I was thinking I’d like to write an ode to hair but my poetry writing skills, much less one that’s meant to be sung, is non-existent. So we’ll skip right over that.
I used to have long flowing black hair - you know - like the tresses you see blowing in the wind machine breeze on hair commercials. Ok, well maybe not as luxurious. Long, lots of it, and all on my head. What comes to mind is the song Let Her Go, and the lyrics that say, “only miss the sun when it starts to snow”. I’d rephrase it to say “only miss the hair when you’re bald”
And folks I’m going bald! ‘Don’t be so dramatic!’ you say? Yeah, but...
It was with dismay that I looked at the bathroom sink and realized all the little black streaks in the basin was my hair. It’s falling out, and true or not; it seems to be falling at an ever-increasing rate! I think I have every reason to be dramatic.
Or not.
I knew it was going to happen. I was told this years ago when my hairdresser sent me to a specialist to confirm her suspicions. At the time I decided that being disciplined about hair care, which was not guaranteed to work, would not be where I would spend my energy. And then nothing seemed to happen so it all went into the recess of my mind. Now it’s all becoming more visible, including my scalp!
Yeah, I’m feeling sorry for myself and yet...
In the scheme of things is hair loss so bad when I’ve had two friends lose theirs because of chemo treatments? Bah! I’m being a whiner. And I’m being reminded of my ultimate goal in life – inner peace – no matter what happens around me. Though now I’m being tested with what happens to me too! I have to tell you, this inner peace stuff is hard! It takes a fair amount of work so no wonder more people aren’t interested in pursuing it.
Actually, the day-to-day practice of peace is not all the difficult – kinda sounds like I’m contradicting myself, doesn’t it? The main staple of the practice of peace is meditation and expressing love. It’s not all that difficult to sit for 5 minutes until you think you need to accomplish something, like emptying the mind. Now it suddenly seems hard! As for expressing love, easy enough to do with the people you want to, not so easy with those who push all your anger, frustration, or fear buttons. The part that is really hard is letting go of my need for things to be a certain way. Like hair staying on my head until I no longer need it, or asking/wanting a person to be different than how they are. There is nothing I need to fix out there in the world that doesn’t start with fixing what’s going in here, in my mind.
It is a process – “a systematic series of actions directed to some end” says Dictionary.com – where I use the tools I know, like meditation. And through those tools I practice expressing love to all those issues and people in my life that feel like stumbling blocks. Oh boy, I get lots of practice!
My husband asked me if I was upset about the hair loss. I said, “yes, but I’ll just have to make peace with it.” Finding inner peace, I think, doesn’t mean you get to miss out on the tragedies, small and large, of life. It does mean that you end up with a deeper reverence for what matters. And it aint hair!