Alan and I have been living on different continents for much of the past four months. As a result, he’s viewing me with fresh eyes. At least, I’d like to think that’s what prompted him – completely unprompted – to ask this weekend,”Wow. How dark is your hair naturally?”
I looked at him steadily, and in the pause that allowed me to formulate my thoughts, he continued, “I mean. I’m confused. I’m not seeing the amount of silvers that I usually do, so you must’ve dyed it recently, but the roots are still really dark. Almost brown. How do you do that?”
Admittedly, I find it endearing that he doesn’t realize how most women would take this. (Flashback to when he compared me to a calico cat because I had swirls of blond, brown and gray hair.) And I’m under no illusion that I have great hair or even well-colored hair.
The truth is, I don’t know what my natural color is. I was blond as a child and started swimming in middle school, so my hair has had some degree of chemical treatment since I was 11. Since I now have a ridiculous number of grays on my head (random guess would point to 25%), I color my hair to help them blend in, rather than to chase some fantasy of being blond.
In any case, Alan’s fascination with my hair led me to explain that I couldn’t exactly define “natural,” but I was pretty sure it wasn’t actually blond. He seemed satisfied with that explanation, so we hopped a bus to meet friends in Georgetown for a mid-hurricane brunch.
