I’m a middle-aged woman who is losing her hair. Yes, I know there’s a global pandemic still raging and the follicular trauma of one individual is such small fry it isn’t even worth frying at all, but I was pretty attached to my hair. Feeling strand upon strand detach from my head and wrap around my fingers as I lather shampoo into my scalp, chasing the disparate hairs before they snake down the drain, has become a part of my daily ablutions.
Our bathroom tiles are enamel-white and provide little distraction from the daily exodus. Recommended products do not work. Soon, I may have the dubious distinction of being a mostly-bald female beer writer—a new minority group to champion if I’m in the mood to laugh at the situation, which isn’t always the case.
My late auntie paid little mind to her diminishing locks. If she cared at all, she never thought to mention it. No secret recipes were ever shared, no advice or commiseration uttered. Having survived a terror-ridden, quarter-century civil war, she was not one to confuse inconvenience with tragedy. Yet I know she would have shown compassion to her Western-raised niece with an overactive sense of vanity. There are many worse things than being a bald woman, than being a bald female beer writer. This I try to remember. And when the handfuls of hair springing from my scalp get to be too much, at least a shower beer works where the shampoo and conditioner fail.
Words + Photoby Ruvani de Silva