The Moth Podcast: Hair Ties

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Welcome to the Moth Podcast.

I'm Mark Solinger, producer of the podcast and your host for this episode.

I look almost exactly like a younger version of my father.

We've got the same slightly exhausted brown eyes, the same slump to our shoulders, and our hair...

well, let's just say that my hair is starting to get a little thin up top and I am coming up to the age where my dad lost most of his hair.

Intellectually, I always knew I'd probably go bald.

After all, that's what happened to my dad.

But I was still absolutely shocked when my hairline started to slowly retreat from my forehead.

I guess I could try some weird male-order hair products or something, but I don't know.

My dad passed away when I was in my early 20s, and I like looking like him.

I like looking like he looked at my age.

I like knowing that my dad went through the process of going bald just like me.

We have this strange sort of connection of legacy through our hair, or rather, our lack thereof.

On this episode, we'll be sharing two stories about how hair can serve as a jumping off point for connection.

First up, we've got a story that starts in a salon and goes someplace entirely different.

Heather Ray told this at an Asheville, North Carolina story slam where the theme of the night night was Comfort Zone.

Here's Heather live at the moment.

Hi,

I am a highly anxious person.

Every day I wake up and I immediately start gagging.

It's my body's way of like rejecting being awake, and I think it's because it knows what my brain's about to do to us.

I'm uncomfortable all of the time, but one of the things that makes me the most uncomfortable is having to ask for help.

In 2016, I was living in Los Angeles and I woke up one morning gagging as usual and remembered that the day before I had gotten a terrible haircut.

And I had been so upset about it that I couldn't do anything about it at the time.

So I tipped her and I left.

And as I looked in the mirror that morning and I saw that instead of the shoulder length haircut with a few simple layers that I had requested, what I had received was scarecrow from Wizard of Oz.

So it was like little pieces of straw just hanging out.

It was awful.

So I had to call the salon and I call them and I'm crying and surprisingly they're just like so nice about it.

They're like, come on in, we'll fix it.

And I'm like, can you make sure that other stylist isn't there?

Because I'm mad at her, but also I don't want to make her feel bad.

So they say that's fine.

And I'm trying to get ready and get out the door, but like every little thing is going wrong.

Not big things, little, little things.

You know, like I stabbed myself in the eye with my mascara on.

I stepped in fresh cat puke with a barefoot.

I dropped my coffee on the way out the door.

And the Santa Ana winds were blowing.

They're the kind of wind that will get something in your eye, even if you're wearing goggles.

Like they're mean, you know?

They're also called the devil winds.

So I finally leave the house, walk out into the devil winds with my pieces of straw flying around.

I'm pissed.

It's like making it even worse.

And I get to near the salon, I park like two blocks away on a residential street, and I hop out of my car, leave my car door open.

Good.

I go to grab my car door, and as I'm extending my arm,

click,

The Santa Ana wins.

Devil wind gusted my car door shut, which you might think just open it, right?

No, because what I had done when I opened my car door was hit that lock button because I watch a lot of law and order.

So I'm standing there on the side of the street.

My car door is shut.

It's locked.

It's running.

My phone's inside.

My purse is inside.

This moment, what I decided to do was throw my arms in the air, look at the sky and scream, why?

And then I immediately started laughing crazily because I thought I was so funny for doing that.

And I look across the street and there's a lady there getting out of her car.

She's clearly witnessed it.

She just looks at me and says, hey, do you need help?

Yes, Angel Lady of the Devil Winds.

Absolutely I do.

Like, please come and help me, you know?

And so she comes over and she lets me borrow her phone.

I call a friend.

They're going to come help with an extra car key or something, but they're going to be like 30 minutes.

By the time I'm off the phone, this angel lady of the devil winds has waved down a man in a white truck full of tools because there's always a guy in a white truck full of tools in LA.

So she's talking to him in Spanish, explaining the situation.

He comes over to my car with a crowbar and a stick of bamboo.

The idea is he's going to crowbar the top part of my door open.

She's going to stick the bamboo down in there and push the unlock button.

But the angle is weird.

She can't get it from there.

And she just looks at me and goes, I'm going to get on top of your car.

