Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Over my life, I’ve enjoyed a canvas that is my face and head. In August 2012, I started growing a beard to carve into a 2012 Movember “stache.” Movember, for those who don’t know, is an annual event where men grow mustaches to raise awareness of men’s heath issues. This year was a bit different. I started two months early in clear violation of the rules, and then in November, I didn’t shave the beard or carve out the mustache. Instead, it just kept growing. By April there was a nest on my face, and I loved it. I might have been the only one.

When we decided to move to San Diego, I felt that it was time for another symbolic change. I shaved off the beard and remembered how little my chin and neck appear without an avalanche of hair pouring off my cheeks. It was nice to have a clean-shaven face. I could leave New York the same way that I entered, clean-shaven (not through my mother’s vagina). And then, the week of April 11th, my friends and family said “goodbye” to the face they met many years ago.

Another reason I grew the beard back in New York was because of the winter. It was cold. This particular year, I was working on roofing jobs to make ends meet, and as the autumn and winter slipped in, the beard served a purpose. However, in my new climate of San Diego, there is little need for a mountain man beard. We don’t get snow. The coldest winter temps in the dead of night are only in the 40—50 degree range. Aside from pretending that I’m a youthful trendy hipster, the beard serves no purpose other than my own amusement and to scare children (which by the way is a totally valid reason and chances are the #1 reason if I ever grow it back).

While the San Diego mercury doesn’t plummet like the northeast, we do have abundant, Vitamin D producing, good time inspiring, trade in your boots for sandals sunshine. And with sunshine comes sunburn, and lots of it. With a baldhead that is almost exclusively pointed towards the heavens, I’m now considering letting my hair grow back in to save the thin skin on my noggin. It will be thinning. It will be grey. It will be glorious. Maybe I’ll grow the beard back too. I wonder what I will look like then…hmmmm