Embracing the Scathed...

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast interview* with Mona Eltahawy. Three minutes in, when describing her short, grey buzzcut, she said, 

'...I had fire red hair for eight years and I thought I don't want to emerge from this pandemic looking just like I always did, as if there's a - quote unquote - 'going back to normal'. Because there is no normal. Fuck normal... I want to come out looking scathed. Because we all have to be scathed because that's the only way that we can dismantle the fuckery of the normal that bought us to this awful stage in our history.'

Blonde and grey
hybrid at the front.

I was driving so couldn't clap or whoop, but I got it. I was the woman who coped with the restrictions of March 2020 by bleaching the front part of my hair. It made sense at the time. There was nothing to look good - or even sane - for. It was the time to be a reckless risk taker. If my hair fell out or turned green, it wouldn't matter a jot. To emerge from COVID looking like the boxed-dye brunette I'd been for approximately a decade before that, felt a backwards step. The world was different. I was different. I should reflect that in some tangible way.

An unintentional
 negative.

But fast-forward to last Thursday and for the first time in fifteen months, I found myself slapping on a box of gunk and returning to type. Yep, brunette Bond was back. The reasons why are fairly dull. Mainly because it was going to be a really long time before the bleach grew out, and I have a wedding to attend next week. I could fully commit to more bleach or cover the whole lot brown. Needs must. I opened that box of Dark Brown Garnier Nutrisse and slathered it on my head. And now I feel like a fraud.

It looks fine, so that's good. But it also - according to people who've seen me in the flesh - makes me look younger, and thinner. Let's LOL at this together, because I am neither of those things. Older, bigger, perhaps even wiser. And definitely scathed. Not in an irreparable, catastrophic way, but still different from the March 2020 version of me. It would be weird if I wasn't. And yet I dyed my hair back, to match the before times. Strange, huh.

One day, I will also get an
undercut. FYI.

So what? Who cares? Get over yourself! Yeah, all of the above. I'm not crying in a corner because my insides feel different from the way my hair looks. All I'm saying is the world has changed, whether we like it or not. And I get full-on joy when I see how other people are emerging from lockdown in fresh new ways. Dawn French shared her lighter brown hair on Twitter and revealed an undercut. It rocks. Sali Hughes wrote recently about dyeing her hair grey to hasten the process that had already started. It looks amazing. It makes sense for people's outward appearance to reflect change. The fact that it's society as a whole that has changed, doesn't alter that fact.

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In Assembling the Wingpeople (pre-order here) the characters are going through some stuff. Tilda is dealing with the end of her marriage. Bea's menopause is causing her to question every choice she makes, and Stewart is bereaved and struggling. If the lessons of the pandemic had been clear to me before writing, I imagine I'd have made more of the physical changes that their situations would have brought. I think I mention Stewart letting his beard grow straggly. And at one point, Bea changes her entire wardrobe, albeit for reasons other than trauma. Either way, it's something to remember for the next book.

Hey there!

I'll get used to my old new-brown hair. But even with that backward step, I've got the wider changes of society to remind me and reflect what's gone on. My mask is now a handbag staple. I find outdoor venues preferable even when there's a stiff breeze (although hayfever needs to do one) and I can't remember a time when I didn't sanitise my hands as I entered a shop. Even Marksies, with its strong floral hand-gel that gets on my throat. (In the future, I'll smell lavender and immediately crave a hand crafted, hog roasted, sausage roll.) I imagine those features of pandemic life will continue for some time. Seasonally at the very least. Tangible reminders that things are different now. We've seen some shit. We've come through a historic event. We've emerged, scathed. We all have to be scathed. But how lucky we are that we get to be. Scathed, that is. We've come through it, we're getting back out there, we've got friends, and family, and lives to live. Hair colour doesn't really matter when you look at it like that.

Have a lovely week, folks.

*The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker.

Episode broadcast 18/5/21

About half an hour after writing this whole thing and walking away, making a cup of tea, and thinking about a load of other stuff, it's just hit me. Embracing the Scathed would have been the perfect title for Assembling the Wingpeople. FFS.