Losing It

To be free, to be happy and fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.  -Robert Henri

April Fools Day is generally not a good time to call your mother and tell her you need surgery to remove what might be a tumor on your left ovary.  But four years ago today, that’s exactly what I was doing.  Actually as it turns out, there is no good day for that kind of a phone call, but April Fools seemed especially cruel.  It was an appropriate day however, to set the tone for the weeks and months to come–never quite believable, never quite real, strangely lighthearted.  Like a gag.  Like at at some point a new and better doctor would pop in and say, “Just kidding!”.  Unfortunately, that did not happen.

There are a number of things to talk about when I talk about that time in my life.  A lot of different ways to approach it.  Today I’m going with hair.  First off, when all this went down, I was mid-hair grow out.  I’d recently made a promise to myself that it was gonna get long and I wasn’t allowed to cut it till it did.  But when I found I needed surgery, I went for a haircut.  I didn’t go too short, I just wanted to give myself a little reminder that there might be bigger changes coming soon, so I’d better get used to it.  Also I wanted to look put together for when I had guests in the hospital.  I got a mani-pedi too.  Girls.

The woman cutting my hair asked why I was getting a haircut and for whatever reason, I told her.  She was really sweet.  She said I was going to be alright, she could just tell.  Shortly after the surgery when I found out I had to do chemo, I went for another haircut.  This time I went fairly short, in preparation.  I called all of my friends and threw myself a “Whig Party”.  Then I went in for another haircut, this time a faux hawk.  Since I was dealing with very short hair now, I went to a barber.  I brought a picture of Natalie Portman growing her hair out after V for Vendetta.  I figured I could pull it off.  I sat down and said, “I want a faux hawk.”

“Oh!”, the barber said in a thick Italian accent, “Like Robert Downy Jr!”  He motioned to a picture of Robert Downy Jr. taped to his mirror.
“No…” I said patiently, “Like Natalie Portman.  Like this, see?  A faux hawk.”
“Yes.  Like Robert Downy Jr.”  He looked confused.
“Fine.  Give me the Robert Downy Jr.”

I actually liked the cropped look, but it only lasted a week before I noticed hair coming out.  And I had no desire to go down that super depressing road, so I decided to shave it all.  Actually, I’d always wanted to shave my head, strange as that sounds, just because I was curious how it would look.  Careful what you wish for, eh?  At the time, I was living on a couch at the apartment of 3 very good friends (story for another day).  I went home and told them what I was going to do.  My friend Antoine gifted me a product to help me on my way–a kind of Nair for scalps, I guess?  On the front of the bottle was a smiling bald black man.  Perfect.  This is the look I was going for.

Bald was actually not a bad look for me, and I was not alone in thinking so.  I know people have to say nice things about you when you have cancer,especially if you’re bald, but it’s NYC, so the majority of strangers just assumed I was being a New Yorker.  And I’ve never received so many compliments from total strangers on any other look.  It was the only time in my life I’ve been approached on the street by a fashion designer looking for models.  He said, “Oh, I love what you’ve done to your hair!  Why you cut it so short?!” (“Well sir…”).  Another day, I was walking down the street in my neighborhood when a man passing me said, “Ooh!  I like that.”  A man driving by on the other side responded to the man on the street, “Yeah!  We all like that!” and kept driving.

One evening, I was trying to get into a bar for a friend’s going away party.  The bouncer took one look at my ID and one look at me and accused me of using a fake, barring my entry.  “I have cancer”, I said.  “Yeah ok, sure you do.” We went back and forth for a while, but eventually he let me in, even though I could tell he still didn’t believe me.  Inside, I got angry and decided to guilt him on my way out for being such a jerk.  So, as I was leaving the bar, I pulled my shirt up, exposing my sutures.  “See?  Still don’t believe me?”  Weeeell it turns out his brother was fighting leukemia.  I’d gone outside to let him have it, but we ended up bonding instead.  Sigh.  Of course, not everyone thought it was so great.  There was one (I like to believe) crazy fellow on the sidewalk who stopped in his tracks, pointed, and yelled, “Alien!  Alien!  Alien!” until I was out of sight.  That was nice too.

Well as usual, I started writing and now I’ve gone on an on about something I didn’t even mean to write about.  I intended to talk about cutting my hairafter it grew back, but then I did this instead and if I keep going it’s going to be too long.  There will be more on hair (the thrilling conclusion) next week.  I think the moral of this portion of the story is that you have to make life work for you, although I’m not sure that’s clear in what I’ve written here.  Mostly because I didn’t mean to write it.  Here:  When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  When life hands you bald, wear hoop earrings.