Gray

It was as unexpected as the pandemic- going gray I mean.  I hadn’t planned on it.  For 15 years I doused my hair with Clairol Natural Instincts # 4 dark brown.  Just like not planning on going gray, I had not planned on ever coloring my hair in the first place.  Then one day when I was 50 the lady at the pool counter asked if I wanted a senior pass.

I let my hair grow out, again unexpected, and unplanned.  Closed salons meant getting a haircut was not possible.  So after years of stylishly short hair, I now sport a mid-length gray mop.

I hardly recognize myself anymore but I barely recognize the world I live in of face masks, lockdowns, and a sobering death toll.  I barely recognize this country after four years of political and social turmoil. 

Gray is a color that is neither black nor white but something in between.  It’s all gray now, a state of waiting, everything shrouded in a fog of uncertainty. When will I be vaccinated?  When will this isolation end?  When can I have my old life back?

In the matter of hair, gray signals more the end than the beginning.  My graying head has become a personal symbol of my mortality but I’m not afraid of it.  I’m going wild and just letting me be who I am without a care.  Write, draw, scribble, sing loud- it’s all good.

When we can all talk about this era in the past tense and even laugh a little, I will remain gray.  There’s no way I can go back.  There’s no way we can go back.  From inequity to racism too much has been exposed.  There can be no more cover-ups.