Young Is Not The Only Thing I Want To Look

Open Letter

August 26, 2018

Dear X,

Our late night conversation really stuck with me – mostly as it triggered so many different feelings in me. You were in such a lively and open mood - intoxicated for sure but I don’t think you would have said what you did if you hadn’t been. Even though it hurt at the moment, I know it came from a place of care for me, and it was ultimately extremely clarifying.

When you said, “Kathy, you have such beautiful skin…”, your tone was so earnest and caring I could see that what you were about to say was causing you genuine worry: “Kathy, you have such beautiful skin but the gray hair is making you look so much older! I don’t want you to give up – you can look so much younger without the gray hair!”

My first thought was that I must have really looked like hell, sitting there late at night under the bright lights above the table. 

“It’s ok, really,” I said, trying to reassure you that I know what I am doing, even as self-doubt crept in. But you obviously felt real angst and concern. “It should be more than ok, Kathy! Don’t give up! You can look so much younger if you don’t go gray yet.”

Your worry about my hair triggered thoughts and doubts in me: Here I am so publicly growing out my gray, announcing it to everyone with both my changing head of hair and my blog! Am I “giving up”? Am I making a huge mistake? Am I totally kidding myself? And then, if I am making a mistake, how humiliating would it be if I suddenly dyed it again?! Jesus Christ, I could just dye it again that very next day!

Over the next days, I thought about my decision to grow out my grays and it was very reinforcing to do so. This is what I came to:

It may be true that I would look “younger” if I continued to dye my hair, but looking “young” is not the only thing I want to look. I also want to look brave and bold and different. I want to look unique and interesting. I want to look sassy and confident and rebellious. I want to look authentic.

Mostly, truly, I want to look like myself.

Love,

Kathy

Fabulous Fifties

A year ago, I went to my friend, Michelle's 50th birthday party - a wonderful private dinner in a restaurant with about 60 guests, delicious food, wine, and conversation. When her birthday alert popped up on my Facebook yesterday I began to think about the year she has had, in her first year as a 50-something.

Michelle moved her business The Festive Table forward in a big way this year, launching coaching healthy eating and wellness programs, an addition to the cooking birthday parties she has offered for children for years. (https://www.thefestivetable.com/) Michelle and her husband continue to have a good thing going, her kids are interesting and independent (one was a Senate page for Dianne Feinstein, helping on the Senate floor during the first 6 months of Trump's presidency, her son is in a rock band that practices in the garage, her younger daughter is an athlete), her house is one of my very favorite homes with cozy rooms, lots of light and plenty of greenery outside. She also looks great - trim and happy. And she's crazy about her dog too! 

I texted Michelle to wish her Happy Birthday, acknowledged her amazing year, and ended with "Fabulous 50s!" "I think so!" she responded. "I had heard rumors!" followed by two tiny matching emojis of a woman in a long red dress dancing so her skirt flares and swings. Two of them for emphasis! (I remember Michelle looking fabulous at her birthday party, in a red dress!)

Shortly after our text exchange, my sister-in-law forwarded me the link to Margaret Renkl's opinion piece in yesterday's NY Times, The Gift of Menopause.

Renkl likes a good deal about menopause, as I do. I'm not crazy about becoming invisible (as I have noted in other posts) but this bit among others resonated with me: "And it’s easier now to shrug off failure. It’s easier to shrug off most other things, too: missed opportunities, the unwarranted anger of others, fear of looking like a fool. A person who is not afraid of looking like a fool gets to do a lot more dancing."

With everything going on in our individual lives and in the world, take time to dance. Dance like no one is watching, dance like there's no tomorrow, swing the skirt of that red dress!

“Good Morning!” He Said Smiling. "WTF?" I Thought.

July 2018

I was crossing a parking lot a couple months ago and felt a sensation I used to feel multiple times a day but hadn’t felt in a good long time – a man I didn’t know was looking at me. As I walked toward Peet’s Coffee I felt his gaze, and as we were about to pass I looked directly at him. “Good morning,” he said with a big smile. “Good morning!” I said, smiling back.

What the heck was that? I wondered. For several years I’ve been virtually immune to being noticed by men in the world. Men no longer approach, flirt, smile, jockey, admire, or even catcall (with the exception of the occasional down-and-outer on the street offering “Ain’t you fine!”)

