Zoë has been asking to cut her hair since February 2010. She wanted it to be like her cousin Kyle’s surfer-Beiber ‘do. Then she wanted it to be like her friend Kian’s, then like her friend Ricky’s. No mistake–she wanted it to be short. This isn’t a big deal to me–except for the fact that Zoë’s hair has never been cut. Ever. Since she was born. Over five years, her baby hair became the almost-blond paintbrush ends that grew past her waist. When she started asking to cut it, I realized that kids are so good at letting go, & that I was so sentimentally attached to her hair–& I didn’t want her to be attached the way I was. Still, I wanted to wait it out, let some time pass to see if she still wanted it, just in case we went for it, & the next day she woke up & changed her mind (as kids are wont to do). Hair grows back, but sometimes not quickly enough, as we all who have had a bad cut know. As Halloween approached last year, she changed her mind, because she wanted to dress up as Zuko, the Firebender from Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series, & Zuko has a long ponytail on the top of his head. So, no haircut last fall.

I started preparing myself for the Big Cut, which I thought could happen around her fifth birthday, a sort of symbolic time. In my mind, I wanted to create a meaningful rite of passage, a ceremony or party of some sort, like the kind that Jewish boys have when their hair is cut for the first time at age three. Last week Friday, she turned five. We had been celebrating all month long with playdates with friends. And of course the question of “When are we cutting my hair, Mama?” kept coming up. “Do you still want it short?” I asked. “Daddy likes it big…long…So, just cut the bottom,” she answered; I had explained that we could just trim the scraggly bits off the end, & it wouldn’t be so tangle-y & thus painful a process of brushing.

I had put it off long enough. So, on Monday, with none of the pomp & circumstance that I had hoped, we did the Big Trim. We slipped a plain white trashbag (with a hole cut in it) over Zoë’s head, sat her on a child-sized chair & took a deep breath. Max attempted a video interview, asking, “Want to say anything to your hair?” To which Zoë replied, “Nope.” Clearly more excited than sad–unlike me.

Photography is my hand-hold through the moments I find emotionally challenging. My husband makes fun of me that I’m not in the present, can’t I just put the camera down? But I am in the moment when I am taking pictures–focused in more ways than one on the little details. Photos also let me be in the moment again & again, so I can process what I might not be able to as the events unfold. True, the camera mediates my experience, but for me, it’s a Zen-like filter, distilling a moment down to its crystalline purity.

So, before the haircut, I tried my best to commemorate in photos Zoë’s Hair, the hair that was like an old-growth forest–untouched & embodying the Beginning. How could I capture all that hair meant to me–it’s length, it’s movement, it’s texture, & all the things about it that can’t be touched or seen? I tried my best to make the kind of pictures that would help me let go of that baby hair–& at the same time, accept the passage of time that had somehow fast-forwarded us to Zoë being five. I had to curb my clicking–like an addict that has to cut herself off & tell herself that it’ll be alright without more.

And here are my two girls with the hair that grew on their little heads when they were inside my body…

And so the time finally came for me to separate the baby from the girl…

And I gave Zoë a brand new, “Big Girl” hairbrush all her own to mark this special occasion. We asked her after if she felt more grown up (because she definitely looked it), & she raised her eyes up & thought about it for a moment. With a big smile, she replied, “Kind of.”