I can't remember the last time I didn't have a panic attack when someone would come near my hair with scissors. And yes, I can own up to having an unusual attachment to my genetic material... but I don't think I'm any different than humans that have lived before me and those that will survive me.
I grew up reading a lot of fantasy/historical fiction and it never fails, hair always has a part to play. Think Game of Thrones: Silver hair belongs to a specific family with specific talents, while wildlings with red hair are "kissed by fire."
It is not my fault this messaging has been relentless since I was at my most impressionable, but even as I got older, I started to connect with my hair on a different level. I studied world religions in college and almost every culture or faith has some connection to hair. There is a universal symbolism in it just as there is in music and art.
Yogis believe hair is like our antennae and that one should let their hair grow until it stops. They believe the knot they tie on the top of their head is to help focus their energies.
So I fell in love with the romanticism and ideals about my hair, I let it grow and now I have 3.5 feet of hair. It happens.
I know it's out of control... If even a single strand sheds from my head, it looks like 50...
and I. shed. everywhere.
I cannot step through my bedroom barefoot without feeling a strand between my toes. My partner can't put his clean socks on without shooting me the stink eye because a strand found it's way inside during the laundry cycle.
My hairstyles have become limited and I can only wash it about once every four days.
So I am cutting it finally. It's time to let it go. Before I say goodbye, I wanted to document it in a way that I could appreciate it later. Growing my hair this long has been a journey... I've learned how to trim my own ends and I've had to change some habits.
I knew I wanted to do a self-portrait, but getting a perspective I could live with was problematic because I'm terrible in front of a camera. I'm uncomfortable with that end of the lens and it's painfully apparent to everyone who sees pictures of me.
However, these photos revealed something I hadn't noticed during set up. This is actually how I've been sleeping for several years.... not side ways of course, but always with my hair hanging off the bed and off my neck.
It's so fine that it will slip out of any updo, and with all the weight of my hair, sling about my head while I sleep and give me horrible headaches...
In many ways, it has helped me channel some powers. This has been a difficult few years, and I know my hair has given me strength because I believed it did.
We give power to what we believe in, and I, like so many others before me, believe in the spirituality of hair. However, this life is not permanent and there is a time to let all things go. *sniff sniff*
