To Grey or Not To Grey

...That is the question

For several years I have been wrestling with the idea to let my hair go grey.

My hairdresser tried to discourage me. “You’ll look like an old lady,” he told me. “Don’t do it.”

I doubted his sincerity, since he stood to lose the $50, plus tip, that I paid every six weeks to color my hair. As my roots began to grow in, he made me feel worse about my decision.

“Whenever you’re ready, we can put a rinse through this,” he said one day while bunching my hair in his fist and letting it fall into a mess around my head. I found a new hairdresser.

My friends and co-workers’ opinions were mixed. I distrusted the ones who said, “Yes! Let your hair go grey.” They just wanted someone to look older than they did. I didn’t listen to the ones who said, “No! Continue to color your hair.” They must be insecure with their own identity, I reasoned; I was not.

My husband never considered the Grecian Urn when his hair started turning grey. He laughed when I suggested he color his hair to hide his age when he was looking for employment several years ago. When I asked him why I had to continue to color my hair and he didn’t, he answered, “I’m a man. Grey hair looks distinguished on a man. Grey hair on a woman looks old.”

Deciding to let your hair go its natural route is a tough one. It requires you to be self confident and impervious to the comments and opinions of others. On a good hair day, I strut my stuff and let my hair blow in the wind. I’m proud of my grey roots and what they reveal about me: confidence, assertiveness, intelligence. Grey roots tell the world that there is more to me than meets the eye. I have ripened and mellowed with the passing of time - like a mature smooth wine. On a bad hair day, I wear a hat, look down, count the cracks in the sidewalk and avoid mirrors.

It has been two years since I made that decision to stop the coloring process and my hair is much thicker and healthier for it. Men are also holding doors open for me again. That hasn’t happened since I was 19 years old and wearing a size 5. Department store sales staff are once again asking me, “Can I help you?” Absolute strangers smile at me and have even stooped to pick up something I’ve dropped. People behind the counters of delis and coffee shops are speaking louder and slower to me than to the younger people on line. One of these courtesies by themselves would be a nice gesture, but several of them in one day makes me a little suspicious. Can it be the salt and pepper in my hair or has the world become a friendlier place?

My resolve has become a little shakier these days after two recent incidents. The first one happened several months ago while shopping with my 81 year old mother whose hair is completely white. A sales clerk referred to us as friends. My mother was flattered. I feigned a weak smile and admitted that, yes, my mother is also my friend. We all laughed at the misunderstanding, but later that night I stood in front of the mirror for a long time questioning my decision to let my hair go au naturel.

The other incident happened the other day in the grocery store while I was helping my 83 year old father look for his brand of coffee on the grocery shelf. Another shopper was standing nearby when I told my father to try another brand because his brand wasn’t there. As I was packing my dad’s groceries, someone tapped my shoulder and said, “I wanted to tell your husband that I found the coffee he likes; they just changed the label. It’s back there on the shelf.”

That night, I called my mother and asked, “Should I go back to coloring my hair?”

“Yes!” she answered, “Why don’t you? You’re too young to be grey.”

Later that same night I asked my 21 year old son the same question. He answered, “No way, mom! Your hair looks great; much better than that fake dye. Your face looks younger, more natural… you look…distinguished.”

Now, I’ve never listened to advice given to me by anyone younger than 35, but in this case I would have to make an exception. After all, the kid was so honest. If I doubted his honesty for one minute, I was reassured by his next comment.

“No offense, mom, but what you should do is lose weight.”

Who asked him?

Women In The Kitchen

There was a time when women spent most of their time in the kitchen. Cooking took longer without all the fancy gadgets we have today. When I was growing up in the 1950’s, my mother mashed garlic, sliced potatoes and diced onions with the same knife. In fact, I don’t recall any other utensil being used to prepare dinner. She did not own a set of measuring spoons or cups. I watched her use her eyes and her hands to measure a little of this and some of that. She cooked with a secret sense and was always able to stretch the pot to accommodate an unexpected guest or two.

“I’ll just add some more water and throw in a little more pasta,” was her mantra.

