The story is a familiar one  – what happens when the much adored square peg (the star of silent movies) not longer fits the hole he was made for (the movie studio that now shuns silent movies for talkies and finds a new star). In the film our silent movie star refuses to talk – even to his wife. His world crumples around him in stark contrast to the rising trajectory of the young starlet he helped onto the ladder of movie stardom. The sadness is that he believes no-one wants to hear his voice (though I could listen to the lilting French tones of Jean Dujardin all day, thank you very much!).

It is familiar because it happens to all of us at some time in our life. Things change, we no longer fit, and we must adapt or change or find new ‘holes’ to fit into – or better still create some. But so often we don’t adapt, sometimes can’t adapt, and change is hard. Like the silent movie star who refuses to embrace talking movies, we silence ourselves.

In the movie it is the young starlet who rescues the silent star and helps him find a new voice in film. And this got me thinking… where, when, with whom and how do we silence ourselves? Where, when, with whom and how can we find a new voice?

I watched a news video yesterday in which the commentator cited her many musical achievements, her awards, her record sales, the adoration of her public, her amazing voice… she ‘had it all’ he said. But she didn’t have it all. Not by a long, long way. Sure, she had a lot of things that many crave for. But what use is fame and fortune, when you are dead in a hotel room at 48, with so much life left to live.  Fame and fortune cannot buy you love – real, true, soul-deep love – and it sure cannot buy you the soul-deep, self-love that Whitney Houston really, really needed.

So let’s not just let this pass into yesterday’s news, shrugging it off our shoulders as though we have no responsibility for it. Let’s think what this means for us and particularly for our children. Everywhere we are bombarded with images of success that are bound up in how much exposure we can get, how much money we can make, how much material stuff we can gather around us and how much more of those things we can get over other people. None of that is what real success and real wealth is about.

For me, real success lies in how many souls did I inspire today, how inspired is my soul today, how much deeper is my love for myself today and how much more have I been able to love others today? I now measure my wealth in the depth and breadth of my relationships and in the expression of my creativity, the joy I get from the beauty that surrounds me and my deepening connection to all that is.

So what is success and wealth for you I wonder? And what kind of success and wealth do you really wish for your kids?

So last year ….

So this year… temporarily a pixie but the bob will be back!

And these… I just love ‘em! Thank you Bev Perkins for a fabulous set of piccies www.portraitsathome.net

‘This is a great period of my life. My challenge now is to paint with my true voice. I’ve been painting all my life, but somehow I still haven’t been able to express my deepest vision. Not yet that is!’

The book was first published in 2002. Phyllis was 90 years old.

See, it’s never too late to find your own voice…and to express it!

Wise Women is a collection of portraits by Joyce Tenneson www.joycetenneson.com

Now my hair is charcoal grey, I can’t wear charcoal grey – at least not near my face without another strong colour to contrast with it. Ok, can’t is perhaps too strong, but I seem to disappear beneath the charcoal if I do. So the rather fabulous deep grey warm snuggly wrap cardigan that I so love is now folded up at the back of the wardrobe until I become more silver fox than charcoal badger. While my hair is the same colour as the cardigan, it doesn’t seem to quite work. I guess paler greys will – tho I have never had them in my wardrobe – perhaps I need to embrace them now.

I also have a gorgeous charcoal cotton jacket that I live in through the summer months. I haven’t dared try it on with the new hair yet. I don’t want to face the possible disappointment of sending it to join the cardigan. And anyway, there is snow on the ground. Now is no time to be wearing cotton jackets. Its fate can be put off for a few months, by which time the hair might have a new dimension to contend with (hopfeully some length!).

The other adjustment is lipstick. I don’t know if it’s because my hair is charcoal or because it is very short and therefore exposes rather more of my face. Either way I’m finding I need to change my lipsticks. Utter tragedy! I will just have to go shopping and spent hours at the make up counters poring over shades of red. It’s tough but it has to be done. (Actually two of my lippy’s have really come into their own with the new hair, but I’m keeping quiet about that.)

