Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Sunday Journal

Strands of hope

By TOM VALEO
Published January 30, 2005

Since moving to St. Petersburg, I've decided this area must be the national capital of the male ponytail. I haven't seen so many since Woodstock, or Willie Nelson's rise to stardom. Even the revival of the male ponytail as a bold fashion statement is at least a decade in the past.

As a result, guys who wear a ponytail look out of date to me, like they're clinging to the past. I certainly don't mean to criticize this. I used to wear a ponytail, too, and I certainly was clinging to the past. Like a superstitious fool, I secretly believed my long hair would take me back to happier days when my son could walk, and I never worried about how he would get around in the world.

I didn't exactly decide to grow a ponytail. One day, I got a haircut. A week later my son, who was 11 at the time, became paralyzed. A cross section of his spinal cord suddenly swelled, probably because his immune system attacked it, and the swelling prevented nerve transmissions from reaching his legs. As a result, he couldn't walk anymore. He might recover, the doctors said, or he might not. Only time would tell.

Swept up in a frenzy of hospital visits and consultations with perplexed specialists, I never even thought about my hair. I'd wash it, dry it, comb it and forget it for the rest of the day. Then late one night, while anguishing one more time about my son's predicament, I ran my hands through my hair and, to my amazement, realized I had enough to tie into a ponytail.

I know this doesn't make any sense, but at that moment I decided I would not get my hair cut until my son was up and walking again. Look what happened to him the last time I went to the barber, I reasoned. I'm not a superstitious person. In fact, I try to be hyperrational. I don't believe in astrology, past lives, pyramid power or astral projection. I don't believe in recovered memories, witchcraft, ghosts or an afterlife. I don't even believe in God.

Yet, when faced with my son's inability to walk, the urge to believe in magic welled up from some dark, distant place inside of me. I confessed this to no one, since it seemed as weird and inappropriate as some primal impulse to hunt and kill my own food.

I also began to understand why magic has always held such allure for us humans. Magic holds out the promise of control. It provides the illusion, at least, that we are not totally helpless against the whims of a universe that remains massively indifferent to our fate. If we allow ourselves to believe in magic - in the power of crystals or spirits or an almighty deity - we just might convince ourselves that we have the ability to influence events so we won't suffer quite so much.

And so I let my hair grow and grow and grow. I knew I was being ridiculous. I knew my hair had nothing to do with the motor neurons in my son's spinal cord. But I just wasn't ready to give up the faint possibility that maybe, just maybe, there was some sort of connection, and if I kept my end of the bargain, he would get up and walk again.

He never has, except in my dreams. There, he periodically stands up and discovers, to his surprise (and mine), that he doesn't need a wheelchair anymore.

In real life, however, he seems reconciled to his situation. He plays guitar in a rock band that has recorded a CD. He goes to college, drives his own car, attends outdoor concerts, has lots of friends, and has developed a passion for Zen Buddhism - especially the parts about transcending desire and disappointment.

Once I realized he was resigned to the possibility he would never walk again, I decided I should be too.

And so I went to the barber and had my ponytail cut off. I have to admit, however, that as my hair fell to the floor, I felt like I was letting all hope fall with it. I was letting my belief in magic be cut away from me, even though I desperately wanted to hang on to it.

When I got out of the barber's chair I felt lighter and less burdened. At least I wouldn't have to fuss with long hair anymore. But I felt more vulnerable, too, as though I had lost some protective totem that had been shielding me from misfortune.

When I stepped out onto the sidewalk, darkness was falling. The gray clouds of approaching winter were gathering, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. I wasn't dressed warmly enough, and when a cold wind went down my naked neck, I shivered. Without my ponytail to protect me, that frigid gust chilled my own spinal cord, and reminded me that I have nothing to protect me, really, except my strength and ingenuity, which suddenly seemed pathetically inadequate.

- Tom Valeo, who lives in St. Petersburg, writes frequently for the Times.

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:55:03]