Strands of Memory

In the past year or so I started noticing a small, almost indistinguishable spot of thinned out hair at the northern most pole of my head. At the front, a peninsular hunk of hair juts forward, while at the sides it seems to be retreating ever so slightly. When styled, my hairline comes to a point at the center of my forehead. I was told by friends that the term for this is a “Widow’s Peak.” Naturally, I googled it, horrified to learn I share the same ill-fated hairstyle as Eddie Munster. I had held out hope that this development was simply the result of a bad haircut, and in four weeks time I’d be back to my old head.

…

Only in a memory.

That head is long gone. I had always had full, healthy hair that grew like wild grass and at only twenty-three, the change was…unexpected.

I’m not actually losing my hair, I tell people, but rather it’s just retired from the stress and grind of my head, and relocated to my neck and upper back. Thankfully I don’t boast any of those reclusive strands that seek the privacy of my ears.

I’ve also thought often about the reaction I’d get if I told people that my hairline receding is actually news to me, that in all likelihood, it’s merely retreating back in disgust at the sight of their face.

…

To experience hair loss is to go through the five stages of grief. I think the above illustrates anger fairly accurately, especially since most people have the good social tact and decency not to mention anything to you, and you say it anyway. Depression entails thumbing through all the bogus hair restoration creams, shampoos and realizing you’re too poor for the surgeries, whereupon you bargain with every mirror in your house good enough to listen, saying, “If I could just keep most of it in this area….”

Denial is a comb-over. That stands pretty well on its own I think. Possibly even bolder on a t-shirt.

It all rounds out with biting the bullet, shedding a tear and then shaving your head.

*Sigh…* Acceptance.

The thought of shaving my head horrifies me. On the one hand I’m lazy, and I’d find the amount of effort it would take to run a razor over every nuance of my scalp every few weeks or so tedious and exhausting. Farther along that hand, I think it may hurt too much to watch what’s left of it go every time. I see it like pulling a plug over and over, or maybe putting a pet to sleep. Did I mention there isn’t a stylish enough hat in the world that could cover the shame of my big, hairless gourd?

Actor Ed Harris in decline, very, very few people can pull off the “balding look.” Where having gray hair can sometimes add an aura of experience, or seasoned maturity to a man, turning a blind eye to balding after a while is like walking around with a giant red-wine stain on your shirt, a widening tear in your pants, or a square of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe that doubles every few steps.

“You’ve got, you have…a little something, there…RIGHT THERE, yeah. You gonna…? (Is he ever going to DO something about that?)”

One of the chain-links in my family’s DNA, both sides, must clearly be labeled “Monk Balding Gene”. It is that series of nucleic formulae that ensures a nice visible patch of cranium in the middle of our heads by the age of thirty. The affected area spreads into a kind of crater, until stepping out from the shower in a brown colored bathrobe you may be mistaken for a lost Benedictine friar.

A hairpiece is both desperate, and out of the question. They are very easy to spot, and call just as much attention to hair-loss as, well, hair loss. While some of them are actually twined together out of real hair, they have to be replaced after so long, which would leave me a kind of second string cousin of the Vampire, preying on humans for their hair. I see it now:

In my struggle to function and fit in the human world, I would try and turn elsewhere for my epidermal lust. Neighbors will undoubtedly become suspicious when their dogs and cats return home in the wee hours of the morning completely shaved, while I walk out my door every few days with a new hair color and style.

Monday: Shaggy, shoulder-length retriever blond

Thursday: Short, business-like Labrador black

Saturday: Dalmatian salt and pepper. (There’s that seasoned look…)

A shy, emotionally repressed girl whose beauty is kept in check by thick reading glasses and a purple cardigan will take a strange liking to the provocative “chameleon man.” The image of her long, strawberry blond locks will pervade my dreams. I breathe deeply of her hair when we embrace, though I promise myself I will not make her my next human victim. Out of love and shear force of will, I struggle, conflicted…

I smell a series somewhere in all of this.

The Japanese top-knot was elegant and quite dignified but, much like the Jerry curl or the Flock of Seagulls haircut, relegated to a novelty of another generation, and unlike bell-bottom jeans or strawberry shortcake shows no sign of resurgence. And even if I did go with the neo-Samurai look, it sadly requires a certain amount of hair on the top and back, a weak spot for me, reducing it at best to a top-nub.

Looks like I will be recycling my kimono and hakama to the back of the closet rotation once again this season.

Damn…

Perhaps I should just let go now to save myself future aggravation and anxiety. After I shave my head, maybe I’ll take to rubbing beef brine on my face for that rawhide feel, file my teeth down by biting caps off beer bottles, and resign myself to spitting wads of Skoal into the empties, with a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes rolled up in my sleeve.

Or, with little time left, I suppose it’s as good an incentive as any to get out there and project my current youthful appeal. I’ve had friends who dreaded losing their hair until it was finally gone, from the first strands lost to their shower drains to the final clumps shaved off with their razors. They spent their last full days with it lamenting its loss, grieving with their heads down and covered for something that hadn’t gone yet, rather than enjoying what they had left.

How much different am I really with a little less hair? Will women really view me in a diminished light? Will I stop being me? Will people stop reading my blogs and stories? Will it stop me from writing and dreaming things up—from imagining? If the answer to that one is no, then the rest will fall in line accordingly.