The Question of a Haircut

By Lisa B. LaLonde

It was a bad pollution day already. As Nina walked across the pedestrian bridge saving her from the jaws of the buzzing taxis, buses, ambulances and trucks dashing headstrong into the Circuito traffic, she reflected that the Circuito just circled the interior of Mexico City, so really why were they in such a mad rush to go in a circle? The haze from their exhaust collectively lifted to form the cloud that blocked the distant mountains from her sight. Yes, it was a bad pollution day when you couldn't see the mountains.

Her sneakers passed by a crumpled old man sitting with outstretched hat and she considered, I measure everything in tangibles here: when you can't see the mountains it's a bad pollution day, when the beggar sits on the bridge, it's time to cross it to pay the phone bill, when the shadows in the backyard change to the right hand wall, it's winter. She looked at the ever-grey sky and yearned, not for the first time, for the changing leaves, the snowfall, the violent and beautiful ways Mother Nature counted time in the North - home. Here it was up to Nina to mark the passing of time in her own ways.

"When are you going to get a haircut?" The question usually thrown from parent to child was in Nina's case thrown from her husband to her on a frequent and regular basis. Periodically, or rather, twice, she had succumbed to the haircut, but never more than a trim, which only served to insure that the question would be repeated within weeks, regardless of the fact that she had done her duty. As she passed the restaurant at the bottom of the Circuito stairs, Nina caught her reflection. The passing of time, she thought. When I arrived in Mexico my hair was short. She sighed as she prepared herself for another haircut lecture soon.

Two blocks to home. The sun was getting hot on her back, and her backpack with her groceries stuffed into it seemed a cartload, not just a quick run for emergency supplies. Who would have thought milk could be so heavy. That, too, marked time for her. If it's been a late working week and therefore her husband has requested only cereal for dinner at 10pm when he arrived home, by Thursday they would run out of milk. Nina, carless, would then make the trek across the Circuito for the critical supply of milk and any other items that would fit in her backpack. She wondered if the Mexicans marked time by her? "It's Thursday - here comes that pale gringo with her backpack." Am I becoming part of their timepiece? She grinned at the irony of the thought. Here in a place where time was seen so differently, nothing moved fast, nothing needed to move fast, impatience was only a hindrance to peace of mind. Here, was she different enough to mark their time?

She had reached her street, and chose the sunny side on which to walk. Heading towards her was an elderly neighbor, still unknown though seen and greeted a few times. Nina considered the woman, but not rudely. She was grateful for her gringo sunglasses which hid her perusal. The woman's hair was perfect, Nina reflected. Always was. Always will be. Piled high with hairspray, dyed solid black (to hide the grey, I'm sure, Nina thought, but not unkindly). Placid face approaching, eyes down - Nina startled them to life with her friendly "Buenos tardes" and was thoroughly surprised at the completely
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friendly "Buenos tardes, senorita" in return. The sudden spark to life, the turn of the head, the smile, Nina would not have predicted these. This, too, was a passage of time. "I wore her down," mused Nina, reflecting on the two other unsuccessful greetings she had attempted with the hair-woman, as she called her in her mind. "I wonder if she thinks I need a haircut?" Nina added the thought to her reveries. It was probably so. "I probably stand out as non-Mexican not because of my pale skin, but because I need a haircut." She chuckled to herself as she let herself in her highly protected walled-in front gate and inner door.

Unloading her heavy milk in the kitchen, she soon found herself facing the kitchen window and watching the shadows in the backyard. The light was different today! Now where did that shape come from......she traced its probable origin with her fingers across the window and smiled. The sun was playing time games with her. The sun was a sneaky player, who moved his chess pieces while you weren't looking. There was a change.

She didn't know how long she stood there watching the light. It didn't really matter, for time really was irrelevant here. Eventually she would stir, and move on to other moments of her day. This was the game she played with time: to stall it, capture it, force it into her constraints, and then wildly let it loose to have its way with her. Time was alive, she knew that now, and she enjoyed watching it live. It was so very much more alive than any other living thing she'd met.

The doorbell rang and Nina turned to answer it. A saleslady with very rapid Spanish, selling doilies, tablemats, napkins, all handworked by herself personally, senorita, and so much time and work put into them, senorita, won't you help me and my family out by buying one, senorita? Not quick to dismiss her interaction, Nina made her talk about her work, her family, her life, while Nina thoughtfully stroked and caressed the gentle samples. Finally, the all-important question: how much? For you, senorita, twenty pesos, it is a lot of time and work, but you have been so kind to me today. Twenty pesos passed hands for a small table runner that Nina didn't particularly need or want, but she smiled as she took it inside, knowing that she would find a special place for it. Time and work. And a memory of an interaction with a talkative saleslady with a family to feed. She too, had well-cut hair.

Hair. Nina felt her wild, loose ends. She closed her eyes and felt how far the hair came down her back. She opened her eyes to come face to face with a photo of herself on the mantle, freshly arrived in Mexico with short cropped, easy-to-manage-while-working-at-a-career hair. Career. Now she was watching shadows travel across a walled-in backyard, lugging milk back from a tiny grocery store, and negotiating for the hard work of a street-seamstress who would never know what a career meant.

Nina took a fistful of her long loose hair and pulled it over her eyes. It would probably come soon, the question. So far her answers had eluded him, why of all things this was so important to her. She was known to be stubborn, but usually she didn't know or couldn't explain why. This time she knew, and had tried to explain. Time. It had all to do with time. Hair was her link to living time. Tangible changes were so much around her, but she had to make some of them more personal than the shadows on the backyard walls. She wondered if it were the same as prisoners scratching hash marks on the wall to mark the passing of endless dead time. They could stare at the wall for hours and contemplate: I have been in prison for this amount of time. The analogy was flawed, even though the backyard was walled in and the front yard securely hidden behind high walls and iron bars, but there was a living vital link. She, too, could look at her hash marks, the length of her hair, and say to herself, "I have been in Mexico this long." It was a marker she would not forfeit no matter how many times the question was presented to her.

© February 1997 Lisa B. LaLonde