Amateur Home Haircut

An amateur home haircut only really counts as such when something goes wrong, right? I grew up with short hair, and though every so often I attempt to grow it longer, my hair grows up and out, never long. 70s big, at best/worst.

In times of stress, I enjoy getting a haircut. Something about sitting in that chair and handing over responsibility for even a short time is freeing for me. (I found that thought -- but traveling on a plane with the pilot in control, I can't be blamed -- in a novel I first read over 40 years ago and recognized my barber chair version about 30 years ago. Peter Gent's North Dallas 40, a worthy read about football and integrity, though perhaps not in obvious ways.)

Now, in this time of stress, I am cutting my own hair. Not the same relief, not the same release. (Something, because I did want that hair cut, but not what I hoped.) So you can imagine that after trimming my hair successfully I might still chase that feeling of relief by cutting a bit more. And I have done so. Felt good too. Snipped a little more and a little more.

Perhaps, I should have stopped sooner, but I don't know. I don't mind short hair. I might agree about the uneven edges though.

1978: Pre-Dive / Nostalgia

Summer 1978: 

My mom called me Fearless Fly with this state-of-the-art prescription mask on my face. 

I was getting ready for my first open-water dive, earning my C-card, the next day up on the Sonoma County coast.

Note how tan my hands and forearms are. I was spending hours in the pool every day.

Adonais: Spring Beckons

. . . and time reckons.

Seeking, Sought

Navarro Beach:

February 15, 2016

Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud"

William Wordsworth's famous poem may speak to us these days.

A quintessential English Romantic poem:
Nature, vivid description, musical patterning, individual subjectivity for the sake of universal feeling, memory and its healing power when harnessed with nature, and art for the sake of the soul.

(I disliked the poem as an undergraduate, but have come to appreciate its artful simplicity and application. I have a greater appreciation for thousands of flowers dancing in the sun and breeze too.)


I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth

Reading Around

Waltzing with Sofia