A Close Shave

A sideways look at age, Colin McQueen - writer, Getting Older, Humour 2 Minutes

You know what it is like: sometimes the question is more of a surprise than the answers it provokes.  Joy is almost always found in unexpected answers to mundane questions, but just occasionally you are forced to ask yourself a question, having absolutely no idea of what your answer might be.  In short, you catch yourself completely off-balance…

I was staring into the mirror this very morning when such a question occurred to me.  I would like to claim differently, but it was nothing profound: no ‘who am I really?’, no ‘where are we going’ or ‘what’s it all about?’  It was a little more intimate than that (but fret not, still above shoulder height).  I was standing, not for the first time, with beard trimmer in hand, trimming guard at feet and a broad swathe of semi-exposed skin etched across my face when the question dropped into my consciousness like an Alka Seltzer into a glass of water.  “How attached am I to this beard?”

Obviously I did not mean in a physical sense: this thing grows out of my face, it is not stuck there with wig adhesive.  I do not fear going out in a stiff breeze lest I find myself somewhat less hirsute than when I left home.  The beard is irrevocably part of me and that is where my problem lies.

I can’t actually say that I like the beard any more than I like the triple chin that it hides, my nose or my wonky cheekbone; it is simply part of me and, without it, my face is not my own.  It belongs to a fat blancmange.  I am Mr Potato Head with asymmetrically inserted features.

So, is the beard a mask?  Well, I grew it because I hated shaving.  Shaving left me sore and it took up far too much of my time.  But now?  Can I see myself without it?  Am I emotionally attached to it?  Well, it does, in a small way, represent me as an adult – not so much in the fact that I couldn’t grow one as a child, but more in the fact that I look like a fat nine year old without it.

The beard – even in its soon-to-be truncated form – is more than a mere coating to the skin.  It somehow defines me.  I am that short ginger bloke with the ever-whitening beard.  I don’t know whether I look my age with it, but without it I certainly do not.  My face bears the scars of bricks and bats, of rugby scrums and cricket balls, of high-speed skin to bark encounters, but somehow continues to look younger than it actually is.

My quandary was unexpected – even my unrivalled ineptitude with the beard trimmer never prepares me for the shock of facing a semi-strimmed face – should I trim back the rest of my beard to the 2mm stubble of my partial exfoliation, or shave it all off altogether and face the world as a younger, pudding-faced extrovert?  Well, in the event, the answer was rather more straightforward than the question because I do not possess a razor and there was no way I was going to take my partially shorn face out to buy one.  I would have to uni-trim first and by then, well, what would be the point of scraping the rest of it off?    It turns out that I am even more attached to my beard than I am to my face… 

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Published by colinmcqueen

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23 thoughts on “A Close Shave”

  1. I wore a beard, mustache, and long, feathered black hair when I was in my twenties. I looked like a contemporary painting of Jesus. Then I joined the Army and have been in the habit of shaving ever since.

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  2. I once sported a beard for the character that I was playing in a Shakespeare production in London. I went home for a few days and Mrs Underfelt shed tears at the sight of my facial fungus. It was removed after the plays final performance and has not returned since. I do, however, look at my sagging features every morning and wonder if a nicely coiffured beard might be a better option for hiding the pasty faced fizzog staring back at me!

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  4. What is it with you Colin? I mean, again having to look up a word, this time “hirsute” and now I know. I will have it in my head as “Hair suit” with a bad spelling. As for the shock of hair loss. I once asked someone (he knows who he is) to trim my hair. Well, the bugger took my very long pony tail and cut it above the bobble. I was now a Bob and yet it has been trimmed a lot shorter since, but I’ve never looked back. I love the freedom of shorter hair and for a performance or to trick friends into giggles, I have plenty of wigs.

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  6. I have never understood this love story between men and their beard–my husband gives his beard more time and love than his entire wardrobe! But then, I have never understood the love story between women and accessories–handbags must match the purse to the 10th of the shade of burgundy, as should the nailpolish, lipstick and preferably eyeshadow as well… So I guess, there are just too many things I don’t know!

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  7. I hope you feel better about your face or appearance. We all go through periods of time when we realize, “Wow, my face looks different than it did when I was a teenager, young adult, and now old woman of 73. You just have to go with it and make the best of it. Good luck!

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