Fear Of Dyeing
Aging gracefully sometimes means hair politics have to
take a back seat to vanity.
and that Saturday I accompanied her to
the beauty shop.
Special to the Jewish News
It was just as I'd dreaded: reeking of
peroxide and hair spray, overcrowded
y long dark hair has
with 40- and 50-year-old women in
always been my security
smocks and curlers, gossiping and
blanket, man-magnet,
thumbing through fashion magazines.
shield and political state-
We made our way past 300-pound
ment. It expresses me: unruly, tangled,
Mrs. Kirby, who showed her stylist a
hanging loose and free.
magazine photo of Cher's new
Once, when I put my hair up, every-
Cleopatra coif and said, "It's me!" then
one said I looked like my Grandmother
navigated over to Robert, my mother's
Sophie, my mother's mother. Sophie
pony-tailed
hairdresser.
had hair the color of black bread, the
She
liked
him because he had "magic
exact shade of mine. She wore it up,
hands."
I
liked
him because he had hair
braided elegantly on top of her head
longer
than
mine
and never tried to cut
like a prize.
off more than the usual inch from split
Sophie died when my mother was 7.
ends.
She was a mystery to me, the woman
A color consultant offered to bring
whose face they say I stole from the
out
our "true selves, our essence" with a
photograph that scared me as a child.
free
seasonal makeover. "Like a fine
My mother has auburn hair, shiny as
etching
of dramatic contrast," Sheila
flames. She wears it neat, short, swept
told my mother, "you are autumn's har-
up and feathered lightly over her brown
vest and glowing warmth." Coral and
eyes. She has it cut, tinted and touched
honey peach would accentuate her
up to preserve its natural shade. When I
highlights.
was 4, she initiated me, her only daugh-
My mother bought honey-peach lip
ter, into the Saturday beauty shop fini-
gloss
and matching eye shadow and
al.
asked
if I wanted blush or foundation. I
I remember mostly middle-aged
wanted
to go home. Severe gray and
women being dyed, dipped, ironed and
black were my hues, Sheila said. I was a
clipped. They smelled bad and-looked
woman of winter, like Sophie.
even worse: tinfoil and white and black
After college I moved to downtown
goo lining their temples, space helmets
Manhattan, where Sophie had given
over their heads. I was put on a high
birth to five children, my mother being
spinning chair and watched the mirror
the youngest. Amid the purple and blue
in horror as my beloved long hair was
stripes, short spikes and shaved heads,
sheared into a pixie. My first-grade pic-
my hair seemed rather tame. But not to
ture shows a sad girl (with Sophie's dark
my mother, who left a message on my
side even then?) sporting a 1965 bob,
phone machine one day. Robert was in
one clump jutting out. I've had long
New York! She'd arranged for him to
straight hair since.
stop by and give me a trim; she'd
The first time I came home from
already paid for it.
college, my mother greeted me at the
Though I protested at first, there
door with, "You need a haircut." She
was
something to be said for having
shook her head at my ragged ends and
my hair done quickly at my apart-
scraggly bangs, as if such disorder sym-
bolized a rejection of her values. But my ment. Robert wound up stopping by,
scissors in hand, once a month. He
hair vanity overrode my hair politics,
said he was visiting a friend in the city,
but I imagined my mother had paid
Susan Shapiro, the author of a poetry
his fee to make sure my bangs stayed
collection called "Internal Medicine," grew
out of my eyes.
up in West Bloomfield. This article origi-
By my early 30s, I'd sprouted some
nally appeared in the New York Times
gray,
and I liked it. I'd flaunt it. Who
Magazine and is reprinted with the
needed
my mother's fake fountain of
author's permission.
SUSAN SHAPIRO
M
7/17
1998
76
youth? That was for fancy suburban
ladies.
I'd grow old naturally in New York
like Gloria Steinem. I'd wear a white
streak in the middle of my head like
Susan Sontag. My mother began dyeing
her hair at 30. I'd never dye mine in a
million years.
•
A few summers ago, I visited the
Midwest after a melancholy season. I'd
broken up with a man I loved because
he was having an affair with a younger
woman. To make matters worse, I'd had
a cancer scare: precancerous cells in my
cervix were lasered away quickly and
completely. I tried to quit smoking.
That meant I gained weight, along with
a few lines under my eyes. Was it worry
or sadness that had suddenly turned my
hair color to salt and pepper? I stared in
my pink-framed, full-length childhood
mirror and it hit me for the first time: I
was no longer young. The last day of
vacation, my mother said, "You need a
haircut." I said okay.
"Do you want to get it colored?" she
asked, slipping the last word in casually.
I was shocked at how casually I com-
plied, and at how excited I felt. Soon, I
was waving to Mrs. Kahn, Mrs. Kirby
and Sheila, as if they were long-lost
friends. I flipped through Harper's
Bazaar while my mother made a fuss
over pictures of Mrs. Lee's grandchil-
dren.
My mother and I sat side by side in
dark smocks, our foreheads sticky with
foil and dye. She looked at me and said,
"Sophie!" I traced Sophie's face in the
mirror. I pictured her standing on the
fire escape of her tenement at midnight,
undoing her thick hair, raven strands
blowing in the hot breeze.
When it came time to say goodbye, I
stared at my mother's luminous, feath-
ered red hair and silky skin spotted with
freckles; she looked like a little girl.
She held me longer than usual. "The
Goodman women are all too emotion-
al," she said. I nodded, then left her, for
Sophie's city and mine, with shiny hair
darker than before, pretending nothing
had changed. I was raven-haired and
immortal again. At least until the roots
grew in.
imps
Pickup Softball
B'nai B'rith Leadership
Network presents its second
season of pickup softball.
Schedule:
July 26, Aug. 9, Aug. 23 at
Pioneer Park
All games begin at 11 a.m.
Karen Safran, (248) 426-
9520.
Saturday, July 18
Dinner and movie night with
Jewish Professional Singles.
David, (248) 398-9370.
Sunday, July 19
Build a house, build a life. 8:30
a.m., Oak Park JCC. Help
build/renovate a home with the
Think Twice Foundation and
Hillel of Metro Detroit. RSVP
by July 13, (313) 577-3459.
Thursday, July 23
Jewish Professional Singles coffee
house. 7:30 p.m. At Java
Masters, Farmington. David,
(248) 398-9370.
Saturday, July 25
Swing night cocktail party with
Jewish Professional Singles. 8
p.m. Cost: $10. RSVP and
directions, Michele, (248) 546-
4961.
Sunday, July 26
Cedar Point trip with B'nai
B'rith Leadership Network. Meet
at B'riai B'rith office, 31600 W.
13 Mile Road, at 8:30 a.m.
Cost: $27 members, $30 non-
members. RSVP by July 23, Jeff
and Deb Cymerint, (248) 478-
8338.
Clarification
A June 26 quote from Talya
Drissman was incorrectly paired
wit a photograph of Michelle
Kaciancier.