Maria has had a long-running conflict with hair cutters, she says she wants her hair cut short, but most of the hair cutters seem to not want to cut it. The other morning, she came upstairs to the bedroom to yell at me to get up and then, abruptly, she came at me with a pair of scissors, which got me up in a hurry. Maria is half Sicilian, something often overlooked underneath her seemingly gentle and genial nature. The other half is German.

“I’m tired of this hair,” she said, frustrated, and waving the scissors around. “I’d like it cut shorter!” Gently, I got the scissors away from her – just step away from the dresser, ma’am –  and she asked me if I would cut it. This shocked me, as I have never cut anyone’s hair in my life.

I come from a world where you hire people to mow your lawn, take the garbage away and cut your hair. Middle-class Jews did not cut their own hair, for reasons that were never clear to me. I mean never. As I have lost much of my hair, I suppose Maria would trim mine in seconds, but I never thought to ask.

Maria is impulsive, and impatient. Almost anything can come out of her mouth at any given time, from meditations on the sex lives of trees, to bizarre dreams with flying dragons and bullying men. She will often wake up from a dream in which I did something dreadful and not speak to me for a day or two, as I try to explain the difference between dreams and reality.

So I took the scissors seriously, and once I was in control of them,  I wondered if I should try to cut her hair. She has so often been seething at willful hair cutters that I thought it was risky. But then, I love nothing more than to do things I have never done before, as long as they do not involve riding on horses or going on roller coasters. I am proud of not doing those things and hope to get through a lifetime avoiding them.

So I trimmed her hair, holding it out between two fingers as I have so often seen barbers and beauticians do, snipped it across the bottom evenly and also trimmed loose ends on either end. The secret to Maria’s hair, I thought, was for it to hug her head, and not stick out from the bottom. So I cut it that way.

To my amazement, she loved it and so did I. We both thought it was the perfect cut for her, and she said I got the look she wanted when so many others did not. I debuted this look in a video we posted this morning about her Tote Bags. I circled her head and bragged about my first haircut.

I am proud of myself. Not only did I not get stabbed with the scissors, I actually cut someone’s hair. And it looked good!

I have no idea where this will lead, but I offered to cut Maria’s hair regularly, and she may, in fact, cut mine, although she has the easier end of the deal by far. We are even exploring hair clippers. I can maybe set up a booth in front of the farm.  I think I’ll call the new business “Jon’s Shear Secrets.”