Day-Hay and I are leaving for San Antonio on Saturday. We�re leaving Mr. Philately behind because he cannot leave his business behind right now. As a parting gift, I cut his hair tonight. I�ve cut his hair for the past twenty years. Sometimes, I�m very business-like and just do it, thinking about nothing but the cut. Other times, such as tonight, I find myself thinking about him in a way I rarely do when doing anything else.

Mr. Philately has very curly hair. When we were younger, he wore it longer than he does now and sometimes he would just let it dry in ringlets all over. Ringlets were not his best hair style from a visual perspective but I loved to curl that hair around my fingers. Hair as curly as his is rarely soft, unless it belongs to a young child, but I loved the way it felt in my hands nonetheless.

Neither of the girls have his hair. Kat�s hair is not curly like his. The color of hers is nothing like mine but the texture and wave of her hair mimics my own. Day-Hay has nothing of his hair. Hers is darker like mine and very, very straight like my mother�s. Day-Hay wishes for hair like his. He spends his mornings with a brush and a blow-dryer straightening his as much as he can.

It�s not just his hair that I notice when I cut it. Mr. Philately has a beard and I rarely think about his cheekbones but his cheekbones are a landmark for his hair cut. No one could use my cheekbones as a landmark. They are not raised as his are. His are raised in that way that makes the light play off his face so that a black and white photograph would be interesting. Kat has cheekbones too�strong ones that she gets from him. Day-Hay and I must content ourselves with something flatter and less distinct.

Then there is the nape of his neck. When you cut hair, you spend a lot of time staring at the nape of your victim�s neck. About the only time that I see the nape of Mr. Philately�s neck is when I cut his hair. Mr. Philately, after all, is a foot and a quarter taller than I am. I didn�t marry him because I was in love with the nape of his neck. I married him because I liked his third shirt button. Any way, the nape of his neck is furry because he is a hairy man. Forget the current trend toward men waxing their hair. I like a man who could make a good bear rug.

I also notice what is no longer there (and I don�t mean the hair that is going missing over the years.) I remember the first time he asked if I�d cut his hair. He wanted it done and he was afraid. He had to work himself up to it. When he walked around the room with headphones on, listening to the stereo and protecting his hair, I didn�t think it that strange. It was when he disconnected the stereo and retained the headphones that I realized how tense he was. That Mr. Philately, that young Mr. Philately, liked to appear so certain, even when he wasn�t.

His hair is not as wild as it once was but then neither is he. His politics are still much more radical than mine but he dreams of a sun roof on a nice sedate Camry, not of a zippy little car. He used to collect lots of up-to-date albums. Now he just came in the CD age and the closest he gets to up-to-date is Santana.

But I don�t care. I�ve mellowed too and worrying about such things makes no more sense than splitting hairs.

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