Sheer Joy

A long while ago I took an appointment for a hair cut, wash, and blow dry with a stylist that was new to me. He had lived in a few different countries and spoke with a slight french accent over something else I wasn’t quite sure about. He carried a confident delivery of promises about the haircut he was going to give me – no bones about it:

“This will be the best haircut you’ve ever had.”

“You are going to love this!”

“I am highly trained and know all the latest trends.”

I sat quietly in my chair looking over the straight forward shoulder length image ripped out of a magazine (yep, this was before smart phones) thinking I should have found something more exciting, somehow more exotic and difficult to pull off to match his proclamations.

As he worked his whole body became part of the process, swaying back and forth. When he moved to the front to cut in a cheekbone length layer, he asked, “Would you like to see my special technique?”

I wasn’t sure what that meant but gave him the go ahead anyhow. “Okay. I’d like to see that.”

He showed me away from the face first that he would lift up the hair with one hand and swoop through it with the shears in his other hand at an angle to get “just the right swing”. I remember him saying he did this all the time and it was really the way it should be done. He was so convincing. I felt fine to proceed.

A moment later the knuckles of his left hand met with my nose as he swooped by. Thankfully he was a little less animated close to my face and the force of the special technique was more shocking than it was painful. I sat stunned for a moment before I could react to his apologies and inquiry to my wellbeing to let him know I was indeed alright.

This was absolutely embarrassing for him in that moment, but he picked back up quickly and finished the cut. It did turn out to be a nice haircut and a story that I got a ton of laughs out of with a coworker of mine at the time. She happened to be an art teacher with plenty of scissors around and a dry sense of humor. The special technique brought in many smiles for years to come.

The takeaway? Everything that you experience depends on your degree of allowance and your perception of it in the moment as well as in hindsight. Sometimes the thing that is weird or awkward, embarrassing and maybe painful, or challenging for another reason — is also the thing one person or all involved needed to happen to learn something for the future, to make a change, or maybe just for loads of laughs later which truly is the best possible outcome in my book.