Life, actually…

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BEARDED LADY

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It’s kind of nice, being invited to write an introduction to another author’s book.

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I used to think that only famous writers who belonged to some kind of in-group did that kind of thing. But it’s good to be wrong at times.

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So, many years ago, author Helen Bunkin produced  a volume of essays, poems and photographs on one subject and one subject only: bearded men, men with beards.

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No kidding!

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Each picture depicts a randomly selected bearded man looking out from his bushy recesses into the world. The reader gets to make a decision about each picture, based on what’s hot and what’s not about the growth of facial multistubbles.

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Right before press time, Helen added my introduction and photograph. Here’s what I said, roughly:

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The first time I met Helen Bunkin, I asked her whether her collection of photographs included any women. She, having only known me for a half hour, looked puzzled and pleasant and replied, “No, they’re all men.”

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“No bearded ladies, then?” I queried. I think that by this time she was beginning to relax and enjoy my lame joke.

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“No bearded ladies,” she repeated.

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After all, I had not yet looked at her photographs. At last, she stopped teasing me and opened her portfolio. My amazement began.

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There were no bearded ladies. But in the place of bearded ladies, Helen showed me pictures of men with beards.

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All sorts of men.

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Big men, slender men, light pink men, black men, tanned men, pale men, sallow men, happy men, strained men, puzzled men, joyful men, brown men, bold-featured men, gossamer men…men who looked like they were enjoying the attention Helen was giving them.

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After all, when was the last time anybody had ever stopped them and paid attention just because they hadn’t been cleanshaven in a month of Sundays?

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Each of these men had made a conscious decision at some point, to ignore the electric-shaver ads, the razor-blade ads, the commercials urging them to look sleek and shiny.

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What made them do it? What made them decide to let the grass grow wild enough to trim later or not to trim later?

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To trim or not to trim, that is the daily challenge.

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In my own case, I woke up one morning after leaving the corporate world of bosses and bosses of bosses, and said to myself, “Self, who are you shaving for, every morning for thousands of mornings on end?” Self answered back, “You are shaving for bosses and bosses of bosses, and, Glory Be, you no longer suffer the presence of bosses and bosses of bosses.”

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The reason for shaving was far gone. It had disappeared into the wind just as soon as I leapt from the cold and humorless vehicle of boss-dom and fell parachuteless into the soft void of Being My Own Boss.

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I never had to worry about pleasing a boss again!

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One more thing had to be cleared away, though. What in the world would my wife think about newfound stubble when it appeared upon my chin? Only way to find out was to do it, so I picked a week when she would be away on business, and I stopped shaving. I figured that, if she did not approve of the beard, I would just remove it and get on with being the Familiar Me.

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Good grief, at the time I saved!

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Lordy, why in the world hadn’t I done this eons ago? I had more time to do things or not do things as I so pleased, and I didn’t have to worry about walking around with pieces of tissue stuck to my face, where the razor had misbehaved. After forty years of shaving, I still had not learned how not to cut myself.

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PS:  My wife loved it. I was cleared for landing my fingers in thick salt and pepper bristle whenever I pleased.

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So, where was I? I know this one thing well: each bearded stranger in Helen’s book has his own story to tell, his own spin about why he doesn’t show off his cheeks and jowls and pocks and double chins to the world at large.

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Helen’s pictures make you want to know these guys, hear their stories, know their woes and whimsies. Turn the pages. Get to know these half-hidden faces.

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Even though the book doesn’t have a bearded lady, it does have a Beard Lady. The late Helen Bunkin is hereby remembered as the Beard Lady who showed many mysterious half-faced men to a world that usually pays attention only to the obvious.

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Whenever I see a copy of Beards Beards Beards by Helen Bunkin I recall her fascination.

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Her book makes you pay attention to the hidden, the not-quite-obvious, in each of us bearded guys.

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Thanks for the memory, Helen, wherever you are

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© 2022 A.D. Jim Reed

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