Last Wednesday I shaved off my mustache and goatee at the request of my lady.
You see, she has known me for about ten years, and had never seen me without said dashing facial hair.
So when I came home from work, I got out my scissors and razor, ran some hot water and proceeded to lay my face bare for the first time in twenty-three years.
Right after the first swath of whiskers had been shaved away, 'Fire turned to me and said: 'You know, you really don't have top do this if you don't want to." Luckily she said this before I had set in seriously on the area my beard covered.
But I told her it was alright, and that it would grow back. And continued, shaving away the fur that had concealed my jaw and chin for two decades. 'Fire watched, her apprehension growing as the lather and whiskers were scraped away.
All too soon my face was bare, and I rinsed away the last of the lather. 'Fire was ... shocked. The first thing she said was : "Gaaaah!", followed by 'I was WRONG! GROW IT BACK!"
It's not that I am hideous or anything, or that I have a weak, receding jawline. It was just that she was so used to me with the beard. She said I no longer looked like myself, that I looked mundane, vanilla. Boring. And young.
And she was right. Over the next few days people I know all commented that it looked odd, that I did not really look like myself. Many said I looked ten to fifteen years younger.
I realized that much of my self image was tied up in that beard. It did more than keep my face warm, or look rakish. It was part of my middle finger to the Establishment. It was part of me that like the Celts of old, determined I was no longer a child. I was one of those who chose to alter their appearance in a manner that was not permanent modification like tattoos or piercing, but was still a step away from greater society's mainstream.
Beards are still regarded as something of being rebellious. Once upon a time they marked the passage into manhood, into responsibility. But ever since the Fifties, beards have been associated with radicals, with thinkers and poets, with dreamers who want more out of life than just 'going along to get along'. Many employers still have doubts about hiring those with beards, but hide their discomfort with nonconformity behind dress codes (conformity) and health regulations (fear).
I miss the 'wizard stripe' that ran down the middle of my goatee. And the skin my beard concealed is more sensitive to chill breezes in the coming Autumn and Winter days.
So I am growing my beard out again, back to it's former stylish, defiant and decadent glory.
It is, after all, just hair.
But it's MY hair.
