Breezy Hair

Aging is cruel. I write this at the tender graying age of 24.

In my first year of university, when I was 18, I began finding my first gray hairs on my head, mixed in with all my other hairs. That collection of wiry hair has since had babies and lots of them. I used to extract them, but like Samantha on Sex and the City said, "There'll be six more coming to its funeral."

So I left them there to texturize and add colour to my naturally dark brown hair, a gift from my mother's Scottish roots and my father's Irish ancestory.

Like Samantha, I was shocked and rather appalled when another hair covered region south of my equator started sprouting grays. What to do? Manually brush them? Selectively thin? Apply hairicides? Dye it?

I laughed uncontrollably. I was trying to solve this question using what I knew about invasive species in commercial plantations. As a bush (read: forest) bunny, I am well versed in both the theory and practice of silviculture and sought to tackle my own invasive species in my bush accordingly.

In what would be in violation on any provincial forestry act, I decided to leave them. Not embrace them, but let them be.

Samantha taught me that chemical colouring should not be applied unless the desired outcome is a caution-road-works-sign orange box.