Ashes of Love

“The dying fire of enthusiasm should leave ashes to provide disguising makeup for our faces.” Stanislaw J. Lec

I’m sitting in Studio 412, a hair emporium, or salon, waiting for Michelle to cut my hair. It’s strange, sitting in the midst of women who are yapping it up. In the old days, at least where I grew up, a salon was called a ‘beauty parlor.’ No man would have been caught dead inside of one.

But things have changed. Everything is unisex now. Old stigmas have disappeared. Men are women, women are men. Women have short hair, men have long. Everyone has tattoos. Who can tell anymore? So here I sit. The women eye me suspiciously. Or lustily...who knows what women think.

The subject du jour was ‘Falling in love.’ Being the lone male, I lay low and kept my mouth shut. It’s not wise to take on a bunch of women in such places. Especially those who are paying big money in hopes of finding, or continuing, love affairs with someone or something.

Soon Michelle starts snipping. My hair falls, sliding down the black silk robe to the floor. It mingles with other hair clippings. I recall a visit to the New York Stock Exchange. Slips of pink paper, like so much hair and confetti, lay strewn in profusion throughout the floor. Traders walked on it, oblivious to each slip’s past significance. Old news, old lovers, they said. Some love gone good, some bad. But all past. Ashes of love.

I listen to the women carry on about love, how to find it, how to keep it hot. I want to tell them fried blonde hair won’t do the job, but hey, I’m outnumbered. Old loves come into my mind. How many were there, I wondered. Too many to count.

My first recollection of falling in love was with my bicycle. Like all loves, it’s a means of escape. The affair lasted until I was 13. A motor scooter replaced it. Boys are fickle…no loyalty to old lovers. The bike rusted. I moved on. Ashes of love.

I fell in love with music. I had every Elvis 45 rpm made, not to mention Jerry Lee, Chuck, Little Richard and Bo Diddley. I lay awake at night, straining to hear snippets of WLAC, Nashville, Tennessee, or WCKY in Cincinnati. One can lose a lot of sleep when in love. Music is a great lover. It’s as capricious as the listener. Songs wear out and lose their fire. Ashes of love.

In 7th grade I think I fell in love with my second cousin ten times removed. At that genetic distance, I figured it was safe. Blue eyes, and some crossed eyes, ran prominently in our family. The entire town showed up at our family reunions. Who would notice, I thought.

Marriage crossed my mind. But in 8th grade she was hustled off to a ‘finishing’ school for girls. They took no chances. So that was that. All that remained were love letters. I learned an important lesson: women are unpredictable! I later burned the letters before my brother could expose my feminine side to the world. A man can’t take chances with ink. Even at age 13. Ashes of love are ageless.

I’ve fallen in love often…with dogs, boots, back packs, cars, guns, airplanes, to name a few. But they got old, like most lovers do. I ruthlessly discarded them without remorse, waiting for something new to show up. It usually did. Inanimate divorces are cheap. Ashes of love litter my past.

Some fall in love with sports, like golf. My idea of hell is being chained to a chair and forced to watch golf on TV 24/7. I once fell in love with running. A new hip ended that affair.

It’s dangerous to fall in love. Risk is involved. Like dreams, love often evaporates into illusions, then remorse when the novelty wears off. Relationships, human or inanimate, often have a short shelf life. We live for the next new thing.

Suddenly I’m jolted back into the present. “Mister, what’s your opinion of keeping love hot and burning?” the woman asks. I shake my head and shrug.

Somewhere in a back seat of my youth I hear Loretta Lynn singing, “Love is where you find it, when you find no love at home; and there’s nothing cold as ashes, after the fire is gone.”

I look at my haircut in the mirror. I smile, say aloud, “You handsome devil.” Some loves never die!

Bud Hearn
October 26, 2012