April 13, 2007
Friday
 “. . . only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”
                      — William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939
                          Irish poet and playwright,
                          “For Anne Gregory”
My piece posted on Wednesday, although not my most widely-read ever, has triggered more comment, both public and in personal e-mails and a few phone calls, than anything else I have ever written. People I haven’t heard from in years (and who knew they were reading?) as well as people I’ll probably never meet (because they live in Canada or Ireland or Baghdad — yes, I have a reader in Baghdad!) have written or called to say I look terrific (thank you!) and to ask the brand name of the magic hair goo that seems to be the secret of the look (Rusk Radical Thickening and Texturizing Creme). The salon is Snippers in Rohrerstown, 717-295-1770, forty miles southeast of Harrisburg, three miles west of Lancaster, a tad far if you’re in Baghdad, but certainly worth the trip for me.
When I posted my Easter Sunday piece, I told my notify list that it would be the last (for a while) of my introspective, mystical, soul-searching spiritual life essays. I outlined the prospects for the coming week: observations on a wealthy matron’s “gift-with-strings” of $15 million to a school district, comments on Parade magazine’s assumption of why Reese Witherspoon looks nice these days, and an explanation of why I am driving forty miles to have my hair cut. I expected the work to be light, playful, heavier on the observation and lighter on the inspiration.
What I did not expect was that talking about my hair and about Reese Witherspoon (whose yellow hair is gorgeous, let me tell you!) would feed into a current national debate about what kinds of comments about individuals’ appearance and character are suitable to make publicly.
My observation about Reese Witherspoon was triggered by a Q&A snippet in Walter Scott’s “Personality Parade,” a column dedicated to answering questions about celebrities (why is Gwyneth Paltrow backtracking on her anti-US remarks, why did John Travolta give Oprah Winfrey a car, why is a Grey’s Anatomy character named after a Dick Van Dyke character). Someone wanted to know the secret to Reese Witherspoon’s fabulous new look.
The answer? “Reese, 31, went on a diet no doubt designed to remind her ex, Ryan Phillippe, of what he’s missing.”
Oh puh-leeze! I really don’t know why this couple broke up — rumors abound about a dalliance by Phillippe with an actress whom I had never heard of before looking into this matter and whose work I have never seen. But I think it’s silly to assume that a woman of Witherspoon’s formidable intellect (she went to Stanford) and talent needs to change (read: “improve”) her appearance to remind someone of what he’s lost in not appreciating her. Nor do I think that Phillippe entered into an extra-marital relationship because his wife’s looks no longer pleased him (although he could be that shallow — I’ve never actually seen his work, either, and would never have heard of him if he weren’t married to Reese Witherspoon). Actually, I’ve not put any thought into why Phillippe might have done what he has done. It simply doesn’t interest me.
What does interest me, however, is the way people make assumptions about others based on one piece of information they might have, be that information about what the person looks like, or where they went to school, or where they go to church. I’ve been judged, negatively in some instances and positively in others, on all of those things. I’ve had people make assumptions about Lynn based on what they know about me. (“English class must be easy for her because of you.” “She’s a scientist and not a writer? You must be so disappointed.” That person I never spoke to again, because she is apparently incapable of understanding anything about me or Lynn.)
The epigraph I used to begin this piece is from the canon of a poet whose work I love and whom I quote frequently. I’m a Yeats aficionado but not a Yeats scholar, so I don’t know the larger context of the poem. I know only that it is addressed to the granddaughter of Augusta, Lady Gregory, whom Yeats knew as an intellectual touchstone (and whose early work was ripped off by a lover and published under his own name). Why Yeats should conclude that young Anne Gregory will never be loved for anything but her yellow hair is a mystery to me. Maybe the speaker in the poem is not Yeats himself, but a persona, a “supposed person.”
I am probably inordinately sensitive to comments about appearance, having grown up believing I had not a pleasing one and that therefore I had to be grateful if people liked me in spite of it. And I am not going to add to the noise about the judgments a now-has-been broadcaster made about some strong young women student-athletes whom he had never met and about whom he knew nothing apart from their appearance and their performance on the basketball court. Of all the people who have written or commented on my “I love my hair now” piece, not one has said, “you look better” (better than what? I’d want to know) or “your hair’s improved — lose some weight and I’ll be right over.”
Everyone wants to be complimented, and I am no different. Despite this rant, I have taken delight in the deluge of comment that has swept into my in-box since I raved about my new hair and posted a picture of it. But I am confident that the people who matter to me, some of whom have read and commented upon this work, love me for myself alone and not my yellow hair.