haircut
On Saturday morning, we gather, rumpled and meandering, around the brunch table, where steam curls lazily over mugs of coffee and the fruit of God heaps in bowls, vibrant and kind, at the center. We wear our pajamas and our morning hair, the lines on our faces from our pillows. We savor our food and the conversation that rambles, especially among those of us prone to narration.
We are, with relief, finally not in any hurry.
We can wait for the Lord and each other, or at least, that’s the goal that makes it our Sabbath, the letting go of even our spiritual to do lists to tarry in trust, to enjoy the presence of God and those we love, and in so doing, to find real rest. As Isaiah once prophesied, those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.
I think of this as we gather, dragging our chairs closer to the table, of the Hebrew word translated wait in that passage in Isaiah, how it comes from a primitive root that means to bind together, how the word became something that means to gather as we are now, also to look, to tarry, to wait. Nothing binds our family together, to each other and to God, nor binds our broken hearts whole, quite like the determination to linger with God. Around this table, then, we chew and sip and consider, nourished and satisfied by more than the food.
Well. Adam mostly listens, in fact for all of us models superlative listening, sitting still at the end of our table, tracing our faces with his eyes as we talk. Feeling my beholding now, he glances my way, and his eyes turn sweet. He leans over, gently lifting my hair to touch my ear, which has been his way of saying I love you since his boyhood. Sometimes touch hurts, but he can reach for my ears; he can tolerate me lightly touching his. His attention drifts toward Kevin, and his brow furrows in concentration.
Kevin has been talking about trimming Adam’s hair this afternoon, about watching some videos to see if perhaps he could learn how to do the job well, since Adam’s straight hair is much less forgiving of mistakes.
After we ferry all the dirty dishes into the kitchen for washing and Kevin drives off on an errand to the store and Adam bobs his lean body back and forth in a short path toward the sink, drying towel swaying as it hangs from his hand, he quietly ventures, “No haircut today.” This he says like a prayer, low and solemn, leaning toward my ear.
Water drips from my lifted hands as I turn toward him.
“I know you don’t love the idea,” I say, watching as he lifts a baking sheet from the towel beside the sink and begins to dry it, his hand swiftly swirling the cloth.
I plunge my own hands back into the soapy water and begin to wash a knife, my fingers gently finding the edges.
“No haircut today,” he says again, a little more loudly this time because he has moved toward the cabinet to stow the pan. He wants to make sure I’m hearing.
“It’s okay, Adam,” Riley interjects, looking up from her planner at her perch at the bar, directly opposite our work. “I’ll make you a list.”
For most of Adam’s life, the rest of us have known that a simple list can soothe his anxiety about unpreferred activities, although I’ve noticed that as he gets older, he tends to disregard the order of the list in favor of getting any unpleasantness out of the way. He doesn’t like waiting, particularly when he’s anticipating something difficult. Of course, I remember none of this now, while I’m standing at the sink finding the shine in the skillet we used for cooking the eggs.
“No on the list,” Adam spits, not at all appreciating the interjection from his sister. His tone says this is none of her business. “No haircut today.”
“I’ll put it on here for 4pm,” she says, tapping away at her phone, completely ignoring his protest. “Don’t worry, Adam.”
I am smiling, inward blooming out, thinking that we siblings like to manage each other, that we can feel so responsible for another person’s soul that, in our diligence, we cut in on God’s good shepherding. Granted, I am not God in this or any other story, not at all, but human nature is human nature.
“No haircut today,” Adam reiterates, his voice rising sharply, his eyes flashing fire as he looks at his sister.
I put down my washcloth and dry my hands on a paper towel, reaching to rest my fingers lightly on the side of his face.
Carefully, I draw his attention back to myself, to my quiet voice, knowing my words are the ones he needs, the ones he depends on.
“Listen, I know. But you will be okay. It won’t take long. You’ll just need to sit still for a few minutes. Dad will take good care of you.”
Of course, I know what Adam doesn’t, that once he gets past his hesitation, he will enjoy the attention from his dad, the lightness and coolness about his head, the tidiness of it all. He doesn’t understand that this process he dreads will ultimately bring him joy, that he’ll rise from that chair in the bathroom feeling loved, knowing tending, and he isn’t quite ready to receive any of that.
Adam stills, looking at me, his eyes a softening blue, because he knows I love him. He watches my face a beat, two, and then he sighs, turning back to the dishes.
Later, I descend the stairs freshly clean to be greeted by my son, bounding toward me with a triumphant grin and a haircut, even though Kevin has not yet returned from his errand. Adam reaches for my ears as I slowly take him in, the hair cropped close, too close, the bald patches at the sides, his lean body fizzing with excitement.
“Adam, what have you done?” I ask carefully, hearing some eternal echo, some harkening of history.
But this much seems clear: He really can’t grasp the scope of the damage.
“Haircut,” he says, in brief, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“I think he gave himself a haircut,” Riley supplies lazily, looking up from her phone.
“Using what?” I ask, still staring at Adam, at what’s left of his hair.
“The kitchen scissors.”
“Oh no,” my hand to my mouth, but still, Adam grins wild.
He feels proud of this, proud that on his own he has eliminated an item from his list, something he wasn’t looking forward to anyway, proud that he managed this without any waiting and without his father’s help.
He really has no idea what he’s missed out on.
“Is there a mess?” I ask precisely, expecting to find the bathroom floor, the sink, the toilet, lightly dusted with strands of Adam’s hair, every length and every shade, darker and darker as he clipped dangerously close to his scalp.
“There was hair all over the floor in the bathroom,” Riley reports, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “But I swept it.”
I find myself wondering where she was while her brother took his impetuous independence, what she was doing, why in that moment she chose to abdicate his keeping, because right now Adam looks like a good cast member for a prison camp drama.
And what would I have wanted her to do? Certainly, not to have issued any authority-grabbing reprimands, only to come to me, to tell me what she saw, to ask me to intervene.
“Well, thank you for cleaning up,” I say to Riley, shaking my head, pulling out my phone to snap some pictures of Adam.
“You like your haircut?” I ask him, grinning as his fingers move back and forth over my ears.
“Yes. I like it,” he says proudly, his voice deep and matter of fact.
“Well, go in peace, then,” I say, grinning because I can, at least, appreciate his initiative.
Then I send the pictures to Kevin, commenting only, “so, Adam decided not to wait for you,” knowing that once home, Kevin will gently invite Adam to come, will bend his body down to the rescue, will still lovingly tend things new. I hope that maybe, just maybe, sitting within his father’s careful attention, Adam will begin to understand how things can be when he waits.
Because so it goes, on the Sabbath, which is not just for the waiting itself, but also for all the messy learning to wait.
So, listen, now: You’ll just need to sit still for a while. Dad will take good care of you.
