BALD

Bald.
The word has weight. It makes strong men shudder. It causes normally sensible people to change their behavior as their emotions and vanity get the best of them. It instills fear: fear of rejection, humiliation, prejudice, embarrassment.

I once had a lot of very thick, nearly black hair. My sister, suffering with fine hair that wouldn’t hold it’s shape, told me many decades ago that she wished that she had my hair. I had the kind of hair that would hold any shape it twisted into if I went to bed with a wet head.

I never thought I would go bald. My brother went into that Other Realm long before I did and for some reason I felt safe. The “thing” had not infected me.

Then I turned forty. Above my forehead the hairline began to look uneven and slightly thin in spots. I was too busy trying to survive to give it much thought.
But gradually, almost imperceptibly, that thinness spread towards the crown of my big head. I began to notice that when I spoke to people sometimes they would keep glancing at that area of empty scalp.

Finally, in 2001, I published a “how-to” book on mural painting, and when I saw the rear of my head in the step-by-step photographs, it really hit home how bald I was getting.

The upside to all of this narcissism is that it has never bothered me too much. Worrying about such things seems to me like worrying that I only have two arms, when four would be so much handier.

I refuse - however - to shave the remaining hair on my head to a nub (the current rage) in order to hide or diffuse the fact that I am.................................Bald.