There were two motivating factors that finally gave me the courage to do it. The first was a week I spent with a spiritual teacher of mine—a woman in her early 80s who is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her hair is white (not white like “platinum” but white like Mrs. Claus), her skin is parchment and lined, her eyes are brilliant and kind, her hands are covered with age spots. And she is the freest person I have ever met, possessed of the wildest mind. And after a week in her luminous presence, I was like, Why am I still pretending that I’m not getting older? Why am I afraid of looking my age? Why does any of this matter at all? What if I just allowed myself to become a gorgeous old amazing woman, like her? What if I were just free?
The second motivating factor was that I attended an event in New York City a few weeks later of about 100 professionals—men and women, all of whom were about the same age as me. Nearly every one of the men in that room had cropped, buzzed, convenient-looking hair. They were all a bunch of silver foxes with lined faces and handsome features, and they all looked great. And every single one of the women in that room had some version of long, extremely expensive-looking, complicated hair—most of which was “blond.” And I thought, Why are we still doing this? Why has hair become so gendered? This is New York City—one of the most liberal places in the world—and this is a room full of people who all work in the arts! And we still have to follow these stupid rules?
That night I had a realization: I could either complain about how unfair and imbalanced the beauty and aging standards are for men versus women or just claim for myself the entitlement that these men held. I, too, could just decide to have buzzed hair and a lined face. I, too, could decide to just stop chasing “pretty” and instead to look great—unadorned, powerful, comfortable, and un-fussed over.
That did it.
The next day, I bought myself some clippers, watched a few instructional videos (check out a woman known as “Gray Hair and Tattoos” on YouTube if you want to see some really amazing buzzed-hair style) and enlisted a friend who used to be a punk to help me with the first swipes of the buzzer over my scalp.
It took about five minutes, and when I was done, I almost cried. Not because I was horrified by my looks, but for the exact opposite reason: I felt like I had never looked more like myself. I had made this decision because I wanted freedom and convenience, and because I had decided to be “post-vanity,” but what I saw in the mirror looked like beauty to me. Fierce beauty. That was not what I was expecting. I thought I would look tough and weird and old, and I was okay with that. But when I saw myself with no hair, I thought I looked gorgeous, and I still do. I loved being able to see my whole entire head—my whole entire self. I loved the white and brown and gray speckles that catch the light and sparkle like the scales of a swimming trout. And I love the way it felt when I rubbed my hand over my scalp—soft and plush, like a puppy.
“This is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,” I said to my friend— and maybe that was hyperbole, or maybe it wasn’t.
It’s been nine months now, and I can’t imagine ever growing my hair out again.
I love everything about it—being able to jump in and out of pools, rivers, lakes, oceans, and showers with abandon; waking up and instantly looking perfect; getting off the plane from a 12-hour flight and looking perfect; needing only five minutes of prep time before I go on stage and perform; constantly rubbing my hands over my delicious-feeling scalp as if I am my own lucky talisman. Most of all, I love the radical independence that this hairstyle affords me. I have spent more days of my life than I care to count sitting in a chair as if I were some incompetent 18th-century aristocrat while others tried to “do something” with my hair. But now I do it all myself. And yes, each time I buzz my hair away, it feels like a cleansing—and like a reclamation of my true spirit. I actually find it weird now to look at pictures of me from when I had hair. The prettier my hair looks in the old pictures, the sadder it makes me feel—to imagine that I gave so much of my time and attention and money to trying to look like something I am not. Something that I am not even sure is attractive—except for the fact that everyone always said it was.
