Being Blond

I have had various shades of blond hair my whole life. Although born with dark hair, most photos from childhood prove that it was replaced by a headful of very light blond hair. Now, it was ratty as all get-out, because it was fine like a silk thread and, though my mother did everything in her power to make it neat, it regularly resembled an overgrown haystack.

But, it was blond. As I got older, my hair darkened and I had fun in my early twenties having light highlights put in my hair to brighten it up. After having children, it reverted to my birth colour: dark. In fact, I’d call it ... BROWN! Well now, that changed things a bit. The fun highlighting became a rather expensive game of staying blond in a way that looked natural – like I was really blond. (Honestly, I was blond as a kid...)

Now, there’s a new mission: hide the grey hair. Darn it, where do they all keep coming from? In Belgium, the challenge of staying blond and, well, younger, was a difficult one. You see, hair colouring is different there. My hair has a tendency to go red if the colour is not left on long enough but you can’t tell a Belgian how to do their job, so despite continued efforts to explain how I wanted it done and trying different salons, I was – for all intents and purposes – a strawberry blond for two years.

Then, it happened. I saw her. I saw a woman with highlights – my highlights! I asked her, with baited breath, if she’d had her hair done in Belgium. Glory be, she had! The key, she told me, was to ask for “an American”. Go figure. Apparently, “an American” means hair highlighted with streaks of blond. Well, for the next six months, until I moved to St. Louis, I and my wonderful friends would trip off to the salon together for colours, cuts and a late lunch (I know, I know, I had a charmed life there...). Obediently, I always asked for “an American” and got exactly the colour I wanted.

Then, it happened. I saw her. I saw a middle-aged woman with naturally brown hair highlighted blond with ends bleached by the summer sun. She was long overdue for a colour, cut and a late lunch. That woman had recently moved to St. Louis from Brussels. She has wrinkles around her eyes, but she doesn’t mind because she laughed a lot to earn them. She is not wearing makeup but she should, for her skin is uneven in colour and showing signs of aging. She squints to see herself in the mirror because she left her glasses downstairs when she ran down to fetch something but forgot what she needed. She is a bit sad, because she misses her friends terribly.

She procrastinates getting her hair done. There are lots of excuses: the boxes needed to be unpacked, her son was sick for a week, the laundry never seemed to stop. But, really, she has delayed it because she knows it won’t be as much fun without the girls. She knows there won’t be a late lunch. She knows she’ll have to start all over again explaining the tendency to go red.

Finally, the ribbon of regrowth at the roots of her hair is as wide as the eight-lane highway near her new house. She enters the salon apprehensively and quietly reads a magazine while waiting her turn. “Blond”, she says, “but natural looking, please.” Then, she laughs with relief when the colourist says, “Honey, you’re in the Mid-West now. If you’re not blond, you might as well just go home! What kind of blond do you want?” Well, there was no late lunch and no friends but, darn it, I am blond again!