Look up above this post at the TOP TAGS list up there. The list is alphabetical, but the most used tag is “Bannack.” Forty five, now forty six of the posts I’ve made have something to do with him.
Looking through those old posts you might get a sense of my nephew’s life. For most of it he’s been a long haired boy.
Whenever we would hang out in Brooklyn, in the park at the store, whatever, eventually someone would use female pronouns when referring to him. Fair enough, and Bannack was cool about it. “I’m not a girl, I’m a long haired boy,” he would say. And I would smile. He rocked that pony tail.
Imagine my surprise then when my sister posted a picture on Instagram of Bannack in a barber’s chair with the caption, “it’s happening.” It’s kind of ominous, right? I knew right away what was up. Haircut time. Short-haired boy time.
It was a long time coming, his hair cascaded over his shoulders. Apparently Bannack knew it was time and my sister and Chris were more nervous than he was. But he knew what he wanted and walked into the barber ready.
It’s just a haircut, but it marks a transition and I can’t help but make a connection to transitions in my own life. Hair grows, silently, slowly, imperceptibly. Eventually you just know it’s time. That’s how it is for me at least. I don’t have standing dates for my haircuts. Hair starts tickling my ears or I see a picture of the back of my head looking like a chicken’s back end and I know. Haircut time.
Something’s been tickling my ears lately. Ilgaz and I look at our life here and see that something has to change. So we’re doing something about it. I’m heading back to Montana in a week. Ilgaz will head home to Turkey. Both of us want to spend time with family, mark transition with bold actions. It just feels right. (No drama. We’ll meet again in December, right after Ilgaz performs in Greece.)
I remember when I moved back home after college I got a haircut, chopped off my sweet hipster fringe and got, you know, a regular haircut. It felt awesome. I felt like less of a kid, people took me more seriously. This time when I come home I don’t have to get a haircut, my hair looks normal but I feel more serious anyway. Ready. Active. Able.
So what does it mean for a kid to decide it’s time to change his hair-do? Something gets left behind, but ultimately it’s superficial hair grows back after all. What’s important is the decision to make a change and every kid knows that getting hair lopped off makes you run faster than ever before.