The year I was turning 50 I was in an interesting conversation in the American Airlines lounge at Logan International Airport with a man about a decade younger than I, a tech guy flying to Japan. I was newly out of my marriage and carrying roses that had been sent to me by a new suitor. The stranger’s and my flights were delayed and the we began to talk. The flowers led us to talk about relationships new and old and I was cocky and candid. Through the conversation, I am sure I conveyed a belief that being single again would be just like it had been for me in my 30s. Couldn’t I, right at that moment, name at least 3 other men, aside from the flower-sender, who were interested in me? I believed at that moment (admittedly flush with the attention of a new beau) that my post-marriage life would be similar to what it had been pre-marriage; that men would clamor to woo me, that there would be a similar “parade of men” as I had dubbed it in my early 30s.

I think back on this conversation because that man was a kind of sage. He told me quite simply and directly that no matter how desirable a woman might have been in her youth that it would not be the same after 50. I literally scoffed at him; he didn’t know ME! He didn’t know how compelling I had been to my male peers since I was a tiny girl! I can remember boys fighting to be in line behind me in the 1^st grade. “She’s my girl!” Tim said, shoving Ted out of the way. (That Tim told me at our 20^th high school reunion, “I can picture you in your bright green dress on the 1^st day of 1^st grade!”)

The matter-of-fact prediction by the man in the Boston airport went so against my life experience and my sense of myself I dismissed it outright. “What a quaint prediction,” I thought.

There is an absolute power in being a beautiful woman, and if it descends on you when you are young, it becomes part of who you are. It is reinforced every day by the people around you and the world at large, and it directly informs how you see yourself, the way you move through space, the way you interact with people. These things are only partly conscious – they are utterly baked into the person you are.

And then, menopause.

For decades I thought the positive attention I got was because I was so unique and special! I can clearly see now that a big part of it was simply youth and beauty. What a powerful combo that was! I am being clear-eyed here – I recognize that I retain charisma and brightness too – but my former allure, powerfully bolstered by a youth/beauty overlay have receded. One has to recalibrate. One settles into the new (more anonymous) normal. One marvels at the knowing words of an airport stranger.

In the 7+ years since my husband and I split I have met dozens and dozens of men via online dating sites, but almost none in my day-to-day life. This is the way it is and I now accept it. (Men no longer approach, flirt, smile, jockey, admire, or even catcall.) But also, in the 7+ years since my husband and I split, my hair has been dyed.

On another recent occasion, headed to get a latte, a man sitting on a bench outside the café watched me and smiled and said hello. Another man recently held the door for me, another smiled, another started a conversation as we awaited our coffee drinks. (Getting morning coffee is apparently the new pick up scene for midlifers?!) In recent months this has happened several times – more times than it has in years. And my is hair bright white now.

So here’s what I have been wondering: Is the new silver hair so dazzling and compelling that it is drawing men to watch and speak to me, or am I exuding more confidence and charisma as I grow out my gray hair, feeling more authentic and “myself”, which is drawing men to watch and speak to me?

Whatever it is, it’s the last thing I expected.

Hair Decisions, Up and Down

With Nana in early 2001. 

In August 2006, in a dingy motel in Rockford, Illinois, I decided to dye my  hair to cover the gray. In the gray-green light of the motel bathroom, I looked wan and sad in the mirror. I was sad – my siblings and parents and I had arrived the day before for my Nana’s funeral. My mother’s family is large and all seven siblings had gathered, plus spouses and many of my cousins. At short notice there were few rooms to be had so we were stuck with the unfortunate accommodations.

My Nana, Ruby Arizona Stevens, was born on Sand Mountain, Alabama in 1916. In 1961, she turned 45 just nine days before I was born. In October 2006, two months after her death, she would have turned 90, and nine days after that I would turn 45. The sweet synchronicity of this was only then dawning on me. I was exactly half Nana’s age; only halfway through my life. My Nana had led a full life as a spirited woman, a scrappy, smart, spunky gal. “I am only halfway done,” I thought. Looking at myself in the mirror, my graying hair looked dim and dull under the neon lights. “I have plenty of years to be gray.” Right then and there I decided I would dye it.

