Grey Matter

I rarely enjoy sitting in that chair. I may be a bit dramatic when I say this but I sometimes feel I give up a bit of my freedom, my time, and my soul while sitting there. Oh, yeah, and some of my hair, too. It is that time when someone gets up close to your face with a pair of scissors to snip away at this odd stuff that grows on the top and sides of your head.

I generally don’t enjoy the small talk that has to be engaged in during this time. That is no reflection on anyone other than me. It is solely my issue. Unless I know you very well, I probably won’t go into great detail about my life during this time. I really just want to get my haircut, pay someone for their effort and be on my way.

Since I have never been able to figure out exactly how to cut my own hair without a gigantic bowl, a huge mirror, an old pair of rusty scissors and a third hand on a very long arm, I have to trust others to do this for me. This means that every few months, I make the drive to the nearest style shop to get my ‘do did.

As I write this, I went through this process about a week ago. The young lady who cut my hair kept the talk to a minimum. That was likely a good thing as the shop was busy so it could have been hard to carry on yet one more conversation amidst the three or four other ongoing conversations while the greatest hits of the 80s, 90s and beyond played over the speakers.

I have a basic hairstyle. Buzz the sides, scissor cut the top, shave my hairy neck then let me look at the back of my head with a mirror. Follow these simple steps and we can be done within ten minutes.

While we were in the middle of this most recent haircut, my stylist had to turn away for a moment. I took the time to look down at the black smock she had covered over me. There, all over it, were small, wet snips of my hair. As I looked closer, my brown hair was mingled with plenty of grey hair.

It’s been that way for several years now. This happens to many of us as we grow older. Hair turns loose or turns colors. I am glad mine is hanging in there even if it has to change from my childhood brown to a more, er, dignified, grey. It shouldn't be grey I tell myself. It wasn't that long ago when Dad took me to the barber shop where I had my turn getting my "ears lowered" then sat quietly looking at the fishing and hunting magazines while Dad got a haircut and a shave.

Soon enough, the latest cut was over. The stylist removed the smock as I watched my hair fall all over the floor. I paid her for her work and left. As I turned toward the door, someone was sweeping up my hair and somehow I flashed back to the old days of the barber shop from my childhood and those two worlds collided. I got in my car, turned on the ignition and began to back out of the parking space. I glanced in the rear view mirror running my eyes over my new haircut then stopped with a brief look into my own eyes. I smiled as if to say, “Hair today, gone tomorrow.”

30513 Memories: The What-Ifs

Every few weeks for over a year in this space I have looked back at my hometown. I have recalled times, places and people who have impacted my life in varied ways. Some of what I have written has brought smiles, some elicited laughter, some things left behind a sense of the bittersweet.

Then there is this other feeling I find hard to whittle down to just the right word.

The feeling isn’t one of regret. After all, I am overwhelmingly blessed with the life I have experienced and now live. I would not ever change it.

The feeling is more one of wonder. No, it isn’t really the amazement aspect of wonder. It’s really more of the what-if type. You see every now and then, I feel this gentle voice whispering ‘what if?’.

“What if you never left there?”

“What if you left then came back to stay?”

I don’t know the answers to those questions. They’ll just have to dangle out there unanswered. I’d like to think I’d be okay. After all, despite all the hashtags and wokeness of our modern world, life is often still whatever you make of it, and I think I would have been able to make the most of what I would have been given.

Still that what-if place is out there on the fringes with other places that can pull people away from the here and now. Most of us like to think back on past times so we can relive good times. Deep down we understand that is not a place to live. Sure, it might be a nice neighborhood but it is not the reality of the here and now. The same could be said in a sense about regret. It can be a much different type of neighborhood than good memories but it can also be a place a person chooses to reside. That mysterious what-if territory is also out there. Like it’s neighbors, it isn’t a good place to stay for very long.

That doesn’t mean now and then I ponder what could have been. It also doesn’t mean that there is a part of me that has just a bit of envy for those who never left there or those who left and came back. I respect those who made a go of it in those hills I once called home.

Ultimately, it isn’t the same place I recall from my youth. Wishing and hoping won’t somehow change it back magically to some idyllic wide spot in the road known only by out-of-towners from one county away. 

