by MaryO

Created on: June 08, 2008   Last Updated: June 16, 2008

Homelessness and the human touch.

A Haircut.

The isolation of homelessness is all consuming at times. Although the streets are full of people there is no connection. You see them, they avoid you. The pain of loneliness becomes physical. An aching that few words can describe and imaginations can not grasp. The human need to be touched, cared about, nurtured, reaches a longing beyond despair. The city is cold. My body aches, not with hunger or from the unforgiving concrete, but from the absence of humanity.

ST Anthony's Mission they give vouchers once a week for haircuts. If you get in line early enough you can get a haircut voucher. Today was my day. I got the voucher and went to a nearby hair salon. I felt so nervous. A wave of shame came over me like a hot flash. I tried not to look up. One woman greeted me and said to have a seat, that someone would be right with me. I sat in the chair and tried to avoid looking into the mirror. Another woman entered the shop with a bag of vegetables. She was smiling and walked over to me, saying, " you want a haircut". It was more of a statement than a question. I just meekly smiled. She adjusted the chair and had me take off my glasses. She wraped the drape around my neck and asked what I would like done. I told her just a haircut. She was very friendly and nice. Her hands were short and plump and they were warm. She sprayed my hair with the water bottle, and began to cut moving my head with her hands.
I sat there taking in all the sensations. The smells, the sound of her breathing, the gentle but firm pull of the scissors. Her hands moving my head in the direction she needed. The radio playing. Things no thinks about, simple things taken for granted. She tried to start a conversation but I only replied with yes or no. I didnt want to talk, I wanted to listen, I wasnt sure i could hold a conversation. I relished these momentary comforts, locked them into my being for as long as memory and sensation could hold them. Every sensation from smells and sounds, warmth and touch, I needed to savor like breath, like the fragile and precious act of life itself.

A haircut. The warmth of hands moving across my head. The sound of a voice talking to me, telling me they were going to make me pretty, make me look 10 years younger. The warmth of a body that close, that unafraid. The laughter, the non judgement. I knew, I know it was business, part of the trade. But for the first time in a long time I felt close to another human being. Accepted for those 15 minutes. Valued. Not invisible.
It was only a haircut a simple, quick, no frills haircut. Homelessnes dehumanizes everyone it touches. It is far more than simply not having a place to live. It is an exhausting journey into the cess pool of indifference and obscurity. A void expansive and all consuming, one that deteriorates the strongest most determined of individuals, to something, someone un-recognizable, unknown.
For me, a haircut brought a sparse recollection of who i once was, a tiny glimpse of a society i once belonged to, worked in, felt a part of. It made me feel human again, it made me feel something other than the sting of lonliness and isolation, that numbs me to sleep each night and wakes me too early with the chilling reminder that nothing has changed.

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