I called my husband back in San Francisco and told him “I’m going to dye my hair!” He immediately said, “You’re going to look suburban!”

I responded: “Nadia who belly dances – dyes her hair! Theresa, next door, with all the tattoos – dyes her hair!” I was trying to explain that virtually every woman between the ages of 40-65, even the hippest women we knew, was dying her hair. (Turns out I was wrong about Nadia who dyed her hair for fun, not gray coverage in the 90s, but my misunderstanding nonetheless helped make my point.)

I used to think about elite swimmers who in certain decades had to decide for themselves whether to take performance-enhancing drugs which were against both the rules and the distinction of elite competition or not to take performance-enhancing drugs and likely lose every race. What a lousy and unfair choice I thought. Hair-dying felt that way to me too. I thought if every woman my age is dying her hair and I don’t, I will automatically look like the oldest woman in the room. That doesn’t feel fair! I didn’t want to disappear, or not “rank.” This had been an existential conundrum for me as I had always been pretty self-accepting, or at least always strove to be.

My vanity had typically taken a back seat to other pursuits. Not that I wasn’t vain, but I consciously tried to overrule it, and when I couldn’t do that then I at least tried to hide it. I didn’t want to be caught looking at myself in a store window as I walked down the sidewalk, or putting on lipstick in a women’s restroom – I wasn’t that type of woman! I was carefree and oblivious or immune to beauty standards!

There were certain grooming practices I eschewed in the name of feminism or an anti-beauty stance. When I was 18, my boyfriend, Neal – my first serious and important boyfriend – told me someone he knew bleached the hair on her legs instead of shaving and that he liked how the sun glistened on her leg hairs. I had never heard of such a thing, but the idea, and his appreciation of it appealed to me. I began to bleach my leg hairs and did so for some time.

This is the actual brand I used in 1980!!

When I arrived at my off-campus dorm room at California State University, Chico in 1984, my roommate Kristi had already set up her side of the room. A poster with three kittens under a baby blue blanket hung over her bed, a makeup mirror sat on her desk and her top desk drawer, I later found out, was full of makeup and beauty products. I unpacked my art and school supplies into my drawers and, as the leg hairs were overdue, I swung them up on the desk and was smearing bleaching cream on them when Kristi walked in with Laurie, her high school friend who would become my best friend in college. “When I first met you,” she later told me, “you were dying your leg hairs!”

In addition to getting a task done (bleaching the leg hairs) I was quite conscious of my desire to differentiate myself, especially from the hyper-feminine trappings of my new soon to be revealed roommate. I didn’t know I would be caught in the act – mid smear! - but it ultimately made a lasting impression. I admit this very pointed “I will not shave my legs” effort was posturing. Admitting this and thinking about it, my leg hair bleach and Kristi’s set of perfume bottles were similar. I suppose all beauty and anti-beauty efforts are acts of posturing; by definition to “behave in a way that is intended to impress or mislead others.”

As American women, we have more agency than most women around the world to decide the version of who we want to present to the world. But we also have to contend with media and societal pressures all around us. The problem with “choice” in a culture that projects specific beauty ideals at us 24 hours a day, is it can be difficult to discern which decisions are truly our own and which have been directly influenced by advertisers, celebrities, cultural norms, trends, and other pressures. Take the Brazilian waxing trend which removes all pubic hair and is especially common among women 30 and under. That’s an arbitrary beauty trend if ever there were one. If we’re really paying attention, it is easy to see that beauty ideals are both trends and arbitrary! The 70s and 80s were a much hairier time!

So, I flew home from Nana’s funeral and dyed my hair. At first, I left a streak of white running down the right side of my face (the same streak I let grow back as my first step of bringing back the gray) and later dyeing the whole thing. Did it have the intended consequence I wanted? Did I look younger? More beautiful? Did it shave off 10 years of age more easily than if I had become a gym frequenter? Did I “impress or mislead others”? Did I look good? Did I look like myself? Did I dye it longer than I should have? Not long enough? Did the dyed hair help me get jobs, get dates?

