White Hair

And Bald Spots

When I met her fifty-one years ago, her hair was long and black with chestnut highlights. She started getting white streaks, Susan Sontag-style but more interestingly dispersed, in her thirties, and by her forties she was almost entirely white. In her sixties she began adding grey highlights to her hair, because, she said, she was really starting to feel invisible, kicked to the curb by ageism. I nevertheless objected as strongly as a cuckolded lover.

Finally she left her hair alone, and it became radiantly white, platinum white, so I can locate her in any crowd and thrill to the sight.

Women who let their hair go grey or white before they are ancient come across to me as happy, wise, self-confident, and elegantly hippy-ish. Neighborhoods that have a lot of white-haired women come across as reliably liberal, even liberationist. I have absolutely no statistics to back any of this up, of course, but I’d bet my bald spot on it.

What’s that, my bald spot? Yes, I became aware of it about thirty years ago, when a friend showed me a photograph of me from the back. It’s quite a significant bald spot — more than a spot, in fact, more like the size of a small yarmulke — and knowing of its existence has crushed my vanity. It’s extremely fortunate for my fragile self-esteem that I can’t see the back of my head in the mirror, even if I spin around fast. Yes, I know how to do the double-mirror trick, but why would I do that? The front of me in the mirror is disappointing enough these days.

(As I once wrote for ALTE: It’s odd, isn’t it, how others see us as we are, while we only see ourselves in mirror image?)

Some men with significant bald spots shave their heads entirely. This is analogous, for me, to women dyeing their hair, insofar as it implies some element of insecurity — about aging, about bodies, about how other people, and the general society, perceive us. But as the late pope said, Who am I to judge — I with all of my insecurities about aging, about bodies, about how other people perceive me?

Who the hell isn’t insecure?

Still — just to shove my foot further into my mouth — the problem is that dyed hair often looks out of synch with the face, while shaved heads, especially on the muscular men who favor the style, make them look like walking penises. It’s a look I could never adopt — much as I have enjoyed making art about penises.

In short, I vote for shades of grey and white and ever-expanding bald spots.

May I take my foot out of my mouth now?