A haircut inspired by Justine Frischmann, Elastica

I slipped out for a post–self-isolation haircut and in the process learned a couple of things: first, walking into a salon/barbershop is an act of strange subversion in May 2020. It’s a Covid-19 conversation zone had with many friends as we stare into our computer cameras (“did you cut your hair?” long pause wherein I toggle between feeling as if I’ve done a bad, bad thing and reviewing what’s necessary in order to step out into a world that is now all risk assessment, awareness of mask protocol, and vigilance). Secondly, I realized how people are tearing up their playbooks and starting again. The lady with the scissors chopping their way around my scalp told me how folks have been coming in and asking her for all kinds of radical looks she never would have expected from those same people.

But this confounded time of simmering sorrow, flat-out frustration, and a sense of being a stranger in a strange land is flipping everyone’s frequency—or at least the everyone who are paying attention, and lord knows there are plenty who are not (I’m looking at you folks who refuse to do even the simplest kindness to fellow humans by putting on a mask in public and who are working diligently to keep us all in this death dance until the end. Dennis and I have dubbed them the ass-faced tweebles). So anyway, to keep me from merging onto vitriol highway, I turn back the clock to the nineties. You see, I’ve been doing research/writing for a friend putting together a Britpop/grunge documentary proposal and in the process not only found a deeper love for Justine Frischmann’s androgynous look but also an appreciation for what that attraction holds for me and how it leads to now.

When I look further, I find when it comes to rock music—the sound of my youth and on up into my career—it’s the way I see women breaking out of traditional roles. A place where they scream, strut, stare into cameras with eff-you-I-dare-you attitudes. A sense of boldness covering for the very human elements of self-doubt and fear. The nineties held for me a grandstand of voices and attitudes that were on one level liberating, but on closer inspection were very very traditional. The gender boundaries were solidly in place while at the same time there was the tease that anyone not of the status quo could cross the line at anytime. Please do celebrate gay pride but don’t think about getting married. And if you’re transgender, well, good luck with that. We had Bill Clinton getting hip with Pearl Jam and Tony Blair entertaining Noel Gallagher at 10 Downing. But what we really had were character assassinations aimed at Monica Lewinsky and her blue dress and a senate hearing where Anita Hill‘s credibility was turned over and upside-down-out as she was questioned relentlessly about her experience being sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas—who now, of course, sits on the Supreme Court for life. Watching the video of her testimony today, I’m reminded of how progress is a spastic lurch. Voices of equality have gotten louder and carried change-narrative further, but for every one step a half back, like a bad nineties dance move.

My cynicism rises up but I recognize that as nothing more than laziness. The “It wouldn’t make a difference” stance is no stance at all. A cover really just to give me an out so that I don’t have to look at what still needs to be done, then step up and do something about it.

A very real fear for me is that I start strong, then lose steam. You’d think after running five marathons, I’d better understand pacing. But it’s taken a minute to apply that to the rest of my life. And also to distill my focus, then figure out the way forward. What I’m finding that runs through me from the way-back 1990s to the very-now 2020s is that there’s always been simmering inside me an anger at how the other (read: non-white, non-males) are absolutely treated differently. That fact is, for me, dipped in a batter of confusion as my journalistic self thinks I need to stay objective and gather more facts. I also go down the road of self-sufficiency and Oh, this is just the way it is. Again, that comes from a lazy place, because while I can see that this is the way it is now, it’s not the way it has to be always. And unless I choose how to apply myself to make it different by joining my voice to others, then I can’t be complaining.

I’ve been asking questions of people around me to see where they’re situated during these dark days post–George Floyd’s murder and in the middle of this movement for racial justice that’s continuing to march loudly. If you’ve read recent posts of mine, you’ve seen the words of two incredibly smart and well-spoken young women and their take on now. Sliding up the age scale, I sent a message to an older Black woman who is a good friend of my mom and her husband’s to check in. She said, “You can connect with “Black Lives Matter” to support the Movement and share with others in your circle as welI. I truly appreciate you and others like you with an openness to fairness, justice and respect for Africian Americans and our dignity as a people. Everyone can simply practice the Golden Rule regardless of color, race, religion etc. Treat others as you want to be treated.” Simple, straightforward, and also incredibly poignant as she is thanking me/us for being open to treating African Americans with fairness, justice, and respect, something that should not have to be asked for. But the message is clear: Black people haven’t received that dignity and therefore they must continue to ask.

I know our nation is currently listening to a whole bunch of divide-and-conquer voices that spring from confusion and fear. I’d reached out to a family member about his thoughts on the state of our world and he sent me a link highlighting the destruction that took place in the early days of the protests. I know this was a vivid example of his terror about our country, but how to have a conversation around the thing he may really be afraid of—not the destruction, but why the destruction happened—is a riddle. So what fear am I facing in order to bring about change? It’s the one where I stop paying atttention. Stories are my passion. Stories of how we come to be where and who we are. And the placeholder in my heart is the rising up of young women into a world where they are not living in the fear of not being believed or feeling the frustration of knowing they’re being sidelined and marginalized, which is what showed through loud and clear on Anita Hill’s face during that 1991 Senate hearing. The bravery of her has to start somewhere.