It’s all an experiment anyway – whether to participate in beauty regimens and to what degree, how we develop a personal style and how it evolves over time. Sometimes we go with the trends and sometimes we don’t and that’s ultimately up to each of us to decide. Which trends are you riding right now? And which ones are you bucking? Whether trendy or not, I hope your choices add up to absolutely you.

Marblehead June 2018

At 6-1/2months of growth - a shorter haircut exposes underlayers of gray in a crazy marbled effect. I was so surprised when my hairdresser turned my chair around and showed me the back! "Wow!"

    

Adventures of a Middle-Aged Woman on a College Campus or How To Create a Farcical Scene in a Natatorium

I stepped out of the shower wrapped in the large white towel I had checked out at the front desk, my wet bathing suit in hand. On automatic, I turned to the left toward the small wall-mounted machine that spins the excess water out of bathing suits. “Wait, it’s not there,” I thought, surprised, standing between the rows of showers. “Am I turned around?”

The shiny new Mashouf Wellness Center opened last August at San Francisco State University, just a few buildings away from where I work. I have been swimming a couple times a week since December, usually about 30 minutes, then taking a few minutes in the jacuzzi before showering. Returning to the locker room from the natatorium, you walk through a short, tiled hallway that jogs once and opens into a section lined by five or six shower stalls on each side. The design probably assumes people will go directly into the showers when coming from the pool, but my routine is to go to my locker to get shampoo, conditioner, and towel before showering, dripping all the way.

This day, my routine was different. After my swim, I was headed directly to get a haircut so wasn’t going to wash my hair at the gym. I skipped the jacuzzi too so my approach to the row of doors on one end of the natatorium – offices, locker rooms, all gender bathroom – was the opposite of my usual path. I opened the door to the locker room from the natatorium, followed the short hallway and went right into a shower stall. I pulled the white plastic curtain closed and took off my bathing suit. 

But now, following my shower, ready to go get dressed, I was confused that the bathing suit spinner was not where it normally was. I stood there for 30 seconds looking up and down the room trying to make sense of its displacement without the obvious explanation occurring to me.

It was there I was standing when a young man coming from the pool rounded the corner into the shower section where I stood. He froze when he saw me, and I froze too.

“Am I in the wrong one, or are you?” I asked, wide-eyed and almost shouting. Not responding, the young man turned and ran back toward the door to the natatorium and I took off running after him, towel around me, wagging my dripping bathing suit as I went. I burst back through the door onto the pool deck, where the student, reassured by the signs on the doors, said simply “this is the men’s”, and went back in.

OH MY GOD.

What if I had initially just walked all the way into the locker room as I normally did – and it was the men’s room? What if I had been naked in the shower and heard male voices outside – how would I have gracefully gotten out of there? What if I had stepped out of the shower to find a young man with a towel around his waist – or less?! Each was such a funny and crazy scenario.

I scurried into the women’s locker room and exclaimed to two young women chatting as they dressed, “I just took a shower in the men’s room!” They smiled politely, looking at me with the impatient look of young people wondering why a towel-clad stranger is suddenly speaking to them. It was not a satisfactory interaction.

Still, laughing about the absurdity of my error (and the future comic possibilities of both relating and acting the story out later on), I wondered if the lifeguards sitting across the room had witnessed the farcical tableau. A young Chinese man walks into the men’s locker room and moments later bursts back through the door into the natatorium, followed by a middle aged Caucasian woman in a towel, wet hair slicked to her head, a limp bathing suit flapping in one hand. They pause briefly together before he steps back into the men’s room and she prances quickly on bare feet disappearing into the women’s room. “Did you see that?” one asks the other. “Yes,” the other responds, and they turn their eyes back to the handful of lap swimmers in the pool. Or maybe now when I go to swim, one lifeguard elbows the other and nods knowingly in my direction. 

More likely I am the only one who took particular note of the adventure. Well, me and the young man. I hope he too has related it and acted it out for laughs!

Silver and Gold!

Sitting in the sun the other day, my friend Lisa exclaimed, “your hair is silver and gold!” This photo, taken a few days later, is just shy of the six-month mark of growing it out.

May 2018

Someone recently told me I had to look up the Instagram account Grombre. An “ombré” is two-toned hair color and if half of it is gray it’s a grombre! Check out the glorious sisterhood of women letting the gray come in! https://www.instagram.com/grombre