Hair Funeral. According to legend, Mexican general Santa Anna held a funeral for and buried his leg after he lost it in battle. Well, I decided to bury my hair. This weekend I held a ceremony in which I ritually severed the sideburns from my face and finally put them to rest. I billed it as a "hair funeral" and invited some friends and just made an occasion of the whole thing. But the ceremony also served as a symbolic "burying of my youth" and for saying goodbye to a stage in my life. It was an occasion to remember the good times and was kind of a culmination of the bittersweet last 4 years. Yea, it may have been a tad bit melodramatic, it was also be quite memorable.
So I gathered some friends together at Zilker Park around sunset tonight (which added to the symbolism I suppose). We dug a little hole at the base of a tree, and I took to the sideburns with a pair of scissors (I promised myself long ago that when it was time, the sideburns would go by my own hand. If anyone else took them before it was time, I would have to lay the righteous vengeful smackdown on the offender, no matter who it was- friend, relative, stranger, or enemy. Promised.)
There was that moment of hesitation with the scissors by my ear when I doubted my conviction and wasn't sure I could go through with it. It really DID feel like I was burying a big part of myself I'd been growing my sideburns since mid sophomore year, so like two and a half years? The hair was my claim to fame, what I was known for, what set me apart from the crowd, who I WAS. "Hey, you know that guy with the crazy anime hair?" Yea, that was me... was... =/
But alas, some things just need to be done. People ask me why I cut them, and I give different answers: "I was getting a little sick of 'em," "I thought they were hurting me in job interviews," "They were part of a phase that I've kinda grown out of," "I just felt like it was time" ...all of those are a partially true, just in ascending order of heartfelt-ness(?). I guess I knew deep down that I couldn't keep them forever, and I had already put it off longer than I planned to. Didn't make things any easier though.
I stuck each one of the (braided) sideburns in a test tube that my friends got for me. I put one in the ground and kept the other. A few of my friends also buried various items to commemorate their time here in Austin. We said some final words and covered the hole. I held a BBQ afterwards (...cuz I think the sideburns would've wanted it that way). At various times in the evening, I poured libations for the sideburns and crumbled some cookies onto the hair grave as offerings. (Yea, I'm sappy and into symbols like that.) I constantly feel like there's something missing from the sides of my face now. I find myself reaching to brush them behind my ears, only to find nothing there. =/ This is gonna take awhile to get used to. *sigh*
It WAS time though. In a sense, they were very much a symbol of my childhood- playfulness, carefree attitude, sticking it to the man, being weird and proud of it. But I suppose you can't live like that forever- it's not responsible. As enticing as it sometimes sounds, people who choose to live La Vie Boheme typically wind up as the starving artist-type. And what Asian could do that and not be disowned by his parents? Hah. All joking aside though, it was something I had to do as an act of growing up.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
~Corinthians Book 1, Chapter 13
So I gathered some friends together at Zilker Park around sunset tonight (which added to the symbolism I suppose). We dug a little hole at the base of a tree, and I took to the sideburns with a pair of scissors (I promised myself long ago that when it was time, the sideburns would go by my own hand. If anyone else took them before it was time, I would have to lay the righteous vengeful smackdown on the offender, no matter who it was- friend, relative, stranger, or enemy. Promised.)
There was that moment of hesitation with the scissors by my ear when I doubted my conviction and wasn't sure I could go through with it. It really DID feel like I was burying a big part of myself I'd been growing my sideburns since mid sophomore year, so like two and a half years? The hair was my claim to fame, what I was known for, what set me apart from the crowd, who I WAS. "Hey, you know that guy with the crazy anime hair?" Yea, that was me... was... =/
But alas, some things just need to be done. People ask me why I cut them, and I give different answers: "I was getting a little sick of 'em," "I thought they were hurting me in job interviews," "They were part of a phase that I've kinda grown out of," "I just felt like it was time" ...all of those are a partially true, just in ascending order of heartfelt-ness(?). I guess I knew deep down that I couldn't keep them forever, and I had already put it off longer than I planned to. Didn't make things any easier though.
I stuck each one of the (braided) sideburns in a test tube that my friends got for me. I put one in the ground and kept the other. A few of my friends also buried various items to commemorate their time here in Austin. We said some final words and covered the hole. I held a BBQ afterwards (...cuz I think the sideburns would've wanted it that way). At various times in the evening, I poured libations for the sideburns and crumbled some cookies onto the hair grave as offerings. (Yea, I'm sappy and into symbols like that.) I constantly feel like there's something missing from the sides of my face now. I find myself reaching to brush them behind my ears, only to find nothing there. =/ This is gonna take awhile to get used to. *sigh*
It WAS time though. In a sense, they were very much a symbol of my childhood- playfulness, carefree attitude, sticking it to the man, being weird and proud of it. But I suppose you can't live like that forever- it's not responsible. As enticing as it sometimes sounds, people who choose to live La Vie Boheme typically wind up as the starving artist-type. And what Asian could do that and not be disowned by his parents? Hah. All joking aside though, it was something I had to do as an act of growing up.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
~Corinthians Book 1, Chapter 13
posted by Dear Daniel at 9:00 PM
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