Hair.

Ever since my hair grew back from the chemo baldness, it's soft and dark, a newness not yet turned coarse by sun and wind and life. I often run my fingers through it and ponder how the barren landscape of my scalp has so quickly been cloaked by hair again. Hair must be nothing but a common weed to grow so unabashedly. Like gardeners battling bindweed, we pluck it from our eyebrows, from the earlobes of our 52 year old spouses, from our upper lips and chins. There is something obscenely old about a hair sprouting from body parts that never saw hair before. But I am thankful for it. There is something even more obscene about looking at yourself in a mirror and not finding one hair on your naked body. You don't know how much you love your hair until it's not there. The picture of Jacob and I was taken in August just a couple of weeks after my last chemo treatment.

The bright side. My daughter put water based tattoos of roses on my scalp. I never had to shave my armpits or legs or worry about errant hairs while in a swimsuit. I pretended to be a Trill. I wore scarves and hats and got ready to go anywhere in under 10 minutes. People stopped me in Park City when it was only a quarter inch long all over and complemented my fashion sense and radical hairdo. I really can't decide if life is better with it or without. Hair.

This second picture was taken towards the end of October 2005. Only about 8 weeks after the bald me. And I even have eyebrows and eyelashes again. The human body is amazingly resilient. And I did too look like Uncle Fester.