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Going Gray in Tinseltown: The Anti-Choice Mandy May Cheetham Apr 16   Month Three Sil-ver Sis-ter / ˈsilvər ˈsistər / noun A precious shiny woman in relation to other precious, shiny women who has been mined from a pit of darkness and called to shine her light upon the world. She has walked through the fire and harnessed the energy of the cosmos as evidenced by her flickering hair. Those who are privileged enough to look upon her with an open heart shall be forever changed, and those who look upon her with judgement shall be forever blinded by her light. A group of precious shiny women with open hearts whose magic may only be seen by those who believe. Last week I attended my first Silver Sisters meetup. It was at a restaurant in the valley that served rubbery, over-buttered eggs and was filled with screaming children. A good first step in my public going gray process since no one of any Hollywood stature was likely to be there. I was nervous to go, but not for the reason I expected to be. I realized on my way there, 20 minutes late, that I was delaying because I felt like going would be an admission of sorts. An admission that I was one of them — that I had joined some club that I hadn’t willfully wanted to be a part of — that nature had thrown me into without my permission, and that, despite the fact that I was protesting on instagram that this transformation is a radical act of self love, and a political one at that, the truth is, it is a group I have joined because I simply couldn’t hack the stamina required to remain a part of the other group — the one that was causing nerve damage to my scalp and rotting the skin off my head. It wasn’t a choice I made to champion being a natural woman, it was a choice I made away from the alternative. So why would this anti-choice be something I would want to celebrate? One of the most incredible parts of this journey for me has been the shock and awe of watching myself dive from one extreme to the next — literally feeling like a sex-pot superhero one day and the next feeling like a frumpy grandmother in slide-on cardboard slippers holding a broom and twirling my braidable chin hair. Sometimes I feel like I’m at war with myself, and am deeply concerned that this is not a radical act of self love, but a radical act of self sabotage — a way to bow out of my career as an actress with a giant plate of fuck-you-to-the-man, and a side of it’s-all-the-industry’s-fault on the way down. Needless to say I’ve been feeling a little conflicted. I would have bailed on the breakfast — especially since it was at 10AM… on a Sunday …in the valley — I don’t need to tell anyone who lives in LA why all of those things are problematic, but I was curious to meet Karen, one of the women running the Silver Sisters 2020 conference, and Katie, a woman with a popular blog and amazon site for silver sister products. I have a background in running events and am very excited to help Karen and her partner Marina run the 2020 conference. At least I was until I got to this brunch. I scurried down the street toward the restaurant feeling very self conscious for being late and acutely aware that I would be joining a tableful of women whom everyone in the restaurant would know were there together because of the collective head-glare. I tried to imagine we were like a group of people who like to wear stuffed animal outfits out in public and pretend it’s no big deal cause we are all there together, and just sit and laugh amongst ourselves. Yet it was still a big deal, and even more so because we were all there together. Glaringly. I cringed when I walked past the window and all these women whom I don’t know saw me and waved — they knew it was me cause my gray hair is that obvious now, and there’s no other reason why a gray haired woman would be out in public in daylight so I must be with them. A sign to me that I’m not flying under the radar anymore. I actually walked by another woman who was feeding her meter on the street who was fully gray and I thought of saying hello, but I am ashamed to admit that IGNORED her. I hate when people do that! Like, I know we are going to the same place, soooo are you going to pretend-you-don’t-see-me until we get in there and then give me a smiley face and a nice-to-meet-you and an ‘oh, did we pass each other in the parking lot?’ kind of shit. I did that. She was quite a few years older than me, and, how do I say this without sounding like an arsehole, not dressed very cool. Now I’m aware that this is some Hollywood garbage, but I’m just going to admit this — I was embarrassed to be seen with the table of gray haired ladies. I never felt this way about grey haired ladies before, and I would have felt so privileged to have been sitting at that table four months ago with my formerly dyed-red hair, but now I felt like I had crossed over into Northern Reflections territory (see below). Like I was admitting that I had given up on my fashion and style and am now actually admitting that I am old.   (No one was dressed like this. My ego and I were in an alternate Universe.) I’m admitting to this so I can stop feeling this way. I am making this admission because I feel I need to face my own judgements about women, aging and gray hair in order to make peace with how I am judging myself. It is a slippery slope if I start to try to distinguish myself from other women by COMPARING myself to them. (As Karen keeps reminding me ‘comparison is the thief of joy.’) If I am the one at the table with the youngest looking face today that does not make me superior because I’m more fuckable to the waiter (who I think was into men anyway). And Lord knows I won’t have the youngest face forever! So I walked through the front door of the restaurant and passed by two non-gray women in their 50s who were having brunch and I experienced what was my so-far second middle-aged-rage death stare scenario. No other way to really describe it beyond pure, open-mouthed disgust. Like, why-are-YOU-gray? You’re too young, and why are you disturbing my brunch by letting it hang out like that!? There’s this weird resentment I feel from some older women, even those within the budding #sliversister community, who maybe regret not going gray when they were younger because they could have dealt with the signs of aging one bit at a time ?— hair first, then face? I certainly didn’t plan to go gray now so I could have the ‘face advantage’. It’s so exhausting to be now transfering my old neurosis about comparing myself to other women who aren’t grey with a new one of being compared to other women who are — so, even if I can’t control the comparisons coming at me from other women, I can, and will try to stop it in myself, and that’s why I am talking about it publically now. I always felt like I would dye my hair until my 50s or 60s. I’m not even sure I was cognisant of why — just as I believed as a younger woman that I wouldn’t dye my hair until I had to, which happened at 30, and that I wouldn’t stop dying until I was at a socially acceptable age to stop — which clearly is not my age now based on the death stares at brunch. Man, I haven’t heard that term in a long time. Socially acceptable. It used to be socially acceptable to say socially acceptable. I’m not sure it is anymore. Socially acceptable seems like a scary thing these days, what with the social media monster lurking like an angry mob waiting to demolish and publicly shame anyone who dare go against what the people with the blue checks beside their names want. I am digressing. Let’s get back to my discomfort at this powerful meeting of the minds at the restaurant with the rubbery eggs. I’m not sure what I expected when I sat down. A table full of deep-breathing power-goddesses all calling forth the natural elements and shining our light to help be the change we want to see in the valley, but, instead, it was a table full of open, sensitive women talking about hair care products and sharing candidly about divorce, dry hair and career changes. Life; happening. The Silver Sister group is such an incredible cross-section of humanity, and we are all doing this for different reasons. I realized I had been idealizing these women and their processes. Watching everyone go gray on instagram with their empowering and supportive statements and emojis made me think they all knew something I didn’t. Because from looking at them you think that they have fully transitioned from slimy caterpillars and are butterflies now and have thrown off the cocoon of aging fears with it. Not so caterpillar. That became apparent to me yesterday when I was in the locker room at the Athletic Club where I am a member. I saw a woman with beautiful fully grown-out, soft gray hair and I went galloping toward her (in a towel and flip flops) and said; ‘It’s like I am the caterpillar and you are the butterfly!” She looked at me dumbfounded. Bathing suit in hand — clearly about to strip down. I pointed at my hairline aggressively. ‘I’m growing out my hair!’ She kindly refrained from changing so we weren’t both standing there emotionally and physically naked. She looked embarrassed that I had noticed. I understand that embarrassment. I felt it myself at that brunch, and had seen it on the faces of the women who were part of the catalyst for my decision — a director I worked with in my early acting days, and an actress friend in Toronto that I saw over Christmas. They all sort of slough it off like it’s no big deal — like they just did it because they were allergic, or because of a role, or because they just didn’t want their lives to be about how the looked anymore, which I sensed to be the case with this woman too, but, yet, here we were talking about how how we look. They don’t always want to talk about it because they didn’t do it in order to talk about it — mostly they did it to get away from the dye, not to go toward the gray. I get it. I wish I could walk around and just feel normal, it seems to be mostly moments of extreme feelings, and since the aforementioned rock star moments are less frequent lately, I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to that normal feeling stage at all. As it seems as though this lovely woman is not there either yet. And I was making it worse for this her by fan-girling about it in the locker room in a towel and flip flops. To cover the awkwardness she launched into slightly-off-topic, but totally relevant story about how she and her husband were riding their bikes in Venice and someone had yelled at them out the window of a car… ‘Wow, two old people riding their bikes, that’s so West-side,’ and how she and her husband had felt strange being referred to as old and I imagined how she may have felt responsible for him being called old because she had gray hair too. Like, if he has gray hair and she dyes then they still aren’t old somehow, but as soon as she goes grey she’s ruined it for the both of them. It made me think of those old Clairol ads — ‘Your husband will love it too. It’ll make him feel younger just to look at you.’ Such fing garbage. No one would have yelled at a gray haired guy and called him old — why bother? He’s not threatening the fabric of society by going gray — he’s just allowed to follow the natural course of his life. I guess we can add gray-privilege to a man’s list of advantages. Goodie. So, back to the brunch. I felt a bit depressed afterward (getting dumped didn’t help, but that’s another blog, grrr). I was surprised by the lingering sadness after this supposed to be empowering meetup. Then today, when Karen came over to sit for an interview for my Going Gray in Tinseltown podcast I admitted to her that I had felt embarrassed at the brunch, not empowered as I had expected, and I was worried that women may not want to come to the conference because they wouldn’t want to be seen with us. I’d like to say it had something to do with the dirty looks I got when I went into the restaurant, but it wasn’t that — it was building up in me way before that went down. I take for granted that I have lived the life of a privileged hot chick, and that, if I turn heads in a restaurant, it’s because I’m with a bunch of other hot chicks. Man, I HAVE SO MANY HANG-UPS ABOUT AGING! My ego was having a freakin field day thinking that hanging out with women just because they have gray hair is like being invited into a club that I didn’t want to join, and there’s no barrier to entry; oh, save one: These women have walked through the f-ing fire of being a gray haired lady in a world that is ageist, antagonistic, dismissive, rude, prejudiced and downright aggressive toward women who decide to let their grey hair live free. It is a sacred decision each woman makes to go gray and I respect it. I am grateful to have been in the presence of these women and I hope they will invite me back so we can heal this shit together and maybe share a makeup and clothing tip or two along the way. I went to a stand-up comedy show tonight that was an all female lineup. At the show there was an ‘older’ woman with fully white hair. She gave me that knowing look — the one that Harley Davidson drivers give to each other when they pass on the highway — like I was part of the club. I gave her a shaky smile back. She was there supporting one of her still-dyeing friends who was doing stand-up for the first time at 50 (HELL YES!) — the one who got up and made jokes about getting Botox and fillers. When the grey lady stood next to her friend after her set- she looked older than her in my mind (my projection and my issue, not hers), and also, now that I think about it, more at ease. I was not conscious of that ease at the time and instead felt embarrassed for her and realized that I will soon be the woman in my friend group who looks older than everyone else. Will this preclude me from being invited to be the wing-woman when my girlfriends want to go to Coachella? Because if I look old, and they are trying to pick up, I will be the ultimate cock-block — and the eyes of the hot guys that are already glazed over will just pass right on by the group of old ladies — even if only one of us is gray. This shit is invading my mind because I believe that is what looking older is: having gray hair. It’s not, but it’s a stigma that has to change, and if I don’t change it — who will? I hope that by airing all of this ugly self-sabotaging, self-objectifying, self-surveilling crap I will free myself from its grip on me and find the Miracle. The Miracle with a capital M — the one referred to in A Course in Miracles as a Change in Perception, because perception is not knowledge. That’s what the grey haired woman at the stand up show knew, and that was the real reason why our brunch table was getting so much attention — they, we, were glowing, and sometimes, those who stand on the periphery of the light are blinded by it. I want to reiterate that I feel very privileged to have been invited to that brunch — rubbery eggs and all, and that the best part about this community is our acceptance of each other’s neurosis, and our willingness to tell each other the truth. I’ve had a few conversations with the women from the group now, and, along with writing this article, I am finding my way to eradicating my judgements. This is a group that I hope will continue to have me as a member. And even though I have been getting the occasional death stare; it’s never from younger women. I am actually starting to notice young women really taking it in that I am doing this and witnessing it with kindness and respect. I remember seeing a woman with a beautiful gray bob when I was about 7 or 8 and thinking it was glorious, and that I couldn’t wait for it to happen to me. I think I thought then that it would happen over-night, which it really is, and which is why it’s all up in my face like this, but it is not lost on me that there are younger women seeing what I am doing with my hair who may think twice about dumping chemicals on their head if they don’t want to. In moments when I’m not all up in my ego shit I feel a deep sense of responsibility to them to keep going with the grey grow out. Because as each day goes by and I decide anew to keep letting my hair grow dye-free, it is becoming an active choice instead of just a side effect of my anti-choice. When I saw the vulnerability on the faces of the silver sisters I met with I was triggered, yes, and my ego came out in full force and I am ashamed of my narcissistic response, and I am so fucking grateful to each one of them for showing up wearing whatever makes them feel beautiful and alive and I couldn’t do this without them and we are changing the world and we are doing it together and that is so freaking much cooler than the clothing you wear to brunch. This may not get easier, but this is my choice, and I am so grateful I have made it. Silver Sisters 4EVA.