Skip to main content

The Things we Call Essential

When I heard a woman remark ‘I’d rather die than not have my hair done,’ I wrote the words down, stunned. It's strange what has been deemed ‘essential’ in the time of Covid-19. Shopping for food, sure. Medical appointments, yes, if necessary. Exercise, OK. And until recently, a trip to the hairdresser. What? As a person who usually gets a haircut once every 12 months, it was beyond me.

But soon enough, Melbourne’s stage four restrictions ripped this ‘essential’ service away, along with other things we had taken to be ordinary aspects of our lives: going out between 8pm and 5am; being outside for more than an hour; and going further than 5km from our homes.



And then it came back to me: going to the hairdresser had been a sort of lifeline for me last year. Yes, me of ungroomed locks and untended knots. It seems a hairdo can offer people so much more than a tidy and trim. 
 
Hannah McCann, Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, notes that "in Western culture, one’s outer presentation is seen as intimately connected to one’s sense of identity and well-being." And with The Black Dog Institute suggesting that “between 25% to 33% of the community experience high levels of worry and anxiety during...pandemics,” perhaps for some of us, a trip to the hairdresser could be just what the doctor ordered.
 
Last May, I took myself to a new hairdresser for an urgent haircut, facing sudden surgery and the subsequent treatment beyond. A lump, signalling rogue cells, had been found in my routine mammogram. What lay beyond that I did not know, but it sure felt like a kind of reckoning. 
 
I knew that four days in hospital with my too-long hair on a pillow would end up with it like a nest of matted fur, and I wanted to see myself reflected back as, well, not a mess, but together. Coping. Alright. 
 
The haircut and blow-wave sent me off to face the surgeon’s knife with a silky-framed visage that I could smile back at, and a sense of seeing myself blooming. 
 
Once my hospital stay was over, I found myself with restricted movement. I couldn’t lift my arm to wash my hair, so as a treat, I took myself back to the hairdresser for a wash and blowdry. The stylist didn't know why I had gone to hospital, but over the next few months, every couple of weeks, I went to the salon and ‘had my hair done’. 
 
As I set out for day after day of radiotherapy, I could smile at my face framed by sleek hair. I would put on my designated ‘Locker 12’ terry-towelling bathrobe each session, and take a photo of myself in the changing room mirror. Then I’d wait outside the room filled with radiation, ready. 
 
What had at first seemed like a one-off indulgence–a haircut pre-surgery–became my ongoing link to a self beyond the cubicles and rooms of the hospital. Each wash and blowdry kept me on track to recovery. 
 
July finished, and the radiotherapy too. I rang the clinic’s bell to signal the end of treatment. I could see I was going to be well enough to take my upcoming holiday, a longed-for trip to the west, to a state I had never visited. I booked a haircut for August, and flew off, emboldened, to the sunset and red dirt and to a world I’d never seen before. I breathed in, and out, slowly, floating in an infinity pool. 

Perhaps for some, hairdressing is an essential service. It’s not just about appearances, but as a way for people to hold onto some part of themself, when things are coming apart.

Still, I wouldn’t say I’d rather die than not have my hair done. It’s been a year since my last salon visit, and my hair is so knotted it is returning to its state of matted fur, but I’m not in a hurry these days. For now, we all need to just hold on and look towards the future, regardless of our unkempt hair. The things that are essential might just be closer to home for the moment.


(c) Anna Sublet, 2020

Comments

  1. Anthony Constantinou | Anthony Constantinou CEO CWM FX says The way your hair looks after 6 month or later will depend on a number of factors. For instance, the FUE technique that has been deployed, hair care that you have been advised, and the surgeon that has provided you the hair transplantation all play an important role in determining the final result.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Widening Crack

The little flame in our forty-year-old wall furnace, the one that was supposed to hold tight, hang on and persist, was being extinguished, again and again. The pilot light had become unanchored, blown away and shut down. We were in lockdown, in a Melbourne winter.  We had been bunkered down in our homes on and off over the last two years. We had sat tight as we amassed days upon days of lockdown. At one stage, the summer came. We had mask-free beaches, we had open cinemas and bars.  But then, another Covid gust gutted us in 2021 and shut us back inside. Here we were, like a little pilot flame, buffeted and blown away but still holding out for better days. I would walk past the heater to find that the fan was blowing cold air into the small home. Each time we re-lit the pilot light, it didn’t last long before it was gone. Still, we kept holding onto hope as we sat through the days of rising case numbers and deaths. The gas technician (essential worker; exemption) was on his hands and kn

The Waiting

Morning walk.  I wake too late to do my nature writing workshop so I decide to get out into nature instead! Head off at about 7 am, sustained on half a cup of hot water with lemon, a banana and a snack KitKat. Make it to the backbeach in time to see the gold coming up from behind the sand dunes, flowering light from the lighthouse. Tiny black and white wren on the rocks, the Plover family just foraging. A heavy gull takes off when I approach. It flies past me, sits and waits, and flies back as it senses I’m no danger. I take photos and slow-mo videos. I can hardly make out the flying birds as they rise into the dark clouds.  I keep stopping to look at things. At one point I lie with my back in the sand on the edge of the dunes. All around the waves continue coming in and the birds call. What would I do without this?  At the lighthouse, Galahs wheel and screech, their pink bellies exposed as they fly above me. A couple fall behind, screeching ‘wait for me, wait for me!’ Further around t

Currawongs Spinning me Home

When the branches of Eucalyptus botryoides fall, as they often do, they root again and continue to grow. The tree is its own ecosystem. Currawongs, sleek black birds with their flash of white at the tail, build their nests, made of sticks and lined with soft material, high up in trees like this.  Some months ago, I stood in shock as arborists began to cut this tree on the next block down, over two days of vicious chain-sawing and woodchipping. I filmed the screaming tree, as it shuddered, shook and then gave way, limbs falling with the ‘thunk’ of a human body.  The tree danced a ballet for its dying and the currawongs lost one of their homes. Many love the currawong for its song, a mix of honey, with a note of uplift, a soaring whip almost, mellifluous on the updraft, ringing from up high. It sounds like an entreaty, a lament and an invitation. The onomatopoeic word, currawong , depicts the sound of their call.  Decades ago, for me these birds were synonymous with NSW, and it was a st