It's time for me to let my gray (silver?) hair grow out, I decided last November. My hair stylist, Troy of Troy Michael Salons in Sebastopol, CA, has been helping me "transition" since then, letting my gray/silver emerge while the brown/blonde recedes. At my last appointment, he cut off most of the still-colored hair, revealing me as a 65-year-old, mostly gray/silver-haired woman. (Thank you, Dan Goldes, for the photos.)
I'd wondered for years what color my hair would be if I stopped coloring it. Shimmering silver?All gray? Salt and pepper? Old looking?When I wondered aloud to Robert, he examined my roots with an artist's eye and said, "I don't think you'd like it -- you'd look ten years older." He wouldn't mind the ten-years-older part, but he was sure I would, being in the public eye and representing zesty sexuality after sixty.
Then after Robert died, everything that mattered before no longer mattered. As I grieved, I found myself re-evaluating every decision, big and little, from whether I could say no to writing deadlines for a year (yes, I could) to whether I should continue coloring my hair.
Bottom line: we don't have the option to stay young. We can either get old, or we can die first. I wish Robert had been able to get old rather than die at 71. That brought it home for me that we only have these two options, which make looking younger than I am seem sort of silly. The point is that we can grow old with vigor, pride, and sensuality -- we don't have to pretend to be young.
I've always valued authenticity. My hair isn't brown with blonde highlights. It's ... I don't know yet, some combination of gray and brown, or maybe all gray. I always insist on telling the truth, so shouldn't I be showing the truth, too? I see women who look beautiful and radiant in their sixties, seventies, eighties, with snow white hair, or silver streaked, or any combination of their natural colors.
You could argue that authenticity doesn't hinge on hair color, any more than it hinges on whether we wear "shaper" bras or let our sagginess show, or whether we bother to get dressed or wear pajamas to the supermarket if we feel like it. We do put effort into looking good because it reveals how we feel about ourselves as well as how we want the public to see us.
And, truth be told, I don't feel brown-haired-with-blonde-highlights any more. I'm looking forward to shining silver.
August 2009 update: Here's my hair now:
Speaking of gray hair, see my review of Going Gray by Anne Kreamer. It's an interesting read if you're wondering what to do (or not do) about your hair color, looking at the social, psychological, aesthetic, even political implications.
I find it fascinating that the original, hardcover edition of Going Gray was subtitled, "What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters," and the paperback reprint edition is subtitled, "How to Embrace Your Authentic Self with Grace and Style." I prefer the first subtitle. Which do you prefer?
