Hair, by Betsy

Since there is virtually no one left above ground who was there and able to remember when I was a newborn babe, I will have to resort to photos.  I am quite sure I was born with no hair at all.  When some finally grew in as a toddler my hair was a color that now many women I know pay big money for; i.e., blond, really blond and evenly blond.

This did not last long. In early and middle childhood; i.e., second grade through puberty, my hair was what was commonly referred to as dish-water blond. I remember my mother, who was a brunette from birth, rinsing my hair with lemon juice hoping it would lighten a bit, or at least she hoped the citrus solution would keep it from going to the dark side.

Like many girls at the time I also had braids.  On very special occasions, when I put on my velvet dress with the lace collar and Mary Janes, my mother would make “rolls” above my ears before braiding. When I had rolls, I knew I had to be on my best behavior.

As adolescent girls and young women we did spend a lot of time and energy on making our hair what we thought at the time was presentable. Getting a permanent wave required enduring several hours of discomfort—bordering torture.  But those of us with straight hair felt compelled to do something to give our hair some pizazz.

We employed many kinds of tools and devises to curl our hair. We wrapped wads of hair around old socks and tied them to hold the hair on the sock until it curled. So-called curlers came in all shapes and forms besides the socks. sponges, wire sausage shaped objects, etc. We would go to bed with these things on our heads—regardless of the pain inflicted while trying to sleep.

After the hormones kicked in my hair did darken steadily until late middle age when it became a dark brown. Now, guess what.  It’s going full circle, back to its original colorless form.

 I know many, many women of my age group who refuse to reveal that they have any gray hairs. They go through the monthly ritual at the hair salon enduring hours of treatment costing lots of dollars to do this. I have never been able to understand that because I know some women whose white hair is quite beautiful.  I suspect there are men who do the same cover-up.

Some societies value and revere the signs of old age. Not here. But I suspect our corporate, capitalistic culture has a lot to do with it.

I can make the claim in all honestly that I have never put much effort or resources into making my hair look like something it was not—except for the lemon juice, which really was non-effective, a couple of permanent waves out of a bottle, and the socks.

And that’s all I have to say about MY hair.

© 22 Jan 2016 

About the Author 

 Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Hair, by Lewis

Off the top of my head, I have very little to say about hair. It and I have had a major falling out over the past fifteen years or so. In fact, I first sought out a dermatologist about my receding hairline when I was in my mid-20’s. He gave me this black ointment that smelled like axle grease to spread on my forehead while showering in the faint hope that it might slow down the recession. As with my hair itself, he and I quite soon had a parting of the ways. As I have related here before, even at the tender age of eight, an encounter with ringworm left me with a premature bald spot that forever after made me a huge fan of the old Carl Anderson comic strip, “Henry”.

[Conversely, I regularly shave my body as the random and sparse nature of my hair there put me squarely in the middle between bear and twink (the term “blink” comes to mind).]

In summation, when it comes to my appearance, hair has always been an issue. At least here and now I can say that I have perhaps gotten a little of my frustration off my chest.

© 25 January 2016

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Hair, by Gillian

Looking back on it, I had rather nice hair when I was young, in a typically English way; golden-brown with a few coppery highlights. But I didn't appreciate it one whit at the time. My mother created two braids for me every morning until she began school teaching again, at which time she announced it had become my responsibility. I was somewhere in the early grades at Elementary School so I guess I was six, maybe seven. Braids were the only thing I knew, so I continued them. Unfortunately, my pudgy little arms were not sufficiently flexible, not were my young fingers skilled enough, to create the braids at the back of my head. Instead, I pulled half of the loose hair forward over each shoulder and braided it from the front, resulting in braids which refused to hang down my back. No matter how often I shoved them back, they persistently sprang forward to flop down my chest. They were almost waist-length and seemed constantly to inhibit the important things in life such as lessons or games. The morning one of them dunked itself in my toast and honey was the last straw.

So I cut them off.
Inexpertly.
Unevenly.
With old, blunt, rusty, scissors.
The second I had done it, I panicked.
What had I done?
Why oh why had I done it?

I looked about me as I scooped my severed braids up from where they languished on the kitchen floor. Even as I gazed hopefully about for somewhere to hide them, as young as I was, an inescapable logic told me that there was absolutely no possibility that no-one would notice my lack of them.

My mother came into the kitchen. She stared at me, then at the lifeless braids hanging from my little fists. She remained silent, uttering not even a grunt or a sigh. She propelled me into the living room, gently took the braids from me and tossed them casually onto the open fire. I stared, in equal silence, as the hair, my hair, curled and crackled and sparked, turned rapidly black, and gave off a sickening odor. And it was gone.

I risked a sideways peak at my mother, who resumed her place in the old armchair: picked up her book, sipped her tea. I squinted at Dad, in the other armchair, reading a car magazine and sipping his tea. He was on an afternoon tea-break from chopping wood. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the grandfather clock standing on duty in its corner and the contented purr of the cat re-settling herself on Mum's knee. I stood on the hearth, shuffling my feet, waiting for whatever was going to happen, to happen.

Dad put his magazine and tea cup down on the little table beside his chair, looked up at me and gave a solemn wink.

'Get your coat on,' was all he said.

We walked, my hand in his, across the fields through a cold drizzle, to the neighboring farm where we immediately saw and heard the farmer, in his barn, attempting some work on the tractor engine. He was addressing it with a string of very bad words, which he swallowed back down his throat the moment he saw me.

' 'Ow do' he greeted us genially, adding to my dad, as he jerked his head towards the engine, 'Bloody lucky you're 'ere.'

