This piece of heaven
this godlen-haired boy
now three years of age
having arrived at that moment
having been prepared for the haircut
the upsheren the shearing
the first haircut
of his precious life.
The long hair is golden and soft like fleece
it curls naturally and jumps when he does
although slower coming down to rest on his shoulders a
second later
like a mythic young greek god
he prances around in wild abandon.
How we invest our hopes and dreams on our little ones
and the women look on
as the men do their rituals of rites of passage
a mythic journeying of pain and transformation
like the Bris not so long ago.
Somehow this was more painful
as we cut and cut
snipped away as he looked on
knowing this was his moment
as the father and grandfathers blessed him.
But we leave the peyos to signify
this hassidic custom that has leaked into our world
an identification that this child, this boy
has his hair removed to reveal his peyos
his sideburns; an identification of ethnic belonging
to his people at this tender age.
His long flowing golden peyos were the very comfort
not all was shorn
not all was lost
the very cutting and esthetic of removal
the loss of his infancy and the grief of that loss
the entering into the age of education and collective
impressioning
the cultural molding and ritual training
was somehow mitigated by the wildness of these golden
locks
as if it signified his resistance to the power of the collective
the violence of the collective.
The next day it dawns of me as I visit that they too have
been cut
the long flowing golden peyos
a secondary loss
much worse
I say nothing
do nothing
after all
I am to be a doting grandparent
but in the car to work
the next day
I weep uncontrollably.
What is this about?
you may ask.
Where does this grief come from
what have you invested in this wunder kind?
that has evoked so much pain?
And as the week progresses it slowly unfolds
the hopes for this child
the projections
the dreams and aspirations
and the powerlessness to be other than the doting Dada.
And I must learn
this too
as I reflect back on my own Dada
in Kingsbury London
each sunday as we visited
his bear hug of my small frame as I buried myself in his
loving arms
surely he had his own desires for me
vastly different from the hidebound orthodoxy of my
father’s oberland
flavor of Ashkenazi rite
far from his natural mysticism (he liked Whitehead).
Now in the next generation I am only his Dada
and I must learn this again and again.
I must accept what is not in my power
I must love despite
and be available despite.
But what of this pain?
the floods of tears must have meant more than my petty
selfishness
and self-centeredness
of wishing yet another child in my own image
Surely I have learned that bitter lesson over and over
again
Beaten into submission and admission of my failures.
Having sacrificed my sons on the altar of my/their culture’s
expectations
I have learned and have no wish to perpetuate this
violence on anyone again.
I am truly satisfied to leave alone and let grow
the flower has its own seed
and we are here only to water it
but surely that is the point with what kind of nutrient?
And there is the pain
the cutting a second time
to conform with the local
yeshivish notion of propriety
watching this happen
as an indication
of what is to come
and what he is to be
and what will be done to him
cut me as well, deeply.
The insanity of conformation
the violence of the collective
the refusal to listen to other voices
the insistence on local petty custom as reality
in the face of my experience of truth as broad and tolerant
cutting across party lines and ritual behaviorism
all this pressed in hard this week.
But in the warm waters of the mikveh
we wash away all resentments and fears
we bathe in Her calming uterine humors
and we realize that this too is part of life
and passage and transformation.
My job is only to bless and bless again
to wish this holy child will find the secrets
and remember me as I do my beloved Dada
and see his guiding hand so many decades later.
