The Iris Apfel of Trees…and My Hair

It’s August. Almost September. And there’s change in the air. It’s as if the trees are tired of being green (and we all know being green is not easy). Stealth like a ninja, Autumn is approaching. It gives itself away, though, by helping those tired trees dress themselves in fall glory. There’s one tree in particular, just outside my window, that begins to show its true colors early. While the doubly tall and slender trees that form a line of sentries behind it appear too shy to offer anything but hints of drab yellow, this little tree has crisp hits of gold along the edges of its leaves and muddled russet on its lower branches. This time of year it is the Iris Apfel of trees. And it is a tree that offers me comfort. A tree that provides cooling shade in the summer for all the deer and other critters that drink from the creek that tickles its roots. A tree that becomes a vibrant, flaming show off in autumn, cuts the sky into hard edged shapes with its bare, black branches in winter and sweetly blossoms in spring. I’ve watched my tree embrace each version of itself for one full year.

I love having four distinct seasons and their clear reminder of time’s passing. (But do I? Really? Four distinct seasons — definitely. Time’s passing? Maybe not so much.)

Early next month I’m having my hair cut by a stylist for the first time in three years. Throughout the pandemic I relied on my tried and true electric trimmer to keep my hair well shorn with a number five blade guard. I didn’t mind that there was no attempt at style. I just wanted my hair to stay out of my face in downward dog. But the east coast humidity curls my hair in a way that others sometimes envy and for a brief moment I considered letting myself transform into one of those beautiful crones with flowing locks who look like they’ve just stepped away from their floor loom to go fill their seagrass basket with wild blackberries plucked from the forest. And then I looked in the mirror and realized I am not that woman. I’m more likely to morph into Rosie the Riveter. In other words, my unkempt curls have to go.

But time has passed and I can no longer pull off the Sinead O’Connor-esque buzz cut I wore with my vintage dresses, fishnets, costume jewelry and combat boots in 1990. Damn you, time. It was my favorite look. The look the made me feel most like me. Now I’m afraid I’ll walk away from my date with hair destiny looking like I have a ‘do’ — a poofy, teased, too perfect coif. I guess that’s easily remedied with a tussle of fingers but still I can’t help but believe that being sixty-four and eight months old is a really weird age for a woman. I no longer look like the woman I feel like and I have no clue how to embrace the woman I’m becoming. More than that, I’m not seen by others as the woman that I feel like.

I know I’m being silly. If I can manage the journey through puberty and adolescence I can survive this journey, too. At the end of the day we’re not measured by how we look and how our looks change.

Are we?