Lately, my hair has grown beyond the dandelion charm of Einstein to the look of the love child of Shirley Temple and Charles Manson. It’s a mop befitting a clown with huge balls of curls cum tumbleweeds piled below the sparse meadow that once was my glory. My negative-mohawk. For old men, hair moves like landslides, denuding the peaks and gathering in the valleys and ear canals below.

So, cut your hair already. (Or, rather, have Merri cut it as she has for over 20 years.) I don’t participate in very many rituals that are imposed on me, prefering to satisfy my human need for ritual through some of my own making. Over the years, my hair has played an important role in many of these rituals. I cut my braid on more than one anniversary of my Mother’s death. I had my friends shave my head at 40 (in Chaco Canyon). I shaved my head again for my 50th and then resolved to go unkempt for a full year following. I’m still 4 weeks away from the anniversary of my last haircut. I’m beginning to think the wisdom of age is to suspend rituals that do no good. mjh