The joy of long hair
So I was going to title this blog “Covid – Day wtf? Why do haircuts matter so much?” The first half of the title is a nod to the fact that I bothered to write a blog titled Covid Day 11” – what a nube! Clearly I had no idea how long this thing was going to go and how hard it was going to be.
But the second part of my abandoned title was about fucking haricuts!!!! Let me do this point form:
1. People in Michigan take to the streets (in their cars) protesting the lockdown. One woman interviewed says she’s sick of this, she really needs to get to her hairdresser and for emphasis she shows her grey roots to the camera.[i]
2. Hairdressers are mentioned in the plans to open Ontario up. I begin to wonder, why are haircuts so critical to our survival?
3. Premier Doug Ford says today (June 23rd), despite being in Toronto which he just opened up to hairdressers, he won’t be getting one until everyone can. Meaning, he’ll wait to fix his coiffure until Windsor is also able to open up to hairdressers. It’s a brave show of solidarity!
Now let me give a few disclaimers:
1. I have long hair – I get it trimmed once a year, other than that I brush it and tie it up out of the way – low arse maintenance!
2. I love my hairdresser – Dmitri is awesome not just at his job but as a person and the salon he works at – Clique (for those in the KW region), is a genuinely eco-friendly hairdressing salon. And the head massages are unbelievable.
Right, so now that is out of the way let me ask my one question:
1. What is so fucking important about haircuts??????
I recall almost screaming at my computer screen when I saw the woman in Michigan complaining about her roots (this was many weeks ago and has now been eclipsed by the protests over George Floyd’s murder). But upon calmer reflection I gave her a little more benefit of the doubt – perhaps she was really just expressing her frustration at the constraints imposed on her by Covid – perhaps she was bored and this rally gave her a chance to at least do something.
But this continued reference to haircuts feels to me as though it trivializes a few things. First, if some of us can go into hospitals as front line workers every day, risking their lives to save ours, then perhaps we ought to tolerate a little coiffure catastrophe for a little while longer. Second, it feels as though it trivializes the pandemic itself. Do we really break the social distancing efforts for a haircut? Ontario still had close to 300 new cases today. Again, I would allow my hair to get a little unruly for the sake of fewer cases. And finally, to me this trivializes the social contract that we’re struggling to adhere to at the best of times.
What do I mean by that? Much of what has been asked of us boils down to personal sacrifice for the greater good. No one in my family thus far has contracted Covid-19 and because of where we live and the caution we have adopted, we’re unlikely to. But should that allow me to say fuck it, I’m getting my hair cut? Personally, I don’t think so.
A few weeks back I turned to my wife one day and said I would like to just go to my favourite café (DVLB in Waterloo) and work there for an hour, just because I wanted a change of scenery. But the restrictions were there to ensure that we all upped our chances of good health.
Mask wearing highlights this as well. In my view, mask wearing serves a number of purposes, but one in particular that does not get spoken about much. Sure, we’re protecting others from the possibility that we are carriers, but we are also showing others that we give a shit about them. Me wearing a mask lets you know that I am upholding my end of the bargain.
Now I don’t know what the risk factors are in getting a haircut. And I suspect that it is a go to example in the media because it’s easy for us to all understand the need (one of my grad students – you know who you are Austin – has a hairdo emergency that I am sure he would like to attend to). But if we engage in these things simply because we want to and we’ve been holding it all in for so long, then we are breaking the social contract in an unthinking way.
Let’s support our hairdressers as best we can – they’ve lost their livelihood. But let’s not pretend that this is the most important thing in our lives right now. As Anthony Fauci said the other day, he doesn’t want to talk about the second wave of Covid because we are not yet done with the first one. If we pander to the trivial it will only make it harder to stick with the difficult task ahead – staying the course.
[i] You can watch this interview here via the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2020/apr/16/armed-protesters-demand-an-end-to-michigans-coronavirus-lockdown-orders-video