I spent a lot of time in my mother’s kitchen learning to cook by watching her prepare food for company, helping her slice vegetables, stirring the pots, smelling the steam and adding more seasoning when needed. But the times I enjoyed the most were after the meal when all the women would retreat to the kitchen to wash the dishes, leaving the men to talk about worldly matters and smoke their cigars on the porch.

I would help out drying the dishes just so I could listen as my aunts told their intimate stories of love and marriage. Half the time I couldn’t understand them when they started talking Italian, but I knew whatever they were saying was risqué because their bawdy laughter would rock the dishes in the drain board and my mother would steal a quick blushing glance my way as she covered her mouth in laughter. Sometimes I would catch one of my aunt’s dabbing her eyes with a dishtowel while the others gathered around her in a show of strength.

As an adult, I know now what those women were talking and laughing about. They are the age old tales that any woman can share from any era: they are the stories of love and marriage and women and men and the incompatibility between the sexes. Sometimes there are tears shed over the sink with the admission of infertility or the confession of an unwanted pregnancy. Sometimes we brag about our children, and sometimes we console someone whose child went astray. It would take a man several years of visits to a professional therapist to open up like women do with each other while drying the plates and scrubbing the pots.

Sometimes a curious man will wander into the kitchen to see what all the chatter and laughter is about, but he is quickly booted out by a swarm of women wielding wet dish towels, protecting their domain - and their secrets - from intruders.

Happiness Karma

If you bang someone on the head long enough with a hammer, they are very happy when you stop.

I was so happy after the birth of my first child because, finally, the hammer had stopped. “I’m so happy this is over,” is the first thing I said. But my husband only heard the first part of the sentence – the “I’m so happy” part because my parched cracked lips had stuck together and couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out coherently.

When my son was awarded a scholarship to attend the college of his choice he was happy and I was happier. It meant the noose around my neck had loosened and I only had to take out the 20 year loan; I could cancel the application to remortgage the house.

The more I think about what makes me happy, the more I realize that happiness is just the opposite of what makes me miserable. Happiness and misery, black and white, yin and yang: one must follow the other in life to one degree or another.

You lose your job; you’re miserable. You find a job; you’re happy.
You get sick; you’re miserable. You get well; you’re happy.
Your boss treats you badly; you’re miserable. You learn the IRS is after him for tax evasion; you’re happy.

When I think back, it seems that my wonderful simple childhood happiness ended when I was about seven years old, at the “age of reason,” when I became aware that life just isn’t fair. The kind of happiness I had as a child would never exist again as an adult. I wasn’t always going to wake up happy, be happy all day, and go to bed happy.

Happiness is like the sunset. On the most beautiful magnificent summer day, no matter how long you keep your eye on the setting sun, thinking if you can just hold the sun in your view, you can hold on to a few more seconds in the day, it disappears. And so it is with happiness; it doesn’t last. But there is comfort in this, for as happiness does not last, neither does the misery that follows, and without the misery, the happiness would not exist. For when misery leaves, happiness takes its place. Remember the hammer?

My mother is such a believer in this balance of happiness to misery that she will try to stop herself from laughing too much in one single day. Why? “Because if I laugh too much today, I’ll cry tomorrow,” she tells me.

So as I get older I try and fool fate and find happiness in small things: an hour a day for quietly reading or quilting, a cup of hot coffee on a cold winter’s day, a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day.

I’m not asking for much. Something small, like being able to zip up my pants all the way and still being able to sit and breathe comfortably throughout the day would make me happy. Finding something on the sale rack that isn’t ripped, stained, purple striped or too tight would make me very happy. And if just once Macy’s would take one of their own 20% off coupons without giving me a song and dance about why that coupon doesn’t apply to my purchase, I would be very, very happy. In fact, I would draw the line for happiness on that day - the equivalent of my mother’s “don’t make me laugh too much” adage.

I want the Gods to see that I want only small happiness, so when the sun sets on my happy day, they will consider the balance of yin and yang and bestow on me only some small misery like a stubbed toe or a flat tire. They’ll give the big misery to someone else, someone with too much happiness. When it comes to happiness, I hope I’ll get my fair share of misery, balanced with my meager little happiness - and not an ounce more!