Still, I can look back. At some point though, I also have to move forward.

As most people these days do, I carry a phone with me almost everywhere I go. On that phone’s screen is a photo I placed on there several years ago. The photo is of a place in my home county. When I saw it initially I knew exactly

where it was taken. It is one of my favorite vistas of that place. It was taken from a highway that tops a hill headed south. The road stretches out before my eyes then, like a winding river, turns to the left out of sight. If you look above the cars and trucks on the highway into the horizon, all you see are layers on layers of the mountains that surround the area. I haven’t changed that photo in years partly because of my own laziness but partly because when I see that photo, it reminds me where I came from, and the importance that place and it’s people will always have in my heart.

30513: The What Ifs playlist:

John Mellencamp: "Small Town"

Chris Isaak "I Wonder"

The Byrds "My Back Pages"

Steely Dan "Reelin' In The Years"

Drivin' N' Cryin' "Honeysuckle Blue"

Better Than Ezra "A Lifetime"

Fleetwood Mac "Seven Wonders"

10,000 Maniacs "These Are Days"

Susan Enan "Bring On The Wonder"

Jars of Clay "Flood"

Gin Blossoms "Found Out About You"

Mac Wiseman "I Wonder How The Old Folks Are At Home"

The Allman Brothers Band "Seven Turns"

The Rolling Stones "Time Waits For No One"

The Black Crowes "Jealous Again"

Love "I Still Wonder"

Rosanne Cash "I Wonder"

The Outsiders "Time Won't Let Me"

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band "Against The Wind"

Toad the Wet Sprocket "Good Intentions"

R.E.M. "Nightswimming"

The Everly Brothers "I Wonder If I Care As Much"

The Smithereens "House We Used To Live In"

John Anderson "Small Town"

Best

Daylight crouched outside our house. Jennifer backed her car out of the garage into our driveway. I pressed a button so that my garage door could provide my vehicle an escape for the day ahead.

As the garage door rolled to a stop, I stood next to my car as a window to Jennifer’s car rolled down. Hannah’s face emerged along with her voice, “Bye, Daddy, I love you. You’re the best daddy ever. I’ll see you later.”

I waved back, “Bye, Hannah, I love you, too.” Jennifer pulled away headed to Hannah’s school then on to her work. I placed my lunch bag and oversized mug into my car ready to spend the next few minutes on a bumper-to-bumper ride to my job.

On my way, the radio played in the background. I’m not sure what was on, maybe some music, maybe a few talking heads, maybe the inane chitter-chatter of a formulaic morning show. I navigated the red lights and the stops-and-starts all the while reliving those last couple of minutes at home. Through it all, I could not help but think about the phrase Hannah used just before they pulled away…“best daddy ever”. That is a lot to live up to, and is something I know I will never be.

The truth is I can’t compete with the fathers of others her age. At my age, I could be their father. I realize as she grows older, her friends will scrutinize, maybe even compare their parents against each other’s parents, and that will include me. In that light, I am not athletic. I am not wealthy. My connections to important people are pretty much non-existent. I don’t process my thoughts like a doctor or engineer and I cannot communicate like a TV anchorman or chief executive officer of a major corporation. I don’t wear $100 tailored shirts or pointy brown Italian dress shoes. I don’t golf. I don’t eat organic food. I don’t always recycle.

While one day may come where Hannah compares me with the fathers of her friends, I only hope she sees through any stellar qualifications others may have in order to see that all I ever wanted to be was not the “best daddy ever” but the “best daddy Hannah needed.” Even with no competition, this is still a tall order, one where some days I knock it out of the park then find myself struggling to keep my head above water the next day. It is also one I know is made much easier because Hannah’s mom keeps both of us focused when we need it most. It's also one task I never plan to give up on getting better at doing.

Someday she may see such a distinction between the way she says she sees it now and the way I always wish it to be. That, though, may come after the mornings like the one I described earlier give way to the mornings when it will be tough to get any acknowledgement of my existence from her at all. It may come after a lifetime of ups-and-downs, good times and bad times, stuff worth remembering, stuff worth forgetting and a lot of life in between. Until that time comes, I’ll take what I can get along the way then pull it close to every beat of my heart now.