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Have You Changed?

Writer's picture: Feef MooneyFeef Mooney


My friend Emma said she is thinking of cutting her hair. I think she is scared, but feels the need to change her look, before her next headshots.

This led me to thinking about the one time I had my hair "done." The stylist was Peter Kozub, and he was known for styling the Simple Minds guys.

Kurt Cobain was coming into his own and I was sick of my long hair and my "singer-songwriter" status. I wanted to mosh like the guys and thrash an electric guitar. I was angsty and angry and had no money.

Then again, I have always been sad, reveled in melancholy, just like The Romantic poets. I've always been the misunderstood teenager, the invisible one, the overly sensitive one.

Still, making the decision to have my hair cut felt empowering.

It was interesting that my new image provided me with offers to perform at gay festivals. And they paid well. I was completely willing to be sexually uncertain and open, at least on the surface.

I did have the thought that if I changed the way I looked I would be a different person.

Clearly, I don't live in Scotland any more. I don't play in pubs six to seven nights a week. I don't smell like cigarettes and whisky. I'm less giddy and hyper and loud.

I'm not as skinny. Age and America change a body. And I am not as available and eager.

Trump times, Covid, California, social media. All have had an impact.

But in many ways I don't feel much different. I still love. Old movies. Music of all varieties. I'm still curious. I still want to read. I still want to talk for hours to special friends. The moon haunts me, and the sun often overwhelms me.

I keep trying. I keep making music and releasing it, and jamming with fellas mostly..

Mortality has not really hit me yet. I don't live in a world of categories or ages and I tend to shun people who do.

I have always had friends in their 20s,30s,40s,50s,60s,70s and 80s, even 90s.

I still dream of having my own speakeasy, and hosting dinner parties once a month, bringing together people at my table to talk shite into the morning.

I wonder if people who knew me 20 years ago might see me and talk about me. "She's really changed." Would they say that?

It wouldn't make me happy. In the flux of everything-- massive development, possible governmental upset-- I am perhaps kidding myself when I think I can resist changing much.

Frankly, I want to hold on to the fort. I want to be stable.

If I do change, I want it to be for the more interesting, and not to my detriment.

I feel sometimes like if I am forced to change for the worst I won't be available to do any good for anyone.

So I guess at the core of it, I am a conservative liberal? A contradiction?

I do think Emma should cut her hair. She has gorgeous cheekbones and shiny blue eyes that would pop with the right cut.

As to me? I guess you'll have to wait and see.



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