May 1st, 2009

Even my husband, who most say is the star of my book Silver Platter Girl, agrees that it is far more difficult and complex to be a woman than a man.  He said so just this morning.  That makes it easier to bear the burden of our complexities, knowing that he knows that it is so.  I don't have to fight to prove it every day in my own home, or feel the agitation that comes with a constant sense of knowing that someone close to you is never going to admit something you desperately need that person to admit.  No, it is important that I never get my husband mixed up with my father in that regard.  My husband gets everything and I live in the warm light of that security and confidence. 

We are in discussions with a lovely woman in Orange County, California who owns a beauty salon.  She is interested in the book and is contemplating our offer to have her operators read the book and get together to discuss it.  If they feel it is valuable, they would then discuss it with their clients while cutting hair, or coloring, or perming.  This gets women talking about things they may not otherwise feel they can talk about and the purpose of my book begins to realize itself.   So I was having my hair trimmed yesterday and talking to my stylist, the owner of the salon, about this idea.  In walks a beauty product rep and begins telling her about some events planned to introduce salon owners to new products.  Before she left, she plopped down a sample packet of something called "Trauma Treatment".  I found this absolutely fascinating.  Apparently the concept is that we do all sorts of traumatic things to our hair including the coloring and perming mentioned above.  This relentless pursuit of beautiful hair causes damage and trauma to the hair.  Women, and salon owners, recognize that the trauma must be treated or, God forbid, the secrecy of the damaging treatments may be exposed.  Why else would you have brittle hair, split ends and roots sprouting everywhere if you weren't causing trauma to your hair by chemically changing it somehow?   No, that kind of trauma needs treatment. 

Surely you see where this is going.  If we are that protective about our hair and its care, and are willing to spend a lot of money to insure its health and beauty, then shouldn't we also be at least equally protective about other kinds of trauma as well?   If we have been traumatized as a child, or in an adult relationship, or even by a stranger, shouldn't we use all our resources to heal from that so we can be healthy and beautiful inside?  Isn't that every bit as important as controlling the color and wave in our hair?   Obviously it isn't as easy as buying that tube of Trauma Treatment by L'Anza, and it surely isn't as pretty as that option, but I will go out on a limb and say that the benefits of treating your internal trauma are far more profound than what L'Anza has to offer.  In fact, I will go further and say that you will enjoy your beautiful head of hair even more once your internal life is just as beautiful.

I was lucky enough to witness a focus group of women who had read Silver Platter Girl last week.  So many things stand out in my mind from that wonderful experience, including an instant bond between all of us who barely knew eachother in some cases.  But one comment resonates even today.  A woman said that I had written in the book about things that each of them had thought about, done, wished they could do, or planned to do but could not really speak about.  By reading the detailed and very intimate account of those things in the book, it was almost as if they had spoken about it themselves.   And they felt that perhaps they had received the same benefits.  There are many ways to treat our traumas, big and small.  The reason I wrote Silver Platter Girl is to start the process, figure out where it hurts, and how to make it feel better.  A little healing at a time leads up to a lot of healing. 

So the next time you make an appointment at your favorite salon, to either do a little more damage to your hair, or repair damage already done, remember to take equal care with yourself.  All other parts of you, whether it be your emotional life, your annual exam, or the way you choose to live your life by empowered decision making.  As for me, having lost every bit of my hair more than once during my cancer treatment, I promised that however my hair came back, I would be satisfied and would accept it just as it was.  So far I have done that, not even coloring the small amount of grey that is appearing on my hairline.  If I do decide to color it, I will choose the gentlest product and treat the trauma as well. 

SPG