The Salon Chair

When we can be our true selves in the mirror of friendship, we can discover more of who we really are. Karen Hearn guides us forward.

Elisa

The Salon Chair

By Karen Hearn

I’ve been sitting in Joy’s hair salon chair for more than 3 decades. I have followed her through at least three different salons and sat in her swivel chair for hours on end. If I do the math, I’ve sat in her chair at least 260 times, which comes out to roughly 550 hours. That’s nearly thirty full 24-hour days of my life spent sitting in that exact same spot.

That’s a lot of life lived in a single chair.

Joy isn't just a hairdresser. As her business card proudly states, she is a “Master Stylist.” But over thirty years, she’s become so much more than that. She’s become like a sister. She is the friend who gets ridiculous memes sent to her at 11:00 p.m., an unlicensed therapist who keeps my secrets safe, and the only person in the world I trust near my ears with sharp scissors.

When I think about the years spent in that chair, the first thing that comes to mind is laughter. We both have a healthy sarcastic streak and view the world through a very similar lens. We laugh at life and we laugh at ourselves. Mostly though, we laugh at each other.

Sitting in a salon swivel chair is an exercise in absolute vulnerability. In what other setting do you willingly give up control, sit beneath unforgiving overhead lights, and wear a giant black cape that makes you look less like a human and more like a land-dwelling sea otter?

Because of that complete lack of pretense, the salon chair becomes an unofficial sanctuary. It’s where you go when you need to vent, celebrate, cry, or just spin around and get a sanity check. Over thirty years, that chair has seen every single version of me, with different hairstyles marking different decades, gray hairs making their uninvited debut, kids growing up, career pivots, medical issues, and all the quiet shifts of getting older. Joy has heard the funny stories, the neighborhood gossip, the deep worries, and the big dreams. She knows every secret hidden behind my roots.

Joy is also the ultimate problem-solver. It was over a year ago when I found myself in her chair, holding my phone as my husband delivered some scary news. In that moment, I was frozen. I stared straight ahead into the mirror, feeling the room spin and the weight of the news settle into my chest.

In a mirror, panic always looks magnified. But as I sat there, paralyzed by the reflection staring back at me, I saw Joy’s reflection move right into the frame. She didn't just spin my chair; she pivoted my whole mindset. Before my appointment was even over, she had already mapped out Plans A, B, C, and D to help me figure it all out.

That’s what a true friend to the person in that chair does: when you’re staring in the mirror feeling overwhelmed, they stand right behind you, catch your eye, and remind you that you’re going to be just fine.

And then, of course, there are the self-inflicted emergencies where her problem-solving skills were put to the ultimate test.

Like the time I decided to save a few bucks and highlight my own hair with a box dye at another friend’s house, who helped me put in the color and pull strands of hair through that awful, tight plastic cap using a little metal hook. The instructions said to leave it on for thirty minutes, which happened to be the exact length of my drive home. It would have been a flawless plan if nighttime road construction hadn't brought traffic to a complete, dead standstill.

There I sat in gridlock, watching the clock tick past 30 minutes... then 45... then an hour. The dye was cooking on my scalp. I looked over at the pickup truck idling right next to me and saw a guy staring at me in sheer, unadulterated bewilderment. There I was, sitting behind the wheel in a tight plastic bonnet with little tufts of white-creamed hair poking out everywhere, looking like a hedgehog dipped in shaving cream. He stared. I gripped the steering wheel and tried to look dignified. Pro tip: There is zero chance of looking dignified while trapped in traffic in a plastic dye cap.

When I finally pulled into my driveway, I sprinted upstairs and washed it out. I looked in the bathroom mirror, and my hair was a glowing, terrifying shade of high-visibility nuclear yellow. I could have directed nighttime traffic with my head. Naturally, I panicked and called Joy. The next day I ended up back in her chair, where she spun me around to face the mirror, shook her head, and worked her magic to fix my disaster. I have never again tried to save a dollar on box dye.

Looking back on those 550 hours, I see that a swivel chair can teach us all a profound lesson about life.

In a world that constantly tells us to filter our images, hide our weaknesses, and mask our aging, that chair teaches us self-acceptance. It shows us that the mirror isn't something to fear or avoid. Life isn't about hiding from our reflection or pretending the mess isn't there; it’s about having the right person standing behind you in the mirror, helping you laugh at the absurdity, fix the mistakes, and see yourself with grace.

Karen Hearn is a storyteller, former music educator, and flight attendant for a major airline whose work explores the unexpected places where human connection, humor, grace, and meaning emerge. Her life has taken her from a small town in northern New Mexico to the villages of Africa, the stage of Carnegie Hall, a performance for Queen Elizabeth II, and the jumpseat of a commercial airliner. Along the way, she has taught music, raised a family, traveled widely, navigated profound loss and career reinvention, and spent years listening to the stories people carry. She shares her insights with a growing readership on Instagram @karenkwrites. She has hosted and co-hosted two podcasts, Extraordinary Moments From an Ordinary Life, and Sixty and Sassy: Laughing Through the Generations. She lives in Colorado with her husband of more than three decades and is the mother of two grown daughters.