Searching for lost youth, and thick hair

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder … I know. But lately my mirrors are acting up. Not only am I noticing a deficiency in my natural, youthful beauty, but my “beholders” have fallen behind. If their “eyes” are working, then something must be wrong with their “complementors.” Either they, too, have succumbed to the ravages of old age and therefore can’t see well, or something is wrong with me. Surely, not.

As I approach my seventy-third birthday, I find that I am not perfect. My skin is thin on the backs of my hands. Large veins snake around from one side to the other, like vines in some witch’s garden. There’s not a spot on my body that doesn’t have some sort of a bruise, scratch, or freckle gone wild. A few years ago, I lost over a hundred pounds. That’s under-skin fat. The skin doesn’t shrink, it shrivels up and lies in crevasse one upon another. If it were not for the permanently pleated, saggy skin and the veins and the scars left from refusing to wear gloves, long sleeves, and socks, my body would look pretty good. This is not to say that I will ever wear a bikini … or ever did wear a bikini … but the ravages of time have pretty well sewn up my modeling career.

I have always had fine hair. That’s not like saying, “Ain’t she fine.” It’s like saying, “Dang, girl, you can see your scalp through that mess on your head.” As a child I got permanent curls, which made it look thicker. In one school picture, I look like Angela Davis, the social activist in the 60s. I think mother got that hair under control at home, but a little rain, and a merry-go-round made my hair reach the margins of the photographer’s camera.

I’ve had my ups and downs with hair. I have some natural curve, and when I pop for a good haircut, it has always behaved. Lately, I think my hormones have run out. There’s not enough curve in that hair to bend it around a traffic circle. It’s frizzy. It’s flat. It’s thin.

So, when I saw on Facebook, that some company was selling wiglets to add a little pizzaz to drab hair, I was tempted. I wasn’t sure whether I was “winter white,” or “silver shadows.” So, I ordered one of each. This was not my first foree into wiglets. I had one in college. I would roll the hair on hot-curlers and snap it onto the back of my head in a cluster of loveliness. I loved the ease, the sophistication, and the thick hair. In hopes that these new models were like that, I placed the order and waited.

I knew it wasn’t human hair. I knew for fifteen dollars; they had to kill a few plastic water bottles and recycle some fishing nets. The trip across the Pacific was no cheap way to come to America, so when I paid the fifteen dollars each, I didn’t expect perfection.

Yesterday, they arrived. The “winter white” glowed, but the “silver shadow” was more like my own hair. It had some of the same highlights and … it was thin, wispy, and hung in irregular lengths. There were parts of that wiglet which hung down to my shoulders. Other parts curled dramatically over my right eye. I neither looked sophisticated, nor did I look younger. The curls emphasized the bags under my eyes.

I wore it around the house, took pictures to send to my children and my siblings, and concluded that my boyfriend looks better in it than I do. The “beholders” had a good laugh.