I was probably about 12 years old the first time I used an iron on my hair.
And no, I don’t mean a straightening iron; I’m talking about an actual clothing iron. This was the early aughts, and sleek hair—typified by Christina Aguilera’s long, flattened locks and Hilary Duff’s glossy, face-framing layers—reigned. With our meager weekly allowance, my younger sister and I, proud owners of thick (and in my case, curly and frizzy) Ashkenazi hair, couldn’t afford the pricey professional tools needed to achieve the look. But thanks to lunchroom gossip, we’d discovered that we could achieve a knocked-off version at home, armed with only a towel and a clothing iron. One of us would lie down, and the other, brushing the hair up and away from the head, would drag the cumbersome household appliance over it. If it was kept on any one spot for too long, you’d begin to smell the sweet, slightly charred odor of your own hair burning.
That was almost 20 years ago, and since then, I’ve maintained nearly the same slavish commitment to sporting manicured, if not pin-straight, hair. Developed in the ninth grade, before I was gifted a Dyson blowdryer, my weekly routine demanded a four- to five-hour block of time. I’d shower and towel-dry my hair, and then, separating it into six sections, painstakingly blow dry it. Afterward, I’d repeat the process with a straightening iron. At the end, I’d have a glossy mane to show for my efforts—ostensibly the perfect final flourish for any outfit.
I’m not sure why I’ve clung to this sadistic practice—probably equal parts insecurity and vanity. (It would surprise no one to hear the insults teenage boys have lobbed at me.) It’s caused me to miss out on countless experiences which, while not priceless, mark the cadence of a fun, regular life: going to college parties, say, or accepting a friend’s last-minute lunch invitation. But above all, it has negotiated the way I engage with the world—including how I travel through it.
My parents love the water, and every summer, my dyed-in-the-wool New Jersey family would go down the shore for a week, to a small town called Stone Harbor. While everyone else soaked up the sun and splashed in the waves, I’d instead hit the town bookstore and retreat to our air-conditioned condo, reluctant to sweat out my hairdo, or worse, to jump in the ocean and ruin it completely.
“You gonna stay here?” my dad would ask me each day, as he and my mom and sister readied their beach bags.
“Yup, I’m good,” I’d respond. “See ya later.”
It made sense. At home, I refused to go out in the rain, or drive with the windows down, or hit the steam room. So terrified was I by the prospect of destroying my hairdo in Stone Harbor that, on balmy nights, I’d walk around town in a sweatshirt, slurping up ice cream with my locks tucked firmly under the hood. Who I thought I’d run into, I don’t know.
When my dad died in May 2017, just before the beginning of beach season, I was leveled. Grief always finds a way to surface your deepest regrets: Why could I not give up the need for perfection? Why could I not go in the water? How many days had I missed—not only with him, but with the wider world? I couldn’t fathom the extent of the coulda, woulda, shouldas.
Later that year, I took a work trip to Switzerland, making stops in the Cantons of Neuchâtel, Lausanne, and Zürich. In the first of those, we stayed at Hôtel Palafitte, a cluster of bungalows fanned out over Lake Neuchâtel which, in addition to being exceedingly beautiful, owned at that time the distinction of being the only hotel in Europe built on stilts.
The first morning, I awoke in the dark. With the press of a button, I raised the blinds, and the blue expanse of the lake, an enormous sapphire glinting in the sunlight, appeared before me. I strode out onto my deck, and for a minute, contemplated going in. But then my hair brain, a vain devil crouched on my shoulder, interceded: “You don’t have any of your tools here—you’ll look like shit,” it said. “Don’t do it.”
So I didn’t. I got up, brushed my teeth, had breakfast, and answered emails. My travel companions and I spent the day adjusting to the time difference, strolling around the hotel grounds, all the while the lake beckoning in the background.
At around 3 p.m., the sun was high in the sky. Beads of sweat pooled around my neck as I read on my deck. Then, out of nowhere, a voice:
“Betsy, come in!”
I put down my book and searched around for it. There, bobbing below me, was Gillian, an erstwhile editor and DJ who had several years earlier decamped from the West Village to Berlin. She was a vegan (but could stomach the cheese in Switzerland), and had a particular affinity for Soviet-era architecture. She was uncontained, impetuous, adventurous, eager to please herself. In the words of Thoreau, she wanted to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
At warp speed, I began to consider all of the things I’d missed out on by trying to preserve this groomed idyll of myself. I saw my dad, playing tennis in the summer sun, sweating through early-morning bike rides, lounging by the town pool, and diving into the ocean.
I couldn’t resist anymore.
I threw on my swimsuit and rushed towards the deck, the mountains encircling the lake like a hug. Slowly, I made my way down the ladder, every few seconds stopping to glance behind me. The small waves, cold and gentle, lapped my ankles, then my calves, then my thighs.
“You just have to jump!” Gillian cried.
So I did.
That was nearly six years ago. These days, there’s no body of water I won’t willingly hurl myself into and no oil-slicked spa treatment I won’t happily receive. I’ve toured Madrid on foot in the rain; had one of the most divine scalp massages of my life in Paris; swam laps in the pool of an Italian villa during my honeymoon. Last week, I took a speedboat across the Sea of Galilee in Israel, and propelled myself into the water, doggy-paddling towards one of its little waterfalls.
There is no prize in perfection, I’ve come to realize. There’s only losing out. Having conquered my need for perennial polish, my next travel grail is to be more adventurous, more involved. I want to rock climb and rappel off of cliffs, and take cooking classes that refine my chopping skills. I’ll just have to cut my nails first.