This morning I had a haircut.  It is such a often repeated event and I usually busy myself with my phone like everyone else.  But today, as Amir swept the floor, I suddenly recalled physically what it felt like to sweep the floor in my father’s barber shop.  Because of the union he had to work on Saturday, and Saturday was always his busiest day.  For a year or two I was old enough to work for him after synagogue and it was my great honor to do it.  My body remembered the long broom, the repeated movements to catch the fine white hair of the fat old man who laughed a lot, the thick brown-black locks of the young wrestler, the short crumbs of the redheaded boy who always asked to be completely shaved. I remembered the repeated emptying of the metal dustpan, and the sounding of the knocking of the pan against the bin to release the hair.  Of course now the hair is brushed into an electronic wastebin and most of the movements I so enjoyed don’t exist any more.

My payment was a bottle of seven-up from the machine.  

And while I was musing on all this, my coiffeur came out too short again.