I’ve always been a fan of fairly strong colours, so the good news is that now those deep fuschia’s, turquoise’s, purples and limes look stonkingly good against the new hair. They looked pretty good before, but the contrast really makes it.

Not so sure about the biker boots. I might have to succumb to something ultra feminine to wear with them to counteract the masculine/boyish look. Boy hair and boy boots with 34Girlie Girl boobs just isn’t working for me. I’ve always leaned towards the more tailored masculine look (jackets with jeans or trousers – I rarely wear skirts nor expose much in the cleavage dept), which worked well until I got tailored hair. Now I feel a desperate need to wear mascara and lippy all the time to remind myself of my femininity. I can’t do cleavage exposure – too embarassing and cold and attracts attention I don’t want. Besides my bosoms generally enter the room before me anyway, they really don’t need more exposure than they already have. So I might have to give in to a dress, or something floral. Or maybe I’ll just put the biker boots with the cardi until I’ve grown my bob back.

Now, where are you diary? I need to plan a lippy-shopping day.

Winter at The Cottage

Yesterday was definitely a hibernation day. The snow caused a change of plan and so I allowed myself to just go with my flow. Write a little, sleep a little, walk dogs, feed horses, write a little more. Yes I have a million things I could have been doing in this stolen day. And yes I could have done with ticking a few off the list. But sometimes, that is not what is needed. Yesterday my body and soul said ‘No – relax, scribble, snooze. That’s all you need do today’.

Maybe there will be more of these days this week, as the cold, icy weather discourages from going further than we have to. This is what winter is for – hibernating, being dormant to store up energy for germinating those seeds of ideas or activities that will burst forth in the spring. We’ve had a much gentler winter so far than we perhaps expected, but that shouldn’t stop us from making the most of this hibernation time.

As humans seeking to defy nature – and control it- we refuse to notice our own rhythms, our own winter days. Days when we need to hibernate and rest. It’s ok to rest. We need rest. We aren’t fitted with Duracell batteries and even if some of us are, they still run out of juice sometimes and need recharging.

So accept these winter days – actual or metaphorical – as blissful opportunities to recharge, rather than irritating low-energy days which get in the way of our busyness. Go on, book a hibernation day with yourself.

I actually love the colour of my hair. It is a mixture of black pepper and a bit of salt – a bit gunmetal grey fox. Not the frosty white I had imagined it would be – though there is a streak of that, which will look very sexy I am sure when my hair grows longer. In fact I am now regretting having coloured it for so long, because I could have got many more years out of it’s natural black before the silver started to invade. No point in regrets though. I cannot turn back the clock. Colour-wise my hair is funky.

It’s just the pixie crop I am struggling with. Because despite what everyone says about it suiting me, it just isn’t me. I am a sleek bob girl, not a pixie girl. I look at my picture on my TinaB page and sigh because I miss that bob. (I will get some proper pixie pics done to update it very soon). Somehow the pixie is too boyish, not grown-up enough (!). What am I saying? It shouldn’t make any difference, it really shouldn’t – but it does.

Now yes I could have kept the bob and grown the colour out – but it would take too long and I’d have peculiar stripes. I could have kept the bob and changed the colour, but that would still look odd because no matter what colour I went, the roots would still be black and white. No-one has yet invented a gunmetal grey hair colour. And why would they? We’ve all been sold this idea that grey is old and unattractive, so who is going to colour it that way? (I don’t buy into that belief by the way – obviously!)

So an adventure in pixie land, free of artifical colours and flavourings, is the way to go. And while I’m there I’ll do a bit of research into hair, identity and self expression to see if I can come to terms with my temporary loss – and get to grips with ‘I am not my hair’ on an emotional level too!

Jamie Lee Curtis

6 weeks in - the real me is showing through

The responses of other women to my decision have been interesting and everything from ‘you’re brave’ to ‘you’ll look so fab’ to ‘don’t do it’!

What has been most interesting is the conversations that have been sparked off about men’s attitude to grey hair. The perception from most women is that men think we are unattractive and have ‘let ourselves go’ if we allow our hair to grow grey. Interestingly the men in my