Golden Lady

I spent this weekend in Lake Tahoe, where the gas is over $6/gallon, and the homes look like they were made to film Hallmark original movies exclusively. I understand that in the busier seasons, it becomes a hard place to navigate for visitors and, of course, the folks who call it home all year. Still, I was lucky to be in a calm season, empty enough for your thoughts to have some space, and thankfully I didn't need to buy gas.  I was there for a meeting, but since I'd never been there (and who knows if I would return), I decided to extend my trip a bit to explore the area and honestly to find more courage to drive back down the mountain alone after having white knuckled up the mountain climbing to an elevation of 7,000 feet and a nerve level of zero. 

Yesterday morning, as I was set to leave, I knew I had to get up and see a sunrise. If sunrises have no fans, I am dead. I don't love getting up early, which is partially why I am childless, but to see the sunrise in its full glory and stunt on everyone, I will awaken with the joy of a parent on the first day of school after Christmas break. It's time to go! So, on my second morning in the area, I woke up and got out the door with just enough time, according to Apple's sunrise timing, to get to my location and see the Sun do its thing. I was alone when I arrived at the beach, which was perfect. A quiet beach is a dream for contemplation, so I was deep in the REM of it all. The Sun was still so low that dusky light illuminated the sand and water. Think of it as an underexposed picture. I set up my tripod to catch the sunrise. I also took a few photos of myself as I tried to learn to play with light while capturing pictures on my phone. About ten minutes later, the Sun began to rise, and as is always true of the Sun, as it hits a cloudless sky, it brings truth to everything. Even your shadows come out to play when the Sun is at its peak; there is no running from its ancient power.

Damn, that quiet beach.

Looking around at everything the SunSun was bringing to life, I felt the urge to share it with my aunts, so I Facetimed them separately. Both remarked on the beauty of what they saw; I wished they could fully experience it as I was. A phone could never do it justice. During both calls, they both made the same comment: "You look just like your momma." One went further: "Wow, look at all that grey hair, right up front like Peaches." Peaches is my mother's nickname, the name most often used to reference her, particularly by her two sisters.

The Sun hides nothing. 

A version of me from not that long ago would have been a bit hurt by my aunt calling out what seemingly, for many women, feels like an insult of nature, a calling out of what is happening internally, a change of life, a loss of youth, of value. I've spent lots of money and time covering my grey, which has been trying to join the party known as my life for a few years now. I have no clue what is happening in the back of my head, but the front is all my business, and that business is maturing rapidly. 

As time would have it, my aunt made her remarks at a time when I grapple daily with what it means for me to age, not what it means for everyone else to watch me age. Life is funny that way: You're all deep and quietly reflective about a thing, believing to have made some internal peace, and boom, here comes your unfiltered family to test your actual feelings.

As it has been for women since the dawn of time, everyone has an opinion about how women age.  By my estimate, it seems most would like you to do it quietly in a cave or with the help of doctors, colorists, and an unyielding desire to fight and stop aging at all costs.

What's a woman to do?

I'm pretty happy with where 44 will meet me in a few months. I've known many people who have been almost irreparably damaged by society and other humans, and this is about the point in life where it all weighs down, burying them in time even though there is still so much life to lead. The "good and grown" women in my life have told me to build self-love and self-understanding for this exact point. Understanding your personal value proposition for yourself is all yours and can't be taken away by a society ready to turn away as you grey into the black. Try as they have, neither society nor any human, dead or alive, has been able to stop me from wanting to boldly go on, not even myself, and I've tried harder than most. So certainly my hair can't be my undoing. 

I ended my calls with my aunts and returned to watching the Sun, all 4.6 billion years of radiance. Just imagine what that much time can do to the spirit. Still, after all that time, the Sun rises unburdened by human bullshit, just old and thriving for the world to see, not a care in the world.

We have a lot to learn from the Sun. 

I never got to watch my mother, Peaches, entirely grey. I saw big specs of white move across her head, but when she left this life at 49, as I noted in last week's essay,  there was still a volume of black locs curling up from her short fro. That is how I will see her for the rest of this life, eternally in the in-between of youth and 4.6 billion years. There was still so much road to cover, and it ended in a flash. There's a photo of her across the room as I write this, her hair in that same style. She began greying as I am now, right up front—a public proclamation of life's ongoing evolution. My aunt saw it, and I see it, too.

I'm never going to know what my mother would have looked like with a head full of grey hair, nor did I get to ask her how those first signs of greying made her feel, but I can ask myself these questions. I can even recall feeling a bit sad for my mother as she greyed. Society teaches us that aging is a curse, off to the cave. Now that I've lived a bit, I can attest that, like the Sun, we bring more life with time. 

This is not a manifesto to "embrace the grey." Do with your life what pleases you. I am a woman from Detroit. My hair changes like sand blowing down a beach. I long for a perfectly executed caramel blonde moment, LONG. The tone is one of acceptance and gratitude for the natural course of this life. I am working on being grateful for where I am now, hair and all. I am also overwhelmingly joyful about the possibility that I will see my mother grey by watching myself, a not exact but close enough replica, live out this life a bit longer than she was granted.

I plan to live the rest of this life like a sunrise, with my rays expanding across water, mountains, and valleys, increasing the capacity of everything I touch, even on my cloudiest days. There will be no cave-dwelling over here. When I look at my mother's hair now, gone is the youthful judgment that fears the unknown. What is left is a deep consideration of what those grey locs represented: care for others, a wealth of lived wisdom, and a boldness that dared anyone to stop her from shining. What the Sun and my momma can't teach me about the value of a big, long life can't be taught. 

Legacy.