And I said, okay.

So she's on top of my car.

The guy's crowbarring it, but there's a glare.

She's having a hard time getting it in the right angle because of the sun.

It's going down.

A girl is walking down the street.

She looks curious.

She's like, what's up here?

I tell her what's going on.

She's like, I don't know what I could do to help, but I'm going to get coffee down the street if you guys want some.

And also, it's by the salon if you want me to tell them what's going on with you.

Excellent.

Amazing stranger.

Thank you.

Thank you, second angel.

Okay.

So now I'm sitting there with that.

And then I see, like, I'm running around looking for like palm fronds or like a piece of a tree to like shield this glare.

And a guy's walking down the street.

He's got a zip-up hoodie on.

I used to be a costumer.

So I look at that hoodie.

I'm like, hey, what's going on?

He's like, oh, what's going on with you guys?

There's a lady with her feet like dangling off one side of your car.

She's on her stomach, like angling angling this little piece of bamboo into my window.

And he's like, Oh, absolutely, you can use my hoodie.

And he's over there holding the glare.

So the girl's back with the coffee by now.

So what happens is my friend rolls up and she has her window rolled out and she sees me standing there holding an iced coffee.

Guy with the crowbar crowing my window open.

Lady on top of my car, feet dangling, angling the bamboo down into the window.

And we've got iced coffees, the guy's with the hoodie.

And Paco looks at me and goes, Do you know any of these people?

I said, No.

She just went, typical.

She goes to park her car and come back.

Within those few seconds, she's doing that.

I hear them behind me exclaiming, they've done it.

They unlocked my car.

We all pass out the iced coffees.

She climbs down.

We're hugging.

This is crazy.

I'm going to tell my roommate about this later.

You know, that's what all the other people are saying.

And I just go and get my hair cut because they did hold the appointment for me.

It was amazing.

Well, one thing that happened was that the guy with the crowbar had been really concerned that I was going to get my car messed up by having him do that.

And he was right.

So for years after that, every time I drove in the interstate, the whistling, it killed me.

The rain would drip into the seatbelt well and I'd have a wet seatbelt.

And every time I got pissed about one of those things, I would remember that time those four strangers helped me in a time where I really, really needed it and I didn't even have to ask.

Thank you.

That was Heather Ray.

Heather is a ceramic and botanical jewelry artist born and raised in North Carolina.

She began spinning stories for family and friends the moment she learned to speak.

She enjoys pressing flowers, writing silly poems, and telling stories on stage.

Remember, if you want to tell your story on a moth stage, or just hear some incredible tales from your own community, moth story slams are happening throughout the country and throughout the world.

Just go to themoth.org slash events for the full list.

Up next, another story about hair leading to connection.

Amogen Wall told this at a London Grand Slam where the theme was when worlds collide.

Just as a note, this story talks about someone experiencing the suicide of a loved one.

If that subject is difficult for you, you might want to skip this.

Here's Amogen live at the mouse.

So about four months ago,

I had one of those mornings where you look in the mirror and you look at your hair and you go, what

is that?

And it really really was disgusting.

It was greasy at the top, and the ends were dry.

And I think I'd washed it twice in two months.

I had a good, I think, reason for this.

About a month beforehand, my father had died.

Unexpectedly, he took his own life

and plunged all of us into the kind of

intensity and grief that meant that actually

getting out of bed had been an achievement.

But the funeral was approaching

and I thought

I can't do anything about most of this

but hair is how we frame the face we put on the world and I have to go and put my face on the world and I can do something about my hair.

So I phoned up Salon,

Shine in Stokenington, who are great and I went down there and I explained the situation and they were lovely.

They said unfortunately your normal stylist isn't here

So Jamal is going to be taking care of you today and I looked over and there was Jamal and he was tall and skinny and he had very tight jeans and a directional t-shirt and a hat and underneath this hat was this mass of bright blonde curls like ludicrously camp cartoon curls and he was grinning at me and I I'm not hugely proud of this but I thought

of all the days to get the really enthusiastic hipster

but there's no rule that says you have to talk to your hairdresser so I thought well I'll just I'm just gonna enjoy being looked after and so we went downstairs and he put the chemicals on my hair to take the dye job out and washed all that off and I didn't say anything and we didn't talk and then I sat down and you know I got my magazine I was very pointedly reading my magazine and we didn't talk.

