Hair

OK, so I had come just THIS close (imagine my thumb and pointer finger poised a millimeter away from each other) from writing farewell, friends and family. A blog suicide, of course, not a real one! It not so much that I had nothing more to write about--although living in Illinois v. Switzerland does remove some of the novelty, doesn't it?--but that there were just too many things that merited comment. How to choose? Current events (aka the primaries and Obama), writing, etc. I felt paralyzed. And when it came to current events, by the time I got around to commenting about something, it was already old news.

But then I finished reading a book titled What I learned about beauty, sex, work, motherhood, going gray, authenticity, and everything else the really matters, by Anne Kreamer. Purchased, dear reader, because I have been considering throwing off the shackles of coloring my hair monthly and going natural (aka gray). And now I think I might have one or two more thoughts to contribute before putting this blog to rest.

The good news is that going gray does not, in general, signal your eminent demise. Unless you live in L.A., unless you are Jamie Lee Curtis, role mode extraordinaire (more about that later) or hold an upper-level managerial post that values, um, experience. Academics and creative types, unless we are trying to sell to Hollywood, are just fine. And as a science writer, I kind of consider myself to straddle both of those fields.

So what bothered me about this book, which is supposed to empower women considering going gray? It's the fact that when she talks about gray-haired women whose look she admires, they are nearly always "slim," or "well-dressed," but usually both.

Well, I'd love to drop about 25 pounds, and I struggle to get dressed when the occasion doesn't call for jeans and a t-shirt. So I have a problem with Kreamer's thesis that gray hair can be awesome if you are slim dress fashionably. But I think I'm pretty fit, even though I can't help but see my mother every time I look in the mirror. So am I doomed to dowdiness?

Still, I think that I am ready to go ahead with this. When I was in Geneva, I noticed a lot of older--well, very old--women who obviously colored their hair. These 85 year old ladies would have chestnut-red hair in their coffins. At some point, sooner rather than later, I decided I would rather just go natural. Cutting my hair short was the first step. I thought it would be easier to transition to gray that way. But eventually I may very well go back to long(ish), because I like that.

So, at least for now, the blog lives. But for long? I don't know. But you've been warned, and I'll keeping checking in on your blogs.