Day 4.5 - My Hair

Day 4.5: My Hair: Well I wanted to get real serious here and so I thought that I'd get right to the point,,,losing hair. I'm not sure that we Clarke's ever had a bald gene to contend with. I saw some of our elders get thin at the top, but never bald. Even my in-laws that I can think of had full heads of hair (although some were carriers of the bald gene). Regardless, it's my hair I wanted to talk about and it doesn't have to do with heredity but chemo.

Not my head, but could be.

I started to grow my hair long on more of a hunch than a finished idea. I saw photos of some guy celebs who were around my age and who looked good with their hair long, so I started heading in that direction. Iwas assisted my my current stylist, Heather, at the Talking Headz salon on Baltimore Ave. I gave her the idea and she soon "got it", and that was it.   After awhile, I began to feel a little ridiculous at my age with such a stylish cut, and I thought about getting it all cut off, so I could fit comfortably back in to the "normal pool" of self judgement and regulation. I was a chaplain intern at Einstein and visited many people in their rooms. When I was on the verge of getting it all cut off, I visited an elderly woman on my assigned unit. I was going to bypass that room that day, because it was not a requested visit, so it was not assigned to me that day. Because of her age, 88, I thought that she might, like others, be partially impaired with dimentia and so our communication would be limited. (My mother passed after a long illness with Alzheimer's as some of you already know.) I went in anyway and this woman was, as my father would say, "sharp as a tack". She was perfectly lucid and on fire, i.e. she had a real spirit and zest for life. After greeting her one of the first things that she remarked was "Your hair is beautiful"! I thanked her and tucked her vote to "keep the hair" away.
One thing about talking with some elderly, they care less about what other people think and just tell you openly what they think. It cut through a lot of my self doubt about my job, profession, self, etc. I felt that it was coming more from the other side, if you will, through this woman of great but practical faith, "I don't know how people can get along without God", she said. She wasn't preachy, just matter of fact; that's what I mean when I say a practical faith. I listened closely and I was the one who was comforted and strengthened by that visit.
Since then I've had people come up to me on the trolley, even yesterday while going to the Infusion Center a female guard remarked, "Your hair is beautiful". It has become another ice breaker if you will, to simply talk about something human, and to get beyond the formal. I give the credit to Heather whenever I can: She's the stylist. I simply grow the stuff, which is now all gray. She helped me out because I was out of work, and eventually we worked out a deal that I helped her set up a veggie garden behind the shop and she'd cut my hair for free. As of today,it appears that both the garden and my hair are doing fine. (I will post a photo of the Garden tomorrow, so stay tuned.) The treatment that I'm going through may thin my hair, but we'll see. I've always been philosophic about my hair: There's always more where that came from and, as long as I have Heather to shape it, we are (as my father used to say) in business!

A Phrenologist's View of the scalp