I never heard either of my parents even say bloody, but it was inoffensive enough to Mr. Llewellyn that he let it slip right through his filtering system.

'Ay,' my dad replied, 'Lucky you're 'ere an' all.'

By way of explanation he pirouetted me around.

'Bloody 'ell!' was the response as Mr. Llewellyn grinned at me, a very rare event, displaying many gaps in his jagged brown teeth. He shoved his greasy flat cap to the back of his head.

'Dog been chewing at yer 'air?'

He waved me to a filthy old bench outside the barn and reached for an equally filthy leather bag up on a shelf.

For the first time since I'd picked up those scissors, I relaxed. This was familiar territory. I knew what to expect. More or less on a monthly basis my dad came to the farm to have what little hair he had left cut by Mr. Llewellyn with his sheep shears. Money never changed hands. Dad was terrific with engines, so he worked on the tractor engine in return. I sometimes went along and communed with various animals while the shears took a swift swipe just above my father's scalp. So I felt no trepidation as the shears approached. I knew they were kept viciously sharp, but I had never seen my dad's head receive as much as a tiny nick. In no time we were done. No mirror to be held up so that I could offer my approval, simply a nod and a grin from Dad. I sat and waited for a few minutes while the two men grunted at each other and pointed to things like wires and spark plugs, and soon we were greeted by the welcome, if not too promising for the longterm, cough and splutter of the ancient tractor.

My mother reasserted control over my hair, cutting it herself with my dad's cut-throat razor, still his preferred shaving implement but he apparently had no objection to sharing. The erstwhile braids were not mentioned again. Many years later, I asked Mom why she had reacted so strangely; so silently.

'I think I was in shock,' she replied. "It wasn't that it was such a terrible thing. Just such a surprise. I had no idea. Why had you never told me you hated your braids?'

Because, I wanted to say, because .... because, Mum, we weren't that kind of family. We never talked about anything deeper than the weather or the next meal.

But I said nothing. What was the point? A relationship is not too likely to change much after decades of entrenchment.

If I had been asked, while my parents were still alive, who I was closer to, I would unhesitatingly have said my mother. As an only child with few other kids nearby to play with, I spent a lot of time with Mom. I have written often enough before about our strangely flawed relationship, but nevertheless we got on well. She was a fun person to be with. She loved to play games and she loved to laugh.

My dad was quiet, never using more than the minimum amount of words necessary, and it took looking back from a considerable distance for me to see how his actions spoke for him, loud and clear.

Now they are both gone, I feel myself growing ever closer to my father. If asked, now, to whom I feel closest, I would definitely say my dad. It surprises me, this change of heart, but perhaps it's simply a clearer understanding I've gained over the years of both Mum and Dad, and my relationship with them.

Ah well! Death, just like life, is full of surprises.


© January 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

I Hate My Hair, by Nicholas

          The famous essayist Nora Ephron once wrote a piece in which she denounced her neck. She said simply that she did not like her neck. It was scrawny and too long and had to be hidden with scarves and turtleneck sweaters. That’s how I feel about hair. I don’t like my hair and I never have. It’s fine, soft, and thin and getting thinner. It never was a color I liked—and gray did not improve over the former brown. It never grew out into any shape or style that was appealing. It grew long but not curly. It grew longer still but never full. It just sort of hung there.

          The standard for beautiful hair, for me, is Danielle Grant, the woman who does the weather on Channel 9. I watch the weather just to watch her hair. Her rich brown tresses hang long over her shoulders in a lustrous waterfall of hair. Her hair shines with a deep luster. I don’t care if it rains or snows or turns sunny, her hair is a beauty to behold.

          Hair has many functions, none of them really all that important. It can be a thing of natural beauty, a fashion statement, a political statement, a symbol and, of course, it was even a musical. In the 1960s, we let our hair grow long and shaggy to show our disdain for an oppressive establishment and our attachment to a new culture of freedom that did not include barbershops. We let our “freak flag” fly, as one song put it.

          In the 1970s, we returned to those few barbershops that survived the ‘60s, and got it cut short—gay short—because we didn’t want to be seen as some kind of hippie longhair redneck. Hair styles came full circle, I guess. What was once a protest of the establishment, became the establishment. Long hair meant you were a right wing crazy conservative. Short hair was the rebellion.

          Of course, we didn’t just go to barbershops. We went to stylists and had our hair styled. And paid a lot more for that styling. When I was first coming out I even had my hair permed once. I wanted curls and decided to torture my hair into curls even if I had to wear a toxic waste dump on my head. It didn’t work. I got curls, alright, but I looked like I had a nice dust mop on top of my head. I looked like Woody Allen on a bad day. I realized that my hair just was not made for fashion.

          Now I just get it mowed now and then, about once a month. It’s like the lawn. Doesn’t really do anything or contribute anything but looks better if it’s kept under control. The problem is that there is too much of it where I don’t need it, like ears and nose, and not enough where I do want it. I go to the cheapest barber I know and for $10 get whatever excess is there clipped to a reasonable shortness. I like my hair best when I don’t have to think about it.

          It would be nice to keep up with fashion, but I’ve given up. I would love to die it blue or purple, colors I really like in other people’s hair. But on me, it would just look silly. Beyond the basic requirement of workable hair, I don’t have that fashion persona to pull it off. You know how some people can walk down a street like they’re walking across a stage. I’m just trying to get a bus home before somebody stops and says, “God, what did you do to your hair?”

© 15 Jan 2015 

About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.