My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman (21 page)

Daughter Francesca has a theory about ordering in a restaurant, which is to have the meal the way it’s offered on the menu. She believes that the chef knows what he’s doing, even if we don’t, and all the dishes in the meal work together, so we shouldn’t mess with what we don’t understand. For example, if the salmon is served with lentils, she’s not a fan of substituting rice.

Which brings me to my hair.

Because the same reasoning might apply.

Maybe I should’ve stuck with lentils.

In other words, what if the big chef in the sky made the choice of which color hair goes with my eyes and skin, and I was wrong to start tampering?

Because, bless me, Father, I have tampered like crazy.

I began life with light brown hair that I started highlighting when I was twenty. I used to go with starter blond, which turned out to be a gateway drug, and soon I embarked upon my quest to find the perfect blond. I kept changing the shade visit after visit, trying to find the one that was just right.

I was like Goldilocks, about my goldilocks.

I went through butterscotch to caramel and other delicious hues, then tried the array of shades that matched the sun at different times of day, from dawn to dusk, like a human sundial.

Bottom line, if it’s yellow, it’s been applied to my head.

I’ve been lightening lightened hair for so long that no one knows what my real color is, not even my hair. And lately it’s starting to look a little strange. Maybe it’s not the best thing to drown your hair with God-knows-what chemicals for several decades?

Not to mention that I’m also going gray, a fact foretold by the few strands I see catching the sunlight, glinting like a shiny chrome fender. Don’t get me wrong, I love the chic look of a headful of silvery hair, but I’m not there yet, and the strands sprouting in front of my ears make me look like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Would that make Frankenstein Thing Three?

Anyway, so now when we highlight my hair, we have to account for the gray sections. Plus the outermost sections, dyed sun-drenched blond in the summer of 2008. Also the lowlights underneath, a tawny hue from October 2007. And don’t forget the cool ash color I tried in the spring of 2009. All the seasons of my life are laid out in lemony stripes. Sometimes I catch sight of some of my hair, lying on my shoulder, and I don’t recognize it as mine.

I don’t even recognize it as human.

Of course, I’ve talked this over with my haircolorist Carol, whom I’ve been going to for a long time. I want to make clear that none of these crazy ideas were hers. She always advises me against my wackiness, and I have yet to listen. She’s an expert at hair color, in addition to life, and she’s my girlfriend, therapist, and confessor.

No relationship is closer than haircolorist and fake blonde.

Everyone I know who highlights her hair, and that is everyone I know, tells their haircolorist everything. Carol has gotten me through marriages, book deals, blind dates, doggie deaths, and new puppies. She listens to me whine in my quest for the perfect blond, and at my request, she tweaks the secret formula every visit.

But lately I’m wondering if Francesca’s right.

I didn’t listen to the chef in the sky.

So maybe it’s time to start listening to Chef Carol.

Did you ever lose something that you really cared about?

I’m not speaking figuratively, about losing your innocence, or about something important, like losing someone you love. I mean an object, maybe even a small and dumb object, that you lost and really want back.

Like a blue fleece hat.

Which you owned for decades and fit you perfectly and even jingled when you walked.

Yes, I lost my all-time favorite hat. It was soft and perfect, even if it looked funny, which was the point. It was shaped like a court jester hat, with three floppy flaps coming out of the top and a bell on each end. Two of its three bells had fallen off but it was doing fine with the one. It had been washed 384 times but never pilled or lost its bold cobalt color, like a blue M&M for the head.

In short, it was a great hat, and I owned it for twenty-two years.

Tell you how I lost it.

I was walking the dogs, and it was cold enough to wear the hat. Then I got warm, took it off, and stuffed it in my coat pocket. But when I got home, I realized it had fallen out.

At first I thought, no problem. I was sure it would still be on the road where I’d dropped it. I walk around the same block every day, around really pretty farms. The walk is two miles long, and it takes an hour, or one gabby cell phone call. Where I walk, there are only rarely cars. If I see four cars in an hour, that’s a lot.

So I hurried back, retracing my steps and dragging the dogs, who whined the whole time because they’re big Drama Queens, especially the corgi.

But my hat wasn’t on the road anywhere. Or at the curb or in the brush. Only ten minutes later, it was gone.

Noooooo!

Then, there, in the middle of the road with the dogs panting, I flashed on an odd thing that had happened during the walk, earlier that day. A pickup truck had gone past me with two men in the front seat, and the driver was laughing at the passenger, whom I couldn’t see. At the time, I’d actually thought, isn’t it nice that people are having fun?

Little did I know what they were laughing at.

My hat.

