Retrospection, Week Four

It's been a while since I enjoyed a truly quiet weekend because my brain needed to veg out and recharge for more learning.

I came into this week feeling antsy. I had such a magical weekend celebrating my birthday with one of my very favorite people, and I am feeling motivated to grow and expand my current set of skills. Logan and Norrin designed and ordered me a few spools of CUT⚡️BUZZ STICKERS!!!!!!

Well, the universe is definitely paying attention because the rest of the week spilled lessons all over me.

On Tuesday, John, a fellow Overlapper from the one I organized in 2013 drove in from central Michigan to see his new grandchild, but it seemed very equally to get a haircut and share his amazing news that he just took up a professorship at SCAD, teaching business design. He shared that reading about my pivot to barbering and following the joy I just have in making this change.. that gave him strength to make this major pivot into teaching from leading design teams.

I'm not crying ur crying. John was like, "Cut it however you want" so I gave him a fade and cleaned up his beard.

John is an easy-to-please client. On Wednesday, I had a client who had clearly had a rough go of it the last little while, and came in to get cleaned up for a job interview.

This client presented a few challenges I'd not had to work with before. He had some facial art that was fresh, and clearly put in to draw attention away from some scarring. He had colored, processed hair that was very fine and a variety of color tones in his hair, which... being color-blind... was messing with me at first. I was extremely fortunate that with multiple student teachers now in the barbering program, I had one-on-one coaching throughout the 3ish hour consultation with this client. Dude was very patient as I measured twice (or maybe sometimes 5x) to cut once, as my grandmother used to say (she was a tailor who worked her way out of pogroms, putsches, purges and revolutions until she finally was allowed into the States in the 50s). I learned a lot about the utility of the mirror, showing me how well (or not) a fade is blending in ways I can't see with my own eyes directly on the client.

Most haircuts take anywhere from 30-60 minutes, and to-date, had gone without the intense collaboration of this fade. That was probably the best haircut I've done to-date and I was so proud of the effort we put into helping this guy look his best.

Thursday morning, all charged up from learning how to properly hold my hands with the tools to do a fade, starting to learn the rhythm of what length clippers to use, or which clippers entirely to use, and in what sequence, I decided to finally practice on myself with an Italian Beard.

I really like the idea of using my face and head as a canvas to advertise skill.

It was a pretty slow day on Thursday, and I caught a few simpler cuts. I noticed one lesson that really stuck from my experience Wednesday was me staying in place and moving the chair more often to reposition the client to where I needed them rather than lose my arm and hand positioning and eye on the guide-line. At the end of the day, it got so busy that I ended up staying late to finish a haircut, then started cleaning myself up for a dinner party I got invited to Thursday evening.

Oooh dinner parties! That, like, hasn't happened in a minute. Anyway, as I started point cutting down some stray fraying hairs, a high school student asked me what I was doing and offered to clean me up. Yahaira saw something in my hair that others haven't seen and gave me an amazing cut that's not so much changing my vibe as maybe channeling it.

Anyway, mindfulness became super important on Friday.

A few weeks ago I attempted (and epically failed) a taper on a fellow barbering student. Friday I had a client in my chair who had his own extra long pick for me to pick out his afro, which he wanted me to freehand and then fade to a taper with a straight razor finish. A freehand cleanup of an afro (1) to a taper (2) finished with a straight razor (3) was three things I'd not done before either on a mannequin or on a client (successfully) so once again I am very appreciative for our student teachers having and making the time to coach me through the unknowns. Again, I had a patient client who very much appreciated my candor and directness about what was gonna be learning for me and how I was gonna ensure he was completely taken care of... and he was. That was another surprise 2+ hour session with a client that went very well and resulted in a lot for me to soak in, especially on a Friday when to-date has not ever been a real learning-intensive day.

I love the serendipity. I am so grateful for all the experiences that conditioned me to accept and roll into serendipity. I'm also grateful that my life is such that I can recover from such intense surprise commitments gracefully.