Nine months of pandemic has been enough time for my husband’s hair to grow long and unkempt, so much so that he was beginning to resemble a 19th century classical composer. Or maybe a late 18th-early 19th century one. Maybe he was started to resemble Ludwig van Beethoven. I’d say his countenance is quite a bit more cheery, but there is probably good reason for that.

I’ve offered to cut his hair for him on a number of occasions, but he has politely declined. Today he finally relented, and as I have taken it upon myself to cut my own hair from time to time, I own a pair of good haircutting scissors and a useful rat tail comb.

Now they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but in pandemic times I think a decent haircut might rank right up there in ability to rekindle appreciation for a familiar significant other. He beamed when he saw his freshly shorn head in his bathroom mirror and told me it was better than the cut his regular hairdresser gives him. I may have earned myself a recurring job, but if this is what I must do to earn my keep, so be it.

We forget what we can do. We get caught on that spinning wheel of commerce and business. We want to support local businesses, to help keep the economy spry, to participate in our consumer society and partake of all the good things that money can buy. Sometimes, in our haste and busyness, we might forget to pick up our own thread, to stitch a quick fix or maybe even weave a tale. It’s not that difficult.

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Beethoven had some really wild hair, but he couldn’t hear that well, he was hearing impaired. His father had cuffed him about the ears, so he drank his wine and maybe some beers from a chalice permeated through with lead. At least this may be a possibility. Whatever the case, he left a graying lock for posterity. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-12-07-0512070213-story.html