Red hair intentions

Before

After

Some things we do are intentional.

"I'm thinking about cutting my hair shorter," I said to Susan.

"You shouldn't do that," she said. "Short hair makes women look older."

Even more drastically, I wanted to go red. I haven't had red hair since 1982, since the photo was taken (above) that I use for this blog. So in the stylist's chair, I blundered around trying to describe what I wanted, then gave up, fired up my phone, and showed Jeff that little "about me" picture.

There is always that moment, the final ta-da for the stylist, when it's too late to turn back, when fantasy-turned-reality feels like an enormous blow to the head with a sledgehammer. Luckily, I've received only compliments. "You look years younger," people are telling me. Some people don't even recognize me.

"I thought, who is that woman," Cathy said, "and then your voice came out of her."

Some things we do are unintentional. It was not until afterwards, once I'd been out in public a few times, that I remembered my redheaded Aunt Elizabeth, and how people used to react to her. Before she passed away last year, Elizabeth and I used to go shopping together, and it would surprise me, all the looks she got. I attributed it to her old age, perhaps the general decrepitude of moving about with her walker.

Now, I wonder if it had more to do with Elizabeth's red hair. It feels to me as if, since I've gone red, people are treating me differently: some attracted (older men), others repelled (store clerks in general, one blacksmith in particular).

Elizabeth Lindsey

Who knows what mysterious motives lurk in our subconscious. It occurs to me now perhaps I was drawn to red hair as a way to remember my aunt.

Truth is, I miss her.

Hair Estranged

On a trip this summer, I happened to be on an airport shuttle with an Amish couple. Probably, they are New Order Amish, as air travel is permissible in New Order beliefs. These young Amish were stand-outs, not only for their garb, but for the man's hair cut, a "bowl cut," common to the Amish, but startlingly blunt and severe to my eye. At the time, I did not know enough about Amish hair beliefs to realize other signals of the Amish faith. This man is newly married. One can tell not only from the baby in his lap, but because of his beard: Before marriage, Amish men are required to keep their faces unshaven. After marriage, they must let their beards grow, and this fellow shows only a trace of hair on his jawline. (On the other hand, he must still shave his upper lip. Amish communities do not allow mustaches, as they are considered a sign of militarism.)

Note that the female has her head covered, in keeping with New Testament mandates (I Corinthians 11:4-10). No doubt she has never cut her hair. The male's hair instructions date back even farther, to the Old Testament verse: "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." (Leviticus 19:27) This stuff is deeply engrained in the separatist Amish faith. Therefore, recent news reports of violent hair-cutting attacks on Amish men and women around Steubenville, Ohio, are especially disturbing.

These hate crimes appear to be due to a family feud. Instigated by an Amish bishop named Sam Mullet (yes, really, mullet), zealous followers of Mullet from within the Bergholz community forcibly held down Amish men and women of Holmes County to shear off their beards and hair. At least some of the perpetrators were Mullet's sons, and allegedly, the first female victim was Mullet's sister and her husband, hence, their aunt and uncle. The fact that the report has surfaced at all is noteworthy, as the Amish normally mete out their own methods of justice amongst themselves.

What is Mullet's motivation? According to this October article in the New York Times, the bishop is "a prickly 66-year-old man who had become bitterly estranged from mainstream Amish communities." The day before Thanksgiving, seven alleged hair-cutting perpetrators were arrested. (CBS News)

For more, I refer you to the blog: "Sects and Violence in the Ancient World" by Steve Wiggins.