I love unexpected inspiration. Especially when that inspiration happens on the second leg of a overnight journey to an international destination with a three-year old in tow. Oh, yes.
My trusty sidekick Wyatt (said three-year old) and I are in Germany visiting friends for a week or so. We're using the opportunity to drink crazy strong European coffee -- fizzy fruity drinks for the little man -- pet an array of abnormally friendly Deutsche dogs and check out the squeaky clean shaven faces of the extremely well coifed locals.
I guess they didn't read Andrew Dicken's super funny, totally spot-on essay on the rebirth of the beard. Tucked in ShortList -- a magazine new to me -- Dicken's piece was my in-flight entertainment/inspiration from London to Dusseldorf. Part social history of the beard, "... until a few years ago, a beard would've marked [a man] as a fringe member of Western society, such as a hippy, communist or gnome," and part personal essay, "Since well before puberty, it's been my ambition to grow a beard. A proper beard, that is. Not a David Brent-esque goatee or something that looks like I've missed a bit of shaving but a Galifianakis, a Blessed. I'd even settle for a Gyllenhaal. But nature has denied me," Dicken's chunk of writing is honest and funny and makes you want to grow a fluffy expanse of facial hair -- even if you can't.
"My beard angst is not simply that I want to grow a beard, it's that I can't. At least, not a really manly one that tells people I've lived. I'm in my mid-30s, I've done stuff, I've earned a beard."
You're kinda my new hero, Andrew Dickens.
- Marisa
