Jenny Allen - Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

 

 

So, a few years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and about five minutes later I had to start chemotherapy. Now, when you have the chemotherapy I had, you lose your hair. Now, in one way, this seemed like such a small price to pay, my hair, my life, my hair, my life. I don't know, I think I'll pick my life. And I was kind of hoping that after my hair fell out and grew back, I'd get better hair. [audience chuckle] I have this unruly hair and it has a mind of its own. But no matter how I felt about losing my hair, just the prospect of not having any forced me to reconsider my whole sense of my personal style and in a way, my whole sense of myself.

 

What kind of cancer person was I going to be? Like, how would I wear my disease? Would I try to hide it? Or would I announce it to the whole world? In other words, was I going to be a scarf person or a wig person? [audience chuckle] Because it seemed to me that if I showed up places suddenly wearing a scarf all the time, people would know it was because I'd gone bald and they would probably guess why. But if I showed up wearing a wig, even the people who could tell it was a wig would probably assume that I was wearing it because I didn't want to talk that much about why. If I wore a wig, I'd be saying to everybody, please just let me blend in.

 

So, I had this dilemma whether to wear a scarf or a wig, blend in or not blend in. So, I thought about it. And I thought that my truer self would wear a scarf because I have a lot of self-righteous integrity. [audience laughter] And I thought a wig would be dishonest and I wasn't ashamed of my disease. So, one night I ran into my friend, Ruth. Now, I had met Ruth originally because she was my dentist and she was a wonderful dentist, very kind and generous and understanding about those of us who showed up needing root canal because we had failed to floss in our 20s. And she used to say, “Oh, you know, Jenny, in terms of evolution, our teeth are only supposed to last us about 45 years, so you are doing great.” [audience laughter] 

 

And she'd become my friend, and our kids had become friends, and they even went to the same school because she'd recommended it for mine. And by some horrible coincidence, she and I both had the same cancer. Only she was way much farther down the chemo path than I was and had already lost her hair. So, I'd seen her a few weeks earlier just wearing a scarf. And I was very surprised when I ran into her at a school play. And there she was with just all her old hair back, this big corona of dark, curly hair. And I said to her, “Ruth, I love your hair.” And she said, “It's a wig.” I never thought I'd wear a wig, but, you know, it's kind of nice when you go out. It's a little dressy. [audience laughter] It's kind of creepy, but it's dressy.” [audience laughter]

 

And I looked at her head, and I actually I could tell that it was a wig if I looked really closely. But I thought, it looks very nice. And I thought, well, “If Ruth can feel good in a wig, then maybe I could too,” which seemed unlikely but possible. So, I thought about it, and I thought maybe I should just consider it. Just consider wearing a wig. So, then Ruth said to me, “Jenny, you should get one. Medical insurance pays for the whole thing.” [audience laughter] And this seemed so bizarre as to be almost unbelievable and really reason enough to get a wig. [audience laughter]

 

And I love free things particularly when my insurance company pays for them. And I found out that wigs cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. So, this seemed like the ultimate freebie. It was like a great swag, even if it was cancer swag. [audience laughter] So, a couple of weeks go by and my hair does fall out. Now it didn't just fall out all at once. It gradually gave up the ghost, first in these strands in my brush and then in clumps in my shower drain that made me think that there was a dead mouse down there. And every time I looked in the mirror, my baldness told me how sick I was. Even in spite of all this optimism and cheerfulness that I was sort of summoning and I wasn't completely bald.

 

I had these sad wisps of hair here and there that somehow just made it worse. My head seemed to be saying to me, “Hello, sickie. Hello, sick person with cancer.” And every time I went out in my scarves, my head felt very exposed, very uncomfortable. And I thought people were looking at me. And they would ask me questions like how I was doing and how my cancer was going, how my chemo was going. And I felt I didn't like it. And I didn't like it when they looked at me as if they were about to cry. So, I thought, “Well, maybe I'll go to the store and get a wig. So, I did. I went to a wig store right near Columbus Avenue, and it was called Bitz-n-Pieces. [audience laughter] It was.

 

And my wig fitter was a French man. And he said, “What do you want?” And I said, “I want a wig.” And he said, “What kind of hair?” And I said, “I don't know. How many kinds do you have?” And he said, “Well, he explained to me that they had synthetic wigs. They had wigs made from the hair of Indian women, and they had wigs made from the hair of Caucasian European women.” Now, the synthetic wigs were the cheapest, and the Indian hair wigs were in the middle range. They were about $800 to $900. And then the wigs made from the hair of Caucasian European women were $4000 to $5,000. Now, I thought, even if my insurance company paid for this, it's just obscene to spend this kind of money on a wig. And why is the hair of Caucasian European women four times as expensive as the hair of Indian women? It was so racist. [audience laughter]

 

So, I decided to go with the Indian women's hair, even though I felt very uncomfortable knowing they'd been paid about 22 cents to have it shorn from their heads. So, I took my wig home, the wig fitter, put it in a big paper bag, and inside the paper bag was a Styrofoam head with the wig on it. And I took the bag home, and when I got home, I took the Styrofoam head with the wig on it, and I put it in a corner of my bedroom just to wait until the occasion that might possibly happen when I might want to wear my wig-- might consider wearing my wig. And it was very unsettling to look at it over there. 

