1:33 p.m. - 2010-11-04
Blond
Most of my life, my mother was a blonde. She liked me better blond, too, although I would constantly get the itch to dye my hair brown. Maybe for rebellion. Maybe to see which boys really liked me for myself. Maybe because I felt too conspicuous. Maybe because, most of my life, my mother was a blond. When I was thirteen, I caught the "blond bug", there in eighth grade English. Terri Treeloggin sat across from me. Her hair was luminous. Like spun gold. Long and silky. More than anything, I wanted hair like Terri's. There was a commercial at the time advertising a product called Blondex. It promised to transform "dishwater" to flax. Eagerly, I bought a bottle, imagining how life would literally take on new highlights. Nothing. Next, I tried lemon juice, which made my hair tangly, dry and squeaky. But no blonder. Finally, my mother bought "real" hair dye. Smelly. Purply. The kind you'd better not get in your eyes. Sure that, after just 20 minutes, a confident Terri would emerge from under that towel, I was shocked to find a splotchy, mottled kaleidascope of yellow, orange, brown, white and khaki in place of my "diswater" tresses. I was horrified. My mother, nonplussed, introduced me to the concept of "toners". Looking back, I was much too young to know of such things. So, thanks to "toners", every day I went to school with a different shade of blond. One day, "White Minx". The next, "Just Peachy". When I would finally decide to rebel and be "myself", I faced the world as "Frivolous Fawn". Basically, the one person I had the most difficulty being was myself. Shy and affected, I would try out a new personality on my classmates every day. Waiting to find one that would, at last, make me popular, like the "soches". I don't know if it was true, but I believed my mother wanted a cheerleader. What she got, instead, was an introvert who loved the rain, drew pictures of trees and kept a diary with a small, golden key. I would study pictures in Seventeen, experimenting with make-up and trendy styles. Anything that would disguise my vulnerability. Take attention from my big eyes. My stick-out ears. My 5' 6" frame. My father mocked my posture. I did hunch over. I felt so freakishly tall, taller than all the girls and most of the boys. At dances, only the "soches" danced. I stood with the rejects among the imaginary flowers on the wall of the gym, dreaming of the imaginary boy who would rescue me from my very real shame. Meanwhile, my parents told me that my breath smelled and that they were the only ones that would tell me, because they loved me. They wanted me to know that everyone was probably talking about it behind my back. One day, my mother suddenly noticed some little white pimples appearing on my arms. Shocked and disturbed, I remember her scrutinizing my diet, monitoring my cleansing rituals. One summer, she told me that my underarms smelled of sweat and that it was "time" for an electric razor. My father told me boys were "pimply faced adolescents", monkeys. "Who needs them?," he was fond of saying. I did, that's who. I dreamed of being held, being kissed, being loved. Declared beautiful. Blond or otherwise. I don't know how different things may have been had my adolescent charms been affirmed. I have my fantasies, but the truth is I may have been every bit as gawky, timid, out of synch with my own rhythms. Still, I wonder how things might have been if, most of my life, my mother had not been a blond.
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