No hair

It's the launch of “A Dance in Time” tonight and I have almost no hair.

I have almost no hair because I have been having cancer treatment and last week, it started to fall out.  In clumps.  (Great timing!)

So what to do?  I could wear a wig.  I could wear a scarf. I could wear a hat.

Except wigs are tight and uncomfortable, a scarf makes me feel like Mystic Meg and I've never been a hat person.

A part of me wants to disguise that I've been sick.  I've always taken pride in being Ms-fit-and-healthy, with my walking, jogging, yoga and dance and my vegetarian diet.

And I don't want the cancer, or the treatment, overshadowing the book.  The launch is about the book.

And I know signifiers of sickness make some people uncomfortable.

As do women without hair.

Yes, it's a girl  thing.  My new hairstyle is the same as my brothers' and nobody has ever suggested to any of them that they should wear a wig.

“Oh quit it, sis,” says brother Cathal.  “At least yours will grow back.”

True.

But for now, this is how it is.

And that's what wins it in the end.  I might wish it otherwise but this is how it it is.

So I have decided: no wig, no scarf, no hat.

Just me, in front of the audience, bald.

Just me, just as I am.