 

Sometimes, I felt like my wig head, which was so well groomed, was condescending to me a little. [laughter] [chuckles] So, I'm feeling very bad about this scarf look meanwhile, that I've been adopting, but I can't quite bring myself to put the wig on. It seems like a lot of trouble, but then I just start to feel worse and worse about my whole look, my whole uniform of these scarves that I'm wearing and these bandanas. And I start thinking I look like a lady pirate or one of those very, very ancient old ladies who's pushing her groceries cart down Broadway. But I still can't quite bring myself to wear the wig. It seems like a lot of trouble. And then one day I realized that my eyebrows have fallen out. And for some reason, this is completely unexpected by me and makes me feel surprisingly sorry for myself. Having no eyebrows makes me feel very naked, very vulnerable, very exposed. 

 

My hair was part of my head, but my eyebrows were part of my face. I look like a big baby. And every time I look in the mirror and I see the baby, I feel so bad for her that I want to cry. And I decide I need more of a buffer between me and the rest of the world. I'm tired of people asking me about my disease. Even though I've said it all up and I'm tired of them looking at me like I'm about to cry. I'm ready for my wig. Well, I'm ready to try thinking about wearing my wig. So, it turns out that my friend Martha, her daughter Anna, is about to graduate from the University of Chicago. And I decide, this might be the perfect occasion to wear my wig. It's a nice, grown-up occasion. It's a big event.

 

And so, I go to Chicago and I bring my wig. In the morning of the ceremony, I get up and I put my wig on my head. I first I comb it and brush it, and then I fit it carefully to my head and I start walking toward the graduation along with these throngs of other parents and grandparents and friends. And right away, as soon as I start walking, I know that I should have been practicing wearing my wig all these weeks. First in my bedroom, maybe, and then around my neighborhood. Because every time I look in a store window, I recognize myself, but I look like I'm in disguise. I feel like I've done something really bad, like robbed a bank. And now I'm trying to just kind of lose myself in the crowd by going incognito in my wig. 

 

And I'm very self-conscious about the wig itself. I keep tugging at it and fussing with it and imagining that there are these strands of hair coming out, even though there aren't. This wig is just a stranger to me and I'm uncomfortable having it in my personal space. Now someone at the graduation, at the ceremony, before the ceremony starts, is selling sun hats. And this is a very smart person. They've realized that some of us women there haven't put it together that we're going to be spending about four hours in the scorching Chicago sun, and we might not want to get sunburned.

 

So, I buy one of the hats, just in part so I won't get sunburned, but really, because I think the hat is going to cover up my wig and make me feel much less self-conscious. So, I put the hat on over my wig, and I take my place on this ocean of folding chairs and the ceremony starts. And it goes on. It goes on and on. By the second hour or so, my head is just baking under my wig and my hat. It feels really more like it's just broiling in there. [audience laughter] And these little rivulets of sweat are coming down from underneath my wig onto my neck, and that makes the wig really itch. And the wig itself is so hot and heavy on my head, it feels like I'm wearing my cat on my head. [audience laughter] 

 

And I feel like my head is suffocating in there. It is just so, so very, very hot under my wig and my hat. And I think, “God almighty, if I could just take off my hat, maybe my wig could just breathe a little.” So, I whip off my hat, and in one of those really free fall, slow motion moments, [audience laughter] one of those moments that is just at the same time like a dream and the realest thing that has ever happened to you, [audience laughter] my wig comes off with my hat. And it is so embarrassing that I can't even be embarrassed, [audience laughter] because embarrassment can't even cover it. [audience laughter] I mean, I've lost everything. My hat, my wig, my hair. And I feel strangely free. [audience chuckle] You know, it seems funny. 

 

And I start to laugh because it's so funny that I've gone to all this trouble only to end up like this. [audience laughter] I feel like I'm in a great Lucy episode. [audience laughter] But I take my wig and my hat and I put them back on my head, really, for decorum's sake. [audience laughter] I feel so bad for the people behind me. I can't even look at them. [audience laughter] And I sit through the rest of the ceremony, and then I go back to New York and I take my wig and I put it in a plastic bag, and then I put it way in the back of one of my dresser drawers so I won't ever have to look at it. And I go back to wearing my scarves and bandanas until my hair grows back in, which it does, by the way.

 

It's just the same old hair, but for the first time, I'm glad to see it. And Ruth's hair grows back, too. And for two years, we have just a lot of fun doing the normal things we like to do, like worrying endlessly about our children and eating the delicious food that she cooks at her house and telling our cancer stories. She really likes my wig story. And I love it when she does this version of something that happens to you a lot when you have cancer, although I really don't know why. And it's when people come up to you and tell you an inspiring story of their aunt or their grandmother who had terrible cancer, and then it went into remission and she went out and got her PhD or she took up parasailing and she had a whole new life.

 

And at the end of these stories, you always ask the people, “How is she doing?” And they always say, “Oh, she died.” [audience laughter] And I say to Ruth, “Do it again, Ruth. Tell the inspiring people's story again.” [audience laughter] We crack each other up with our story stories. And then Ruth's cancer comes back. And after a long time, she dies. And I miss her so much. And in the light of this loss and other losses one of my editors dies, women I meet in various doctors waiting rooms, die. Getting rid of my wig seems so cocky, who am I to say that I'm done with my disease? Who am I to say that there's never going to be an occasion where I might consider wearing that wig again?

 

And then I read one of those very bossy magazine articles about how to declutter your closet [audience laughter] and how you must ask yourself realistically if you are ever, ever going to wear that bridesmaids dress again or that pair of culottes. [audience chuckle] And if you answer no, you have to throw it away. And I think to myself, realistically, realistically I might need chemo drugs again and I might lose my hair again, but I would never, ever wear that stupid wig again. [audience laughter] Better to go back to the stupid scarves, better to let people ask me questions, better to let people look at me like they're about to cry, better to let the other women out there walking around with no hair see that I'm one of them. So, I threw it away.