5 a.m. Sunday and I couldn’t sleep any longer. It was my son Ben’s big day for taking his state barber’s licensing test in Kansas City.

The last exam had been in Wichita three months earlier. Ben had made arrangements through friends still living there for his models to show up but they never did. The state gave him another temporary license which allowed him to practice in a barbershop until the next test. If he didn’t pass this one then he couldn’t cut hair anymore, so the pressure was on.

Sunday morning at 8:30 seemed like a strange time to give a test but it turns out they are given in barber/beauty schools and they would lose business if the exam was during a work day. The test consists of two parts, written and hands-on haircuts.

Because he’d had such trouble previously with his models, I’d been on him to let me know what kind of models he needed. I found myself turning into my father, bugging the son to step up to the plate and act as I thought he should. I was the one who took out the loan for his schooling and also co-signed for the apartment he was living in and I was concerned about Ben’s ability to support himself, so I felt like there was too much riding on this to blow it off. Without the license his steady income would disappear to be replaced by what, flipping burgers?

He had to have someone with longer hair and another with a beard and full head of hair. A friend of mine from my Tai Chi class, James, said he’d be the long hair model so all he needed was a beard. Ben hadn’t told me about the beard in time for me to grow one (he could have told me 3 months ago but didn’t!) so the search was on. All last week I’d been scouring around for someone with a beard that wouldn’t mind giving up a Sunday morning. After much nagging Ben assured me he’d found someone reliable to use but as it was a guy who’d come by his shop infrequently I still had some reservations.

Ben had moved to another shop in a strip mall that’s just down the street from the KU campus so that’s where we met and waited for his model to show up. 7:15 came & went, then 7:30 and still there was no one. It takes about 40 minutes to drive to K.C. so we were both getting anxious. Ben made several phone calls all to no avail while I sat in my truck and said a prayer. I found myself going over the worst case scenarios and wondering why Ben did things like waiting until the last minute for something so important. Was he self-sabotaging himself, or just being a 20 year old and maturing in fits & starts?

One of the owners of the shop drove up and brain-stormed with Ben about who they could find. Ben told him he talked to his model just a couple of days earlier. I about died when his friend said, “Had I known you got HIM as your model, I’d a told you to get someone else. To a bum 48 hours is a long time, not that he’s a for real bum but he doesn’t have a regular job. He’s not stable.”

Oh my God . . .

The next thing I know he proceeded to walk out to the street and started looking for a real bum to offer $20 to. He started to call out to an Indian looking guy walking down the alley until he saw he didn’t have a beard.

Ben frantically called the barber school up and asked what to do? They told him to come in anyway and that they would probably be able to find an extra model. Off we flew. It was 8 a.m. sharp.

We arrived at 8:33 to a crowd of students, family, friends and a few bummie looking guys. One guy looked like a pirate with a black eye patch and scroungy looking beard. He was telling everyone in a gravelly voice, “I come here every testing day so I can get a free haircut!” That was Ben’s guy.

While the test was going on I had the chance to talk to my friend James. He’d traveled a lot and told me about his trip to India where he studied Yoga. We are both interested in martial arts, philosopy and religion so our conversation was a little different from the others going on around us.

We talked about how so many people we know start to break out and explore in their teens and 20s but then before you know it they return to a more conservative, safer lifestyle (just like me). They give up risk taking and become their parents. Some resort to self medication through drugs, drink or vegging out in front of the t.v. and/or fall in to rampant materialism. Running up a big credit bill is one way to suck you back in to a 9 to 5 lifestyle. The next thing you know, you’ve been at your job 10, 20 years or more and that dream of moving to the mountains, living overseas & becoming an entrepeneur is nothing but a dull and distant memory.

Something James said resonated in me. One of the people he met when he was in India studying Yoga was a man who really knew a lot about spiritual and physical healing. This guy could look at you and tell you what was wrong. The story goes that he once met a stranger on a train and told the man, “What are you doing living in Calcutta, it’s killing you?! You are dying! You must leave.” Apparently the man thought about it on the train ride, determined he was right, went home and said goodbye to his family & friends and moved to Bombay where he’s living a very happy and fulfilling life.

James and I talked about how when people give up their dreams and fall in to a rut of 9 to 5, etc. it’s very similar to people trying to use physical force or tension in Tai Chi rather than trusting in the method (relaxation) because it gives them the illusion of control.  That’s when it hit me - worry, depression, anxiety are all emotional tension that gives us the illusion of control. Me sitting in my truck that morning worrying about my son’s model showing up and him passing his exam was really no different than trying to use physical force or tension in my Tai Chi class - it served no purpose other than giving the illusion I could control an uncontrollable situation.

After a some time, James was called in to get his hair cut and the exam was finished. Ben won’t know for a while if he passed the written part but he did pass the hair cutting portion. I was very proud of my boy and also very relieved. One of the judges even told me, “You have a fine young man there.”

We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise where Ben treated me to a beer and what else but a cheeseburger?! Just a year ago it was hard to imagine him ever having the means to buy lunch. Back in town I dropped him off at his truck by the shop and he gave me a hug and thanked me for driving him to the test and supporting him through all of it. “It was nice to have family there to support me.”

One of the things my Tai Chi teacher always tells us in class, “You must trust the method. You must believe it when I tell you relaxation works.” It’s the only way that allows energy, healing & health to flow through us. Maybe that’s what is meant by “Let go and let God.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 5:37 am and is filed under anxiety, family, father-son.