They took my hat! The passenger must have seen it on the road and picked it up, instantly realizing its perfection, as anyone would. And he must have put it on, making the driver laugh, the two of them unable to believe their great good fortune in finding the Hat of the Century.

Of course, later I drove around the block in the car, calling into the wind.

No hat.

I checked for it every time I walked. No hat. I couldn’t believe my hat was gone for good. I kept expecting it to turn up. I had entered the first stage of grief.

Denial.

Then I said to myself, you lost your hat, so replace it. But I searched every store and online, and nobody makes it anymore.

Time went by, seasons changed, and I tried to get over it. I thought, you’re an adult, so you shouldn’t care so much about a dumb hat with only one bell. In fact, find the lesson in it. Learn to let go of hats you love. Get some perspective. I even told myself that the hat, which was magical, made me happy, and now it’s making other people happy.

Even if they are BAD people who KEEP THINGS THAT DON’T BELONG TO THEM, which should be a major felony!

The second stage of grief is anger, and boy, was I angry.

The third stage is bargaining, and I couldn’t find anyone to bargain with. I suspect that God and Eastern Mountain Sports may have bigger concerns.

The fourth stage is depression but that’s no fun at all, so I turned to books for guidance.

According to
Bartlett’s Quotations,
a guy named Herodotus said, “Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.”

Herodotus misses the point. I have friends, but I still want my hat. A friend can’t keep your head warm.

I read a lot of other philosophers, who insist that possessions don’t matter and the material world falls away and blah blah blah. None of them persuaded me. What a bunch of goody-goodies. Didn’t they ever lose anything?

Or more accurately, didn’t they ever have something TAKEN FROM THEM by MEAN PEOPLE driving around the block?

The final stage is acceptance, but I’m stuck in anger.

And I’m staying here until I get my hat back.

I’m a big fan of men. In fact, I’m a major man fan.

But I have a problem, as a woman writer. I’ve had men tell me they love my books, but they feel funny carrying them around because they have women on the cover.

Or women’s legs.

It’s time to clear this up. True, the main characters in my books are women, but that’s just because I write what I know. It doesn’t mean that the books are only for women.

The bottom line for you, dear reader, is that you can just sit back and relax with your reproductive organs, whichever they may be. In fact, more than half of the people who read my books are men.

Smart, cool, handsome, sexy men.

I’m positive that the same is true of the men who read this book. In fact, I can smell the testosterone, welcoming as morning coffee. You’re smart, cool, handsome, and incredibly sexy.

Confident enough to know that reading a book by a woman doesn’t compromise your masculinity.

Open-minded enough to defect from the biographies and history books on occasion.

Spontaneous enough to appreciate a chuckle now and then.

Real men read me.

Let me tell you a story, to illustrate my point: A few years ago, I found myself in a newsstand at the Atlanta airport while I was on book tour, and I happened to see a man pick up my new book from the rack to decide whether to buy it. I hid behind the candy counter and watched him, waiting to see what his decision would be. Some people might call this stalking, but they don’t have my mortgage.

This is what happened: He looked at the cover of my book. He read the inside flap copy about the plot. He skimmed a few pages. He even checked out my author photo on the back. And then he made his decision. He returned the book to the rack.

NOOOOOO! I screamed in my head. I’M REJECTED! I’M A LOSER! AND I PAID TWO HUNDRED BUCKS TO PHOTOSHOP THAT PICTURE!

Then I calmed down.

I thought to myself, What did I do wrong?

There was only one way to find out. So I bought a copy of my own book and brought it to the man in the store.

I said to him: “Excuse me, sir, but I noticed you were looking at this book for a long time. I’m the author and I’d like you to have it, as my gift.”

“
You’re
the author?” he asked, in disbelief. (I could read between the lines. What he really wanted to say was,
you’re
the broad on the back of the book? How can that be? You look nothing like her! And what’s up with your roots? Have you been incarcerated?)

“Honestly, I am the author.” I signed the book and handed it to him. “But I do have a question. I’m wondering why you didn’t buy the book. Would you mind telling me?”

“Okay,” he answered. “I didn’t buy it because I never buy books by women authors.”

Ouch.
“Well, I hope you give me a chance and read it. And if you do, please drop me an email and let me know what you think.”

Three days later, the man sent me an email, which read: “I really liked your book. You write like a man.”

I took it as a compliment.

But in my view, although there are differences between men and women, I’m not sure anybody writes like a man or like a woman. And by the same token, women will like writing by men, and men will like writing by women. I suspect this has to do with the fact that we’re sentient human beings. I write for a sensibility, not a gender, and if you like this book, you share that sensibility.

So welcome, gentlemen, and do come again.

If you’re man enough.