Amidst the chaos unleashed by the coronavirus, aggravated by political games, CHANA MEDDIN hears a song within, resonating in triumphant chords of hope and new beginnings

I didn’t mean to do it. My friend asked for a haircut. Barber shops were closed during quarantine, so he asked if I would trim his hair. So what if I’d never cut hair before. Why not learn a new trade during the lockdown? Yes! Let’s do this. I watched instructional YouTube videos of barbers using buzzers so deftly they made it look simple. Simple enough that anyone could do it. Even me. And after all, what could possibly go wrong?

The buzzer finally arrived and I couldn’t wait to try it out. Since my own hair was a bit too long, I decided to lightly trim the back, trying it out on myself first. This way I would already have some experience before my friend’s cut. He waited in another room. Poised expectantly in front of the bathroom mirror, I switched on the new buzzer. All kinda hell broke loose. The electrified beast in my hand roared to life, ripping into my hair like a ravenous lawn-mower. It wasn’t pretty. By the time my friend heard the commotion and arrived at the scene, nearly half my hair was gone. He wrestled the buzzer from my hand, declaring emphatically that if he didn’t take it away, I “wouldn’t have any hair left!”

Chana Meddin

Then he and the buzzer vanished, leaving me half-sheared, in shock. Time stopped as I stood in front of the mirror, wondering what just happened. Some primitive instinct had taken over, it wasn’t just the buzzer. It felt liberating. But my friend behaved as if I’d inadvertently transgressed some line of “acceptable-woman” behaviour that he needed to save me from.

His angry admonishment left me feeling empty, deflated, ashamed. Ugly. What had I been thinking? My girlfriends reminded me how beautiful Sinead O’Connor is with her bald head. But I didn’t need to feel beautiful. Not until a deeply spiritual guy friend told me, “Indians shave their heads when someone dies,” did things start to click. It was grief. I honestly did mean to buzz my hair, to shear off the pain and grief of the past six months. Both in my personal life and in the collective consciousness, locally, nationally, globally…Too many were dying and nothing made sense anymore.

Not skyrocketing Covid numbers, police brutality, racial inequality. Not the economic collapse that disproportionately affected people of colour and immigrants. Escalating climate change. Nothing made sense, especially all rolled into the same overlapping time and space. I’d been shocked and awed by so much recent, ongoing tragedy and chaos. And could no longer comprehend the passage of time as it unfolded in worsening news.

If you live in America or read our news, you know what I mean. Gone was any sense of security, of solid ground beneath my feet. One day in February there was no coronavirus in America. The next day there was. Right here in Seattle. It started here, plunging us into a surreal world of fear, shuttered businesses, quarantines, shortages of food and masks and, for some inexplicable reason ― no toilet paper?

We began this pandemic united as a country but politicians used it to divide and create chaos and hate, plunging us into an inky, dark abyss for their own profit. America is torn up right now. And the process of living through, and within, this beast of their making has tested me, and so many of us, like no other time in recent history. Even the effervescent Michelle Obama admitted to suffering from low-grade depression as a result of the pandemic and racial injustice.

If you live in America and are paying attention, it hurts. Our spiritual practices have never meant more, not only to survive, but find ways to thrive like weeds pushing their tiny flowers up from between cracks in the sidewalk. I’ve become a feral weed, but I also want to make flowers. The buzzcut was my crack in the sidewalk. I felt ready to bloom. Buzzing my hair, watching it fall like tears to the floor, I entered a portal of freedom into a new dimension, one vibrantly alive and hope-filled…until the Big Shaming brought me back, crashing to earth.

I found a good pair of scissors, evened things up nicely, and emerged feeling empowered, joyous, jubilant ― free! Months of fear, anxiety, powerlessness, and the anger of so much injustice dropped to the bathroom floor, waiting to be swept up and thrown in the trash. I felt ecstatic in the conscious consent to finally release a lifetime of cultural expectations and suppression of women: that we remain forever youthful, thin, and attractive, conforming to Western society’s vacuous definition of beauty. The most beautiful thing we can put on our face is a big smile!

And everyone can do that, even our eyes smile. Smiles beautify us, they beautify life. I grew up in a time where women in my culture were expected and groomed to be submissive to men. I never could be. Every grey hair, every line in my aging face tells a story of nonconformity, if not outright defiance. And the price women pay. And the rising up we do, especially women of colour.

And our resilience, resourcefulness, endurance. I heard that song within, felt it resonate in triumphant chords of hope and new beginnings. And gratitude! So much gratitude for the kindness of my neighbours.

Chana “Hana” Meddin is a lifelong meditator, nature photographer, artist, and wildlife advocate. She has written for the Times of India’s ‘Speaking Tree’ and has a story published in Oswald Pereira’s book, ‘How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life.’ She lives in Seattle with her cat, Annabelle Fluff. They both enjoy yoga.