I have learned to understand where a homeless person is at mentally in their life, look at their hair.
At the shelter, I see people with matted snarls in their hair, tangles so intertwined that buzzing it seems the only option to alleviate the mess, and dreadlocks with odors that make your spine curl. I also see cute pixie cuts, braids, and colored hair that clearly took a lot of effort. I am being serious here. Have you ever dyed your hair from a box? It’s no easy task.
The hair of a person on the street has come to reveal endless amounts of information to me about that person before I even talk to them.
***
Take Nancy for example.
One morning, an older woman in her 50s named Nancy came into the shelter. She was decently dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Nancy had gorgeous blue eyes and rose-colored cheeks. She sat in the corner smoking a cigarette, sipping on a black coffee, and flipping through People magazine.
She looked like a well-traveled woman who belonged in New York City, except for her hair. It was a mess! A massive snarl, the size of a bird’s nest, now evolving into dreadlocks, sat on top of her head. I wondered why she didn’t brush it out.
A few days later, I went to bed with my hair wet, which I often do, but this time the outcome was different. I woke up the next morning with a giant tangle in the back of my head. It took me 3-minutes to get that one tangle out. As I combed through my hair with some wonderfully scented leave-in conditioner, also probably loaded with a full too many chemicals, I looked at my reflection in the full-size mirror in front of me and couldn’t help but think about Nancy and her hair.
If I had no place to call home, maybe I’d give up on getting out tangles too, allowing them to wallow into the only thing they can become, dirty dreadlocks. Maybe a person gets used to sleeping on matted, tangled, dense hair after a while? If you can get used to sidewalks for pillows, I am sure dreadlocks are quite minor. I decided to talk to Nancy the next day and ask about her hair, hoping to better understand how a person can sleep on a head of hair like that?
***
It was morning at the shelter. I went over to sit with her, noticing Nancy had a soft, approachable spirit. She sipped on a cup of black coffee, admiring the dresses of A-list celebrities in her magazine.
“Hey Nancy.”
She glanced up at me and smiled, revealing a mouth full of no teeth. I didn’t see that visual coming. She pointed to the dresses in front of us, “This one is my favorite because it has cuffs sleeves and jewels going all the way down the dress.” She peeked up at me, “I was a bridesmaid once, and the dress was $300 dollars! I couldn’t believe my friend bought me a dress for $300 dollars to wear! Can you believe she did that for me? I can’t.”
Nancy described that bridesmaids dress to me in detail, it was a long purple silk dress with skinny straps. Then, she told me this same story about when she was that bridesmaid, 20 more times in a row. I tried my best to remain invested, but I was losing steam. Now I needed a cup of black coffee to sustain energy for more purple dress talk. But as Nancy went on and on and (literally) on about this memory, I realized she was not mentally well.
It was the hair. That was my clue. This observation has begun to pop out at me more and more among my friends at the shelter: that those with dreadlocks and matted hair are often in the worst state of mind. Their thoughts are on a repeated loop. They swim in a whirlpool of depression.
My friends at the shelter who don’t brush their hair have the worst mental challenges. This theory was further proven when I chatted with Eliza, a woman with impeccable clean hair .
***
I adore Eliza. I would take her home with me if I could. Eliza looks like Betty White. She is a charming, lively woman with short, wispy gray hair. She washes her hair every day at a non-profit organization that allows homeless people to shower there. She loves being clean and can’t fathom going without a shower. She does not battle with depression and her hair says so.
She is truly a delight to be around. We sing Stevie Nicks songs together, and the songs I don’t know she sings for me. We laugh about all the silly things we didn’t know about prior to living in Los Angeles. Eliza is one of my favorite people I’ve ever met to be around, and not just in the shelter but in my general walk of life. I wonder how she got on the streets. She’s sharp, intelligent, and has a wild sense of humor that keeps me giggling every day.
Some things she has said to me are…
“Now Sarah, why do they think we always want to do a puzzle over here? Good grief, they are boring.” Eliza says incredulously. “We’re not ignorant. We just don’t have homes.”
“Oh, Sarah I know I shouldn’t spend money, but it gets so sad to be here, I have to get a change of scenery and go treat myself to a little lunch, but I don’t have a lot of money so guess where I go… 711,” she winks.
“Sarah, let me tell you, there is nothing like a good pair of white sneakers. They go with everything. I wish I had a pair, but Lord knows you can’t keep anything white out here,” Eliza laughs. “Can you imagine a person on the streets with white sneaker. They would be white for less than exactly 24 hours!”
So how did Eliza get here? She struggles with panic attacks and anxiety, but that can’t be why she’s on the streets. Come on, I’ve experienced those things before. She is here because she has no family. “All my relatives are dead. No kids. That’s why I’m out here,” she tells me. Eliza is 73-years-old. She has never done drugs in her life, nor does she drink. She looks 52, which she will happily remind you about, but is older and doesn’t have enough income to afford rent.
***
There is another thing about Eliza that draws me toward her. She reminds me of my mother.
They are both kind-hearted, hysterical women with a sharp sense of humor and the ability to laugh at life and themselves. In fact, one could say, Eliza is even more high functioning than my mother. Eliza has panic attacks, anxiety, and likes to hoard too many clothes sometimes. My mother has anxiety, depression, and talks to the walls when she’s triggered, which is quite frequent. But it is Eliza that lives in this shelter, not my mother. What is the difference?
My mom has a family. Eliza does not.
***
There are a lot of lessons I learn being among these people, like don’t let time pass you by where you get too old to have children. Be thankful for your leave-in conditioner and hairbrushes. Above all, never judge a person for their unkept hair. Trauma doesn’t always take the shape of anxiety, depression, or talking to the walls. Sometimes it’s the neglect of getting out a tangle in your hair that reveals all you need to know about a person.
They are suffering.
Say hello, smile, talk to them, buy them a coffee. One act of kindness may be all they get in a year’s time. Be that person for them, somebody that noticed the tangle in their hair.