It was supposed to be our secret. My hairdresser claimed to possess a special elixir that could subtly, naturally, almost undetectably “blend away” gray hair, which, at 45, I had a touch of.
Sitting before a mirror in her chair, uncertain whether to start the masquerade, I examined my head in a way I shied away from when I was alone at home, without support. I looked at myself from angles I wasn’t used to, discovering that the gray was more extensive than I’d been willing to admit.
Instead of threading its way between the darker hairs, it had consumed whole sectors of my head, especially on the sides and in the back. It was advancing the way frost does, or like mold.
“I suggest we leave some in,” my hairdresser said. “Just enough to make you look distinguished.” I nodded, but the word did not sit well with me. It sounded exactly like what it was: another way of saying “old.”
Color of the Seasons
This conversation, or some version of it, was repeated every month for seven years. The world moved along, the seasons changed, but my hair stayed the same, or approximately the same.
Toward the end of each color cycle, my natural color — or lack of it — would reassert itself, a bit more conspicuously each time, forcing me deeper and deeper into fraudulence.
My girlfriend during this period, now my wife, began to argue (mildly at first but increasingly emphatically) that gray hair looked terrific on men my age. For evidence, she pointed to various luminaries who looked terrific no matter what. George Clooney. Bill Clinton. The journalist Anderson Cooper.
They were the silver all-stars, and I hated them. I hated them not for their age-defying male beauty but for their ability to accept themselves.
In Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Mask,” a rakish man about town who loves the night life collapses at a dance. While attempting to revive him, a doctor notices that he is wearing a lifelike, youthful mask. The doctor cuts it off with scissors, revealing the man’s white hair and wrinkled face.
I’d read this story when I was young myself, along with other similar tales of postponed decrepitude such as “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Their gloomy, common message seemed to be that when it comes to signs of aging, you can run but not hide — and that the longer you attempt to run, the worse the final reckoning will be.
My hairdresser seemed to disagree: Her faith in modern products was that strong. And so was mine, until six months ago, when my hairdresser tried a stronger potion, convinced that the old one would no longer suffice.
Sitting before a mirror in her chair, uncertain whether to start the masquerade, I examined my head in a way I shied away from when I was alone at home, without support. I looked at myself from angles I wasn’t used to, discovering that the gray was more extensive than I’d been willing to admit.Instead of threading its way between the darker hairs, it had consumed whole sectors of my head, especially on the sides and in the back. It was advancing the way frost does, or like mold.
“I suggest we leave some in,” my hairdresser said. “Just enough to make you look distinguished.” I nodded, but the word did not sit well with me. It sounded exactly like what it was: another way of saying “old.”
Color of the Seasons
This conversation, or some version of it, was repeated every month for seven years. The world moved along, the seasons changed, but my hair stayed the same, or approximately the same.
Toward the end of each color cycle, my natural color — or lack of it — would reassert itself, a bit more conspicuously each time, forcing me deeper and deeper into fraudulence.
My girlfriend during this period, now my wife, began to argue (mildly at first but increasingly emphatically) that gray hair looked terrific on men my age. For evidence, she pointed to various luminaries who looked terrific no matter what. George Clooney. Bill Clinton. The journalist Anderson Cooper.
They were the silver all-stars, and I hated them. I hated them not for their age-defying male beauty but for their ability to accept themselves.
In Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Mask,” a rakish man about town who loves the night life collapses at a dance. While attempting to revive him, a doctor notices that he is wearing a lifelike, youthful mask. The doctor cuts it off with scissors, revealing the man’s white hair and wrinkled face.
I’d read this story when I was young myself, along with other similar tales of postponed decrepitude such as “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Their gloomy, common message seemed to be that when it comes to signs of aging, you can run but not hide — and that the longer you attempt to run, the worse the final reckoning will be.
My hairdresser seemed to disagree: Her faith in modern products was that strong. And so was mine, until six months ago, when my hairdresser tried a stronger potion, convinced that the old one would no longer suffice.
by Matt Chase, NY Times | Read more:
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