the calm

hello. yesterday, i read a short story by Raymond Carver entitled The Calm. it is set in a small barber shop, and most of the story is about the main character watching a conversation between his barber and 3 other men. near the end, the barber breaks up an argument, and all 3 end up walking out of the shop, leaving just the man in the chair and him. this is the final scene:

THE barber turned me in the chair to face the mirror. He put a hand on either side of my head. He positioned me a last time, and then he brought his head down next to mine. 

We looked in the mirror together, his hands still framing my head.

I was looking at myself, and he was looking at me too. But if the barber saw something, he didn't offer comment. 

He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it slowly, as if thinking about something else. He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it tenderly, as a lover would.

That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.

love, loss, memory. these things are so powerful, to the point where feeling them, even if they hurt and cripple, is better than not feeling anything, at all.