Frieda Vizel - Some Kind of Beautiful

 

 

So, I grew up in the Satmar Hasidic community, which is a segment of orthodox Judaism that is very concerned with preserving traditions from before the Holocaust. One of the customs that my grandparents brought to the United States when they came here after World War II as refugees was the tradition that married women shaved their heads and kept it shaved for life. Another tradition was that our marriages were arranged. 

 

So, when I was 18, my parents picked out a match for me, an 18-year-old side locked, dark haired boy from yeshiva, whom I met a total of three times before we got married. The morning after the wedding, I was to be transformed into the look of the married woman. 

 

The first shave is performed by the mother. So, the morning after my mother came to my apartment, my young husband left for morning prayers, and she came to change my entire look. She pulled over a brand-new kitchen chair to the brand-new vanity mirror. Everything in my apartment was spanking new. There was potpourri everywhere, monogrammed towels. It was the beyond of Bed Bath & Beyond. [audience laughter]

 

So, my mother took out this new shaver, and she gathered my hair in her hands. Now, the thing about the first shave, is that it coincides with the morning after you first had gotten married. [audience laughter] This makes it the perfect opportunity for Jewish mothers to sniff around a little and make sure everything had gone okay. My mother, I love her dearly, but we didn't have that kind of relationship. I didn't want her anywhere near my newly grownup business. So, when she took out that new shaver and she turned it on and went with this loud [makes shaver sounds], I was so grateful, because whatever chitchat she was trying to have, I didn't hear a thing. [audience laughter]

 

When she was done, I was overcome with emotion, not because of the shaving per se, but because this was such an enormous rite of passage where I'd gone from being part of this huge family, and always needing to be respectful and well behaved to now I would be a grownup woman. My mother would look at me differently. Everyone would look at me differently. I'd have so much more autonomy. I had this brand-new husband, and I had all of these feels as my mother fussed with me. 

 

She put on my head covering, which was a series of layers. First, a wig and then a turban liner and it had a foam padding. And then, there was a scarf that was folded in a triangle with some padding tied around my head in a way so to best flatter my face. 

 

When she was done, she stood me up and she said, “Oh, my Frieda, you look beautiful.” She kissed me. She said, “Mazel tov.” And in that moment, I felt beautiful. Not in a supermodel way, in a I'm all grownup way. I continued to shave my head. It was a completely natural part of my life with a sweet husband, a cute apartment, all the trappings. Head shaving was just a part of it. 

 

A couple years in, we had a computer at home, down low, sensibly for work, which, if you knew how to, could connect to the internet if you plugged it into the phone line. Who remembers? [audience laughter] 

 

Once upon a time. So, one day, I'm online and I find this website called blogger.com, where various people are writing web blogs under pseudonyms, people from my community. What do I do? Of course, I make my own web blog. [audience laughter] So, I write a blog under the pseudonym, Shpitzle Shtrimpkind, where I write various short blog posts, supersecret, reflecting on my life as a Hasidic woman, all but very light, very innocent. One day, I write a blog post about shaving my head. It was supposed to be bittersweet, cute, funny, nothing too important. The reaction from my small horde of anonymous readers, to my surprise, was quite serious. They said, “Shpitzle Shtrimpkind, why do you shave your head?” You know what? Until that moment, the question hadn't even occurred to me. It was only when people said, “There's no basis in Jewish law for this custom that I started to formulate.” Oh. I started to ask questions, and I started to try to understand the answer. 

 

This was the catalyst for a whole series of me looking at the world in a new way of asking, “Why do we do this? Do I like the answer? Do I want to do it?” All of these changes were extremely difficult for my husband to get used to. He had been my best friend, but I was transforming into someone very different. I said to him, “I do not want to shave my head.” 

 

Now, the thing about deciding not to shave your head is, “Okay, I made the decision.” Five minutes later, I'm still bald. [audience laughter] A week later, maybe I have a 5 o’clock shadow. [audience laughter] It took a full year for my hair to grow to my ears. But when it did, I was going to do something special. It had been a really hard year. My marriage fell apart. My husband and I split. I was so lonely. It was probably the most difficult time in my life, but I was going to get a makeover. So, I looked up online. I found on Yelp, a hair salon in Manhattan. The salon, five-star, highly rated, the place you go to get your hair treated when you've never gotten it treated in your life before. I had been to Manhattan by myself, maybe at best, a handful of times. I had to go all the way from Orange County to my big appointment where I was going to get a sexy bob, that when I moved my head, it was going to go, “Hello.” [audience laughter]

 

I was very excited. The woman who was assigned to my hair, she was very concerned about the highlights and lowlights of the supermodel who sat in the chair next to me. I am not exaggerating. This woman with chiseled features and a neck of a giraffe sat there- [audience laughter]  -paging through an enormous portfolio while everyone in the salon oohed and aahed. It was supposed to be such a big moment. I found myself feeling so, so small and so lost in that chair with that ridiculous bib, my hair flat. Everything I was asked, I said, “Thank you. Thank you. Okay.” I didn't know how to express myself. 

 

When I was done, I looked in the mirror. What was supposed to be this gorgeous bob was a matronly petticoat on my head. So, I paid and I left. It was already dark outside by then. As I am walking, the storefronts were reflective. I'm walking. I see this woman in the mirror, and she's walking and she has this whole hair on her head that's moving. I notice, “Oh, that's me.” At that moment, I felt all right. I felt beautiful. Not in a supermodel way, in a I'm proud of myself. I'm all grownup kind of way. Thank you.