MARKED

Thanksgiving morning found me loitering outside the sanctuary at church, killing time as I waited for the service to begin. I had arrived early to deliver my youngest. Washed, combed, and robed, she would join the other members of the youth choir as they raised their warbly, wobbly voices in a carol of gratitude.

An associate pastor with whom I am not yet acquainted moved through the area, greeting people arriving for the service.

"Nice hat!" he said as he shook my hand.

"Thanks," I replied.

He leaned in and spoke in a tone that was both sincere and concerned. "How're you doing?" he asked, his eyes searching my face.

"Pretty darn good," I answered.

My reply was both cheerful and honest but this brief exchange left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I was puzzled because I wondered if:

a) the pastor knew me, Kevyn Burger, and the details of my cancer case--Lord knows I've talked about myself enough so that plenty o' people are clued in
b) he had access to some sort of Pastor Master List of Prayerworthy Parishoners
or
c) he was relating to An Anonymous Bald Woman Battling The Big C.

I should be used to this. I've been Marked since midsummer.

When you walk around without hair, people draw their logical conclusions. No middle aged heterosexual woman in her right mind intentionally mutilates herself by shaving her head. Everyone knows that hair loss is a side effect of chemotherapy. Being bald provides quick shorthand to let everyone in the world in on confidential diagnostic information that ordinarily covered by the physician-patient privilege.

I have not worn a wig, but I understand why so many of my fellow survivors do. Being bald is a way of being naked before strangers: it reveals a private part. While I have become fairly comfortable walking around with my nude scalp, I recognize that this expanse of usually-covered skin makes others feel awkward.

This adds a layer of complexity to a million simple exchanges. The teller at the bank, my child's dentist, that pastor at the church on Thanksgiving--people don't know quite what to say when confronted with the be-hatted woman before them, who is clearly in that chapeau because chemotherapy has robbed her of her crowning glory. What are they to do? Ask how she's doing? Ignore the obvious? Tell a quick anecdote about their great aunt's triumph over breast cancer?

It reminds me of being in the final trimester of pregnancy, when everyone you encounter must first inquire about The Baby before the conversation can get down to business. I remember being weary of it by the time I lumbered into the ninth month. Sometimes, I just wanted to be me again. A woman with a womb, not a womb with a woman.

Being the obvious manifestation of my disease makes ME uncomfortable, too, if that's any consolation. I can't tell you what to say to me, because I don't know. Sometimes I like it when people acknowledge my cranial nudity--and the reason for it--and sometimes I don't. It has to do with how I'm feeling at that instant and with how much finesse the person I encounter uses.

I've been this way for months, and I am not yet used to these awkward social exchanges. I'm still all muddled up about it.

But Minnesota's legendary Longest Season may give me some respite from this visual dilemma.

That Thanksgiving church service left me feeling uplifted and energized. After it ended, my three children met up with their father and my husband was up to his elbows in pastry, busily making his Traditional Annual Pie--apple, a post-turkey treat. I had the day off and an empty hour so I set out on a solitary walk around the lake.

The gray day sucked the color out of the landscape, leaving the sky and lake and trees part of a black and white landscape. The first snow snow sifted down like cake flour, adding a layer of loveliness to what would have been a dreary afternoon.

I was well outfitted for the chill--when you don't have hair, bundling is a necessity, not a fashion statement. I was snug in a hat that my friend Kate bought for me. Black, with a velvet crown and a rim of matching fake fur, it not only provides cover, but gives me kind of a funky Doctor Zhivago vibe. I wore it pulled down low on my forehead, where my eyebrows used to be. Over it I wore my cute corduroy coat; hood up and buttoned under my chin.

Walking briskly, I did what I always do. Naturally curious and a promiscuous people-watcher, I looked at the others on the path.

And I realized that some were looking back at me.

Some men.

Age, gravity and motherhood are the co-conspirators in The Case Of The Vanishing Look. In recent decades, I've noticed that I have become invisible to an increasing number of men. The ones in their twenties and thirties don't look my way--and why should they, I'm old enough to be their mother and I've never been--nor wanted to be--the MILFtype. But I have still turned an occasional head when it comes to men born within a decade or more of me. It's that wordless, harmless look that goes nowhere but is faintly flirtatious. It's flattering, that frank flicker of appreciation from a man you don't know and never will.

That's something else that goes when your hair does. Men don't look at me. I haven't felt so much as a lukewarm sidelong glance in months. My pheromones went pfft.

But that day, on the path, I was not a Woman Wearing A Hat Because She Has Cancer. I was a woman wearing a hat because it was snowing. I was simply appropriately attired, and that disguised me and my story.

When I'm headnaked, they look away or look through me. Hidden under layers of outerwear, I was visible again.

The path was filled with ruddy-faced folks taking their pre-feast exercise. I noted an unusual number of intergeneration walkers, with obvious familiar connections. Most on the path were in pairs or bunches, chatting away as they charged along.

And some of them--guys, men, fellas, dudes--checked me out, bless their hearts. Some nodded. A particularly bold one said, "Hi."

There was no pity in his eyes. None at all.

Turns out winter may be better than a wig. Cold is my camouflage. Bundled up, I'm not marked; I'm just like everyone else. And that makes me feel warm.