Facing Out

I was startled when the woman approached me, hand outstretched, to reintroduce herself. I was certain we had never met, though she somehow knew my name.

Occasionally, rarely I like to think, I am wrong. When she identified herself, I remembered her immediately. I remembered her long, perfectly straightened hair, and I remembered what always appeared to be an air of overconfidence. We had played tennis either together or near each other a few times, and I remember thinking how odd it was that her hair was always down. Other than that, I never paid much attention.

The woman who approached me yesterday had a chic short haircut, the tendrils shiny either from a fresh wash or a touch of product -- it was tough to say. She was strikingly pretty, with high chiseled  cheekbones and a straight nose and a warm smile. Her teeth were ever so slightly imperfect -- almost overlapping a bit, as if an extra one had been crammed in. I knew very little about her, but I had heard that she had been gone from tennis for a while. Breast cancer.

I debated for a nanosecond before I blurted it out. "I love your short hair." Of course I knew it could not have been her choice, this new do, but it was so stunning I couldn't help myself. She didn't seem offended, and didn't feel compelled to tell me why her hair was suddenly short. I marveled to myself at how so much seemed different about her, with her long hair gone. She had never seemed to be particularly friendly, and I had never been drawn to her. Now, I had this overwhelming urge to ask her if she wanted to grab a coffee later.

She admitted she felt unsure about her short hair, how it put her face "out there." Yes, it certainly did, and I could only see that as a good thing. She admitted she was trying to grow it, go back to her long hair that never went into a pony tail, even for tennis. She wondered if anybody had ever noticed that, thought it strange. Yes, actually, I had. She admitted to her vanity; her obsessive need to hide parts of her face, no matter how impractical or uncomfortable. I touched my own sloppy pony tail, suddenly self-conscious about the mismatched clips pinning down my stray hairs, suddenly self-conscious about all that face "out there."

Whether she grows her hair out, post-chemo, or keeps it short, my guess is this woman has changed in more ways than I can imagine. What I had perceived to be an air of overconfidence was, I suppose, vanity, but it strikes me more as under-confidence, a misguided sense that she should not reveal too much. Funny, what an arduous journey can do to someone. The whole episode made me want to shed all my bullshit, maybe even shave my head. Ahh, maybe if I had finely chiseled cheekbones and a straight nose I would.