And then he said something

and he looked at me and he said, seriously, he said, you're very tanned.

Have you been anyone on holiday recently?

I actually think hairdressers said that.

It turns out they do, or this one did.

And I really didn't want to talk, so I did that very English thing of saying,

no, just a work trip.

End.

This went straight over his head.

He was like, oh, really?

Where'd you go?

And

I said, Kenya, same deal.

He said, oh, my neck of the woods.

So I looked at him and I said, oh, are you Kenyan?

And he said, no, I'm Somali.

And I said, I thought, oh, I'm not sure why would I thought.

I thought, I need to pay attention to that.

I'm an aid worker, so I know a little bit about Somalia and what's been going on.

And I, you know, look after refugees.

And I said, you know,

when did you leave Somalia?

And he said, actually, I was there.

We were living in Switzerland.

My dad was a very wealthy businessman.

So I grew up in Switzerland.

And then the war happened, and he lost everything.

And we had to leave Switzerland.

But we got refugee status in Canada.

So we went to Canada.

And I grew up in Canada.

And I said, oh, so

how did you end up in London?

And he said, well,

my parents moved here because it wasn't religious enough for them in Canada.

But I didn't come here immediately.

I went to Pakistan.

And I said, what on earth, why do you go to Pakistan?

He said, my parents sent me.

I'm gay, they don't like that so much.

So they sent me to be educated in Pakistan because they thought that would fix it.

And I said, wow.

He said, I got to learn Urdu.

And I said, is it easier for you now in London?

And he said, oh yes, kind of.

And in this really chirpy way, he told me about how, you know, he was, because he was Somali, you know, people on the street, other Somalis knew he was Somali and he got the stick, he got shouted at supermarkets.

He said, I can't get Ubers anymore because if the drivers are Somali, then they just tell me I've left the path of truth and it's all very difficult.

And he was so chirpy and bouncy as he was saying this.

And I was looking at him and looking at the way he was dressed and thinking, what courage

and how lightly he is wearing it and how

that hair I thought was cartoony.

He is such a choice to look like that.

And I thought again how hair is how we frame the face we place on the world and how he had done that to tell everybody who he was and what a brave thing that was to do.

And just as I was thinking that, he said, okay, you're done.

And I said, oh.

And having not wanted to talk to him at all, I wasn't ready to be done yet.

And he looked at me and he said,

would you like a glass of wine?

And I said, no, that's really kind, but you know, I've got to get back.

There's so much to organize.

And he looked at me again and he said,

They told me what happened upstairs.

I'm so sorry about your dad.

Have a glass of wine and it's the end of my shift so I'll stay and have one with you.

And I couldn't say no to that.

So he disappeared into the back room and he came out with two crappy little plastic cups full of really disgusting wine.

And he looked at me and he said, what should we drink to?

Should we drink to your dad?

And I couldn't speak at that point.

And he said, okay, too much.

He said,

okay, let's drink to happier times.

So me,

with my gloopy chrysalis on my head,

and the gay Somali refugee with his brave, brave blonde curls, we sat in the basement of a hairdresser's in Stokington and we drank to happier times.

Thank you.

That was Amogen Wall.

Aimogen is a humanitarian by instinct and profession, a former humanitarian aid worker, now therapist, and mental health specialist.

She's the daughter of Sir Nicholas Wall, senior judge of the Family division and campaigner for women's rights, adored father, husband, and grandfather.

Aimogen wanted to say that everything she does now is with her father in mind.

Rest in power.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can call 988-intheus for free and confidential support.

That's it for this episode.

From all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a story-filled week.

Mark Zellinger is the podcast producer of The Moth, the co-creator of the audio drama Archive81, a lover of museums, and someone who feels very strange reading his own bio.

This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Zellinger.

The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leigh Ann Gully, and Aldi Casa.

The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners.

Stories like these are made possible by community giving.

If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org/slash giveback.

All Moth stories are true as remembered by the storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at purex.org.

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