PORTLAND, Maine — The ladies who sit in Lisa Macleod's chair are not just fans of her work, they appreciate her. Whether they come once a week or once every few months there's a bond; which means an awful lot in a place like this. "Everybody gets a little older every day," jokes Lisa, even about herself.
The Cedars is a retirement community and nursing home.
Lisa gets help on some days from volunteers like Katie Freilinger, who gets the clients to and from their rooms, and offers hand massages while they wait.
"It’s hard because you had so much independence and now you have to depend on everyone for everything," says Katie. "A lot of them don’t have a lot of visitors and they don’t have a lot of contact."
Like any good stylist Lisa gets to know her clients, figuring out what they want. Sometimes she takes inspiration from an old photo in their room, but mostly that inspiration comes from conversation.
"I think most people come in and they just wanna look good. Whatever it is that they feel like it will make them look like they’re clean and dignified. It really is giving people their dignity back when we work with them," says Lisa.
Diane Lombard, a resident at The Cedars, calls her thirty minutes in the chair an "uplift." "Yes it does such a nice job, makes you feel so good," she says. "What can be greater than a lady having her hair done? You start at the top and you work down."
Lisa was hesitant to take the job 11 years ago; wondering if she could really work with just one specific age group; and some days it is a difficult workplace to walk into. Lisa has seen plenty of clients come and go in her time here.
"The first six months that I worked here I was asked to do a gal's hair in her rehab unit. I said I didn’t have anything for a few days and they said, 'Oh well she won’t be here then.' I said, 'Is she being discharged?' And they said, 'No she’s actively dying. Her family doesn’t care what her hair looks like they just want her to be comfortable.' It was the middle of summer and it was 90° in her room upstairs and she was lying in bed kind of thrashing about. So we lowered the bed to the floor and I was on my knees and I did what I could to cut her hair, I crawled into the bed next to her and just doing what I could to the other side. And I came downstairs bawling my eyes out and somebody said, 'It's so nice that you did that,' and I said, 'Never 33 years ago did I think I’d be doing that for someone.' But it really meant a lot to know that I could somehow ease her comfort in her passing."
Three decades of cutting, coloring, and styling; but the last 11 years at The Cedars Salon, have been the most fun and the most rewarding.
"It’s not the aesthetics; it’s not some 30-year-old saying, 'I wish you could fix this.' If you think if that’s the worst thing that can happen to you in your life, that’s pretty darn good. These people got a lot worse going on and no matter how bad your day is you look around and you always feel better about your own life and what you’re doing, and if you can help somebody feel better it means so much to them."