Barbershop - Continuation

Continuing the subject of barbershop which I was talking about earlier, my mother would ask the barber to give me an "American" style. The American style was very simple: very short, almost bald, leaving some hair in the front. I think when they said American they meant military.

When it was my time the man would put a wood on the arms of the chair and I would sit that confident that I would not fall. He would put an apron around my neck that would cover my whole body, then another smaller one above that arong. I never understood why!!! Now time has passed and I cannot ask him! I should have... it will be one of those mysteries in life that I will never understand. As the time passed my mother started entering the barbershop (I had made a comment that the conversations in the barbershop were not appropriated for women. Everybody would be quiet and then start again when she left). Time changed the conversations and the rights.

All along I would look at my faze in the mirror changing with the passing of the years. I never liked my face to be honest, but I can admit that it improved with the years (I must admit). For many years I did not smile with my mouth open because a canine tooth grew on the left side, above the others, way up there on my gum. I remember the volume it made on my mouth. To be in front of the mirror seeing that was a torture. One of the best days of my life was when my mother took me to remove that tooth. After that I could smile and that pointy thing would not show on the side. But that the chair in the barbershop was sometimes like the electric chair when that tooth came along, it was!

One day I did not need the wood on the arms of the chair anymore, my face was at the hight of the mirror and I would not cut my hair in American style either. When I stopped cutting my hair American style and the 60´s required a longer hair style I did not know how to fix my hair in the front. My hair would make this wave in the front that grew in a very disorganized way. I tried to go to sleep wearing a pantyhose on my head to force it back but it was useless. To see that mirror sitting on the wood or on the soft chair was not a pleasure. My hair was weird, and the distance between my nose and my mouth was too long. My eyes were too big, I always wanted to have small eyes. Can you tell that I did not like my face?

The only thing on my face that was right was my nose. If I could change my whole face I would but I would keep the nose intact! What can we do? Some are born thinking they are very attractive even when they are not, some are perfect and can see it, some will always see themselves ugly and clumsy (my case). They should remove the mirrors from the barbershops! It does not help us to see what they are doing anyway. We have no control! If they were the only ones seeing their work, it would be the same thing and we would not get tortured so much.

I went to that barbershop for many years, even afterwards, when my mother did not have time to take me there anymore. I remember the barber but his name has been erased from my memory. I remember chatting with thim, when he made a mistake and I would not care because my hair always grew back very fast. I don´t remember when it was the last time I went there. I just know that everything disappeared.

The chair went away and with it the piece of wood, the leather strap, the razor, the bowl and the brush. The scissors disappeared along with that machine he used to come up with the American style. The men that discussed so many subjects: many are gone from this world. Time, which eats everything and takes everybody, left me memories that even uncomfortable are mine and are precious.

I see the Avenida Celso Garcia, kissed by the morning sun, I hear the noisy sound of the buses stopping at the bus stops on both sides of it trying to distract me.

Standing ther in front of the barbershop, I hold my mother´s hand firmly and let go a sigh for all that I miss so much.