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Jewish World Review April 19, 2001 / 26 Nissan, 5761
JIM WAYNE has cut my hair for nearly 20 years. He created first the
wedge "look" and now the clipped curly style of my professional photos. He
cut my hair after my husband's funeral and let my hair grow long when I began
dating. He set my daughter's French twist for her bat mitzvah and did a
blunt cut for her high school senior prom. Once, in a fit of creativity, he
chopped my locks to within an inch and died what was left purple. Curly or
wavy, tinted or natural, we've been through it all. But though Jim and I go
back a long way, nothing prepared either of us for the day last week when he
took an electric shaver and buzzed me bald.
"You have a great shaped head," he said. "You'll be fine."
His voice was a low growl, the way men sound when they are swallowing
tears. The timbre reminded me of how my surgeon, C. Gordon Frank, sounded
when he was getting ready to take out part of my lung.
"You're tough," Frank told me. "You'll be fine."
Jim sat me in Nicole's manicurist corner with the curtains drawn. We
gossiped about politics and culture and everyone we all know. As I heard the
sound of the shaver, I held on tight and reached for a prayer.
"Thank you G-d for allowing me to reach this season."
I felt insane. Why was I saying "Shehecheyanu," the prayer of thanksgiving for survival,
in the midst of chemotherapy? First, I couldn't think of anything else. But
also, because it was the right thing to do.
I had been losing my hair all week, beginning Day 12 after chemo. My
parents, visiting for Passover, were thrilled to see me looking normal and
healthy, and I was happy to comply. Cancer is a disease as much about
appearance as reality. We won't know how the tumor cells are doing until the
next CT scan. But we all know that a woman with her own curly hair is doing
well.
By the end of their stay I was leaking hair all over my pillow. I wore
my wig for my folks, so they wouldn't go into shock the next time.
"You look cute," my father said. "You'll do fine."
But as Jim's razor made its way up and down my scalp, I felt quite other
than fine. I felt militantly grateful. And powerfully confused. Grateful
to science for getting me to Taxol, the chemotherapy of choice for lung
cancer.
But confused: The whole world would look at me, a bald woman with a
fringe of black hair, and say "Oh my G-d, Marlene has cancer." I wanted them
to say, "Oh, thank G-d, Marlene's in treatment for her cancer." If I
weren't in chemo, then surely I would keep my hair and everyone might be
relieved. And just as surely, I would die.
The next day I wore my wig. It is blonde and elegant and "organized"
corporate executive way that my curly hair has never been. There was nothing
to explain. No politics of uplift. No one asked how I was, because with a
wig, I look "fine."
Here is my dilemma: I can present myself to the world bald, brave and
"true" and scare people away. Or I can wear the wig, attractive and "false"
and get the comfort from others that I need to survive.
Judaism has two words for female beauty, reflecting the public and
private spheres of life: they are "yofi" and "chayn."
"Yofi" is conventional, physical beauty, the kind that attracts men and women
to each other at the currently popular Speed Dating extravaganzas. Would I
wear my baseball cap or go bald to a Speed Dating session? Probably not.
Would I wear the turquoise turban that makes me look like my Aunt Anna? Only
on the 10th date, if then.
"Chayn" is the more difficult, intimate beauty. It means, "finding favor."
"Chayn" is inner light, truthful self-acceptance, and it is rare indeed.
Maybe the answer for the wig v. bald conundrum is that there are no set
answers. Like cancer, I deal with it one day at a time, one situation on its
own terms.
One might hope that my closest friends would find my bare skull attractive.
They saw me through my surgery. They sit with me in my chemo. They understand my doctors. They say "Shehecheyanu" with each victory. They
know the "chayn" in me.
But if we are going to the theater, they'd probably say, "Yofi." Live a
little. Wear the
04/11/01: Doorposts of my House
Head Trip
By Marlene Adler Marks
JWR contributor Marlene Adler Marks is a columnist and author of "A Woman's Voice: Reflections on Love, Death, Faith, Food & Family Life ". Send your comments to her by clicking here.
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