doing good things for yourself and your loved ones whenever you’re able.

My modus operandi, just focusing on survival, sets a low bar. Growing up with the middle-class privilege of not having economic trauma makes it much easier to live below the poverty line; growing up in a culture that stigmatizes craziness means that if you’re trying to survive crazy and unmedicated, you’re probably unfamiliar with any experiences or paths to follow (except for, you know, people like Kurt), and you end up stagnating, unable to understand what taking care of yourself could actually mean.

Thanks to some working-class femme wisdom from R, I’m trying on this idea that it’s okay for me to get a haircut, okay to stop in front of the mirror every now and then and say hey there! and mean it.

So here I am in the barber’s chair. I was nervous before coming. Rehearsing what I would say days in advance. What if it grosses him out? What if there’s no way to fix what’s going on up on my noggin? The barber responds perfectly. He gives me sympathy but not pity, reacts like it’s awful news because, yeah, it kinda does suck, and then he sets his artistry loose, running his fingers, scissors, and comb across my scalp with tenderness and concern. When I sit down in his chair, my beard is out of control and my craniotomy scar is like a fleshy pink headband running all the way over the top, from temple to temple. When I stand up an hour later (though he only charges me for half), the scar is mostly covered and the whole ensemble looks so good I ask R out on a date.

And that day and the next: they’re actually good days. With all the shitty things going on in the world, we can still feel good. Not only that, we need to, at least some of the time, in order to face what’s coming.

So: I am grateful for the barber, for being a sweet guy and for being really good at something that’s actually useful, unlike so many of us.

I am grateful for R, for sticking with me through all of this, pushing me on so many important questions, and going on hot dates with me, even though I’m a hot mess.

I am grateful for all the bees and little bugs coming to the flowers in the front yard, and for the flowers for bringing them.

I am grateful to C, uncrushed by prison and by this wretched fucking prison world, who nursed and gifted me the lavender and chamomile I planted the other day.

I am grateful to all the people at the co-op, who aren’t just finding me some work hours like it’s an act of charity, but who are gathering resources and helping me continue to work as much as I can, as I recover from an operation and learn what I’m able to do with a brain tumor and the side effects of toxic treatments.

I am grateful to my comrades at the social center, who have helped me navigate bureaucracies, listened to me, and had my back.

I am grateful to my dearest friends, who have shown me so much love and support.

I am grateful for the musicians, in particular Wye Oak, Agnes Obel, Wolf Parade, and Liars, who have been playing for me while I’ve been writing this newsletter.

And I suppose these are particularly good days to be grateful for my mom, in spite of and also because of all the rough patches. Some things happen that we never deserve, that we could never be ready for. And we do the best we can. It’s never pretty, but even trying is an act of love. I’m understanding that more, now. There’s something to be said for not checking out. For sticking around despite it all. For saying, thank you. And maybe even getting a spiffy haircut.

So treat yourself, mom and all the rest of you. Take a walk one of these evenings, under a cloudy sky or under the Perseids, and speak some words of gratitude.

Photo of the Perseids by Petr Horalek.