Summer ‘do

Pansies. Not much else to say, really.

I did it. Got my summer ‘do. Cut my hair. No one from CSNY cares. It was time. I was tired of it getting in my face in my food in my way. Besides, I always wore it in a ponytail, and what’s the point? Another thing worth noting is that the hair of an old man is way different than the hair of a young one, in case no one noticed, and I’m sure people did. It was all frizzy and just a mess. Anyway, now it’s wash, and go.

My head actually feels lighter, partly because there is less hair, but also because there is less of the hair I have. The strands are thinner. These days my hair is more like a ghost, white and ephemeral, and while it’s still there, in a fair quantity, it no longer whips gloriously in the wind. It’s stiff. Sort of like me, in the mornings. Now I’m on the hunt for product and you can spend hours in front of shelves stuffed with bottles telling you all the grand things the chemicals within will do for your hair. Interesting reading. Maybe I’ll just get pomade and be a 30s kind of guy.

For now, though, I’m happy. My life is simplified, and that’s good. Lately, I’ve striven for simplification. Cutting out things. Concentrating on the necessary and the needful. It makes the days fly by for some reason. Nice side effect. I might try more, but I don’t want the days to fly by too, fast. That’s another side effect of aging, you become really conscious of the remaining days, as in they might run out. Of course, when they do you won’t know, which is another reason to pay attention to this day, the one you’re in right now.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale