I am reading Father Struck It Rich, the autobiography of Evalyn Walsh McLean, wife of Edward (Ned) Beale McLean, once the owner of the Washington Post. The McLeans were also the last owners of the Hope Diamond and their story promises to be wild and wooly for many reasons. Evalyn’s own words in the first chapter are “I Tell My Right Age”, done by stating her birth year – 1886, which, when the book was published in 1937, would have made her 51.

Evalyn begins that paragraph by describing her reaction to dying her dark brunette hair when the first white streaks of age began to show up. She called all her friends and announced she was becoming a blonde. Hair dye was very different in the 1930s. Attempting to fool time could produce results that might be frighteningly worse than the natural head of graying hair.

Not so now. Over the counter hair dye is more nuanced, easier and way better smelling than it used to be. The competition among brands means, like everything else in the modern world, the choices are overwhelming, but if you can’t find the color of your dreams in the hair products aisle of Walmart you just aren’t ready to take the plunge.

A woman could literally keep it up forever, though the packages explicitly say that after a certain point it won’t work anymore. Unless you have the means for monthly professional work, that’s the point where a long, public facing of reality begins, often starting with the “pixie”, a too precious term for the shearing that makes a woman look as if she just deserted from the military.

It’s called “transition”, but what are we transitioning? Is it our hair color or the loss of our protective shield. It’s really more of a blazing advertisement, a glaring bumper sticker, a complete exposure of all our past pretense being stripped away while boldly we step into the world, roots glistening, and declare “Yes, I really am this old.”

The emotional roller coaster associated with gray hair is getting a little good press just lately. There is some advocacy for making gray hair a fashion statement. One of the strongest lobbies for going gray comes from the Going Gray Looking Great website . Here one can get support while enduring the fearful “transition” and receive affirmation that we aren’t resigning ourselves to decrepitude. Rather we are exercising an option, making a choice and once again, challenging the system. These are the same strong woman words we have relied on for years.

There are many ways to exhibit youth and vitality – great health, strength, brains, rock and roll, and strong life spirit are only a few. For so long we’ve worn our rock and roll on our heads because our hair, as well as our skin, gravity, eyesight and teeth didn’t listen to the same song.

These are times when women are finally able to be active in so many important ways in many different places with many different people. Hand in hand with that accomplishment goes the self-consciousness of second-guessing the impression we will make.

Nancy Pelosi, wrangling a Congress primarily made up of men, has certainly not faced “transition.” Hillary Clinton sometimes looks as if hair is the least of her concerns, so she may cross over soon. And little old me?  I am going back to university – the domain of youth.

There can be ageism and separation from culture in the going-back-to-school world of a mature adult. An instructor said to me once, in a graduate directing class, as I was moving furniture to set up a scene, “Don’t move that stuff; we have all these kids here to do it.” I know his intention was good, but I’m strong, I lift weights and it would never occur to me that I couldn’t move the furniture.

It was announced out loud, which further set me apart in the class. And, by the way, my hair was fully dyed then. This means hair color isn’t the armor against prejudice that we thought it was, right?

I have not served the master of L’Oreal for four months. So there. I’ve said it. I live in a new place where virtually no one knows me. I take this as a retreat of sorts – hair detox, so to speak. And I refuse to get a military pixie cut.

Time is passing and classes will begin. I will be faced with the ultimate dilemma: To Blend or Not To Blend. Right now I look like a calico cat. There is a lot of white, some gray, some dyed, some real, some not real. Mee-ow.

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