Hair as Relation in Time: Mirrors
some hair fables I've tried (and failed) to write
HAIR CLUB began while I was writing a hair fable. Michal Lynn and I were in the same writing class in grad school and after reading a draft of this fable she approached me saying “you like hair, right?” I had never thought about it that way. “Kelly also makes work about hair, want to apply for this grant to keep talking about hair?”
It changed my life.
This original hair fable was about two friends who woke up one morning to find that their beards had grown together. It was some sort of queer love tale that never materialized because I had this idea that all fables needed to take place in a Medieval European village, and I had a hard time explaining to the crusading knights who kept invading my story why no axe was mighty enough to separate these hair-tangled would-be lovers.
Probably it would have been better to situate this fable in Brooklyn in the 2010s—peak hipster realness. If their beards are stuck together who can say what their man buns are doing..
Yes, this idea has legs.
I want to thank y’all who have written to me recently about your own hair journeys. Sharing hair stories can be so vulnerable: personal stories of transformation and becoming. I am honored to keep those stories, please keep sending them.
And if you can think of someone who has incredible hair stories to tell, please consider sharing this newsletter with them! Every share helps to support this work.
Hair as Relation in Time: Mirrors
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Hair Journey in the context of the Hero’s Journey lately: the morphology of folktales / the path obstructed by obstacles. Hair change can be slow and incremental, difficult to see coming. Or it can be quick and decisive, an almost brutal or impulsive moment of change.
Think: Smith shaving his head in solidarity with Samantha—”but your hair is your signature!”—in the last season of Sex and the City (s6e16. 2004). Samantha is going through chemo and rather than lose her hair slowly over time, she decides to lose it on her own terms and buzz her entire head. Smith comes home and, seeing the hair on the bathroom floor, grabs the clippers from her hands (which, rude) and mirrors her by removing his own hair to the exact same length.
Later on, at the Breast Cancer Benefit where Samantha is giving a speech, she cathartically rips her wig off during a hot flash, inspiring others to stand up and do the same. It’s one of the most iconic hair moments on the show.
Hair change may itself signal change—a breakup haircut, or some inward illness, or healing. It is almost always a story of becoming, and endurance. It is a durational performance at whatever length.
What is mirroring but a moment of shared embodiment?
This week, I’m thinking about the seventeen-hour performance of artist Marina Abramovic and her collaborator Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen): Relation in Time (1977).
During this performance, Marina Abramovic and Ulay sat in a gallery with their hair tied together for sixteen hours. Once their bodies had reached a point of utter exhaustion, they opened the gallery doors and allowed the public to come in.
According to the artist, the performance was an experiment:
we wanted to know how we could really use the energy of the public to push our limits even farther and to sit one hour longer.
The performance began with the artists facing away from one another, back to back, in front of a white gallery wall, and with their hair tied together. In the top left panel above, we can see the artists in hour one: their tied hair is smooth and defined, coiled perfectly into a seamless rope. As the hours passed and both mental and physical strength diminished, Marina began to slump and slouch, Ulay to lean forward: the knot begins to come undone, a physical marker of their test of endurance.
What I find so fascinating about this performance is that the process of deterioration is kept from public view. It is only through documentation in retrospect that we can see the way their connecting hair cord was originally tied. The public was admitted into the performance at hour sixteen, once their hairy tether had frayed considerably. It’s very possible that, once inside the performance, the public had no idea what to watch for.
The artists’ goal to “use the energy of the public” to remain upright for one more hour is a fascinating conceit. In this performance, the hair forms almost a superhighway of energy between the artists. The hair is of course the physical record of exhaustion: a symbol of fraying tautness between two sagging bodies. Did the assembled crowd know they were being mined for their energy when they entered the space that evening? From which outlet was the energy sapped? Or did it slowly seep from each attendee’s own life force directly into Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s bodies.
Does energy leech out through hair? Hair itself is spent energy made physical: proteins exported from the pores of our bodies. In a way, hair makes a record of our body’s energetic production. I wonder how Marina Abramovic viewed the energy she set herself up to slurp from the lingering attendees like an art vampire, thirsting for survival? Did she visualize it as matter? As beams of light? Where did she imagine the energy left their bodies, and entered hers? Did she envision that it traveled between herself and Ulay, simul-charging them via this external powercord of hair?
Why was it so important that they stay connected through their hair?
Last weekend was my dear friend Rebecca’s birthday.1 We’ve been friends since 2009 (or Year Two After Britney Crisis, depending on your calendar)—nearly 14 years of friendship. In college, we had a habit of showing up the same amount late to the coffee dates we scheduled together (usually ranging from 15 minutes to three hours late), wearing a version of the same exact outfit.
The winter after we became friends we each bought the same winter jacket—a rust-colored “wool” blend tulip shaped cocoon coat that I still wear—(debate around who bought the jacket first notwithstanding)(I bought the jacket first). After that, we joked that anytime we went out walking with another friend, we looked like the henchmen from The Triplets of Belleville (2003).
A friend meme emerged, one where we questioned whether we actually just happened to show up late at the same rate and wearing nearly the same clothing, or if by some twist of the timeline, we were actually the same person, parallel versions of ourselves caught by some cosmic fluke in the same dimension. At one point, we even debated whether one of us was actually a ghost.
The morning of Rebecca’s birthday, as we waited to be seated for her birthday brunch, we realized we had reached a new apotheosis of our friendship and, by extension, our ongoing existential questioning. I had been lamenting how I’m not sure the haircut I’m currently striving for is really working for me (bangs and long, something I have always wanted and have never tried).2 Classic Awkward Stage moment of weakness: “I should just cut it back to my regular old shelf” I whined. But she shook her head and said, “I like it.”
Throughout this entire journey, Rebecca has been steadfast: your hair looks great! I think it really suits you! An unending refrain of affirmations, which I do appreciate. The morning of her birthday, however, between longing glances at the posted menu outside the restaurant, the intensity of our hangovers rising with the sun, we sized each other up. Eyes narrowed. Brows furrowed. Glances went up to hairlines where curly bangs met foreheads.
“I just realized,” she said.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“Your hair,” she said.
“It’s the same as…” I said.
“Maybe I like your hair…” she said.
“Because it looks exactly like yours!”
My jaw fell open. It was true: her hair—like a mermaid’s, a bit redder and with more voluminous waves than my tighter wavy swirls—is gorgeous. And she got bangs last year and they do look great.
I couldn’t believe it. Another accidental mirror. This time at least we were early for our reservation. But we were still wearing the exact same hair.
Love y’all, real and imaginary.
xo
I asked and Rebecca agreed to be named!
must note here that while I sat here writing this newsletter, I glanced up and saw on Allison’s cork board above her desk, a photograph of myself from (state of legs say) 2009-ish with long hair and short bangs. I have ZERO recollection of this hair moment and it’s frankly freaking me out…
Okay, but what about (and I hate to give this more air because it's so bad but) Avatar? Braid merging to exchange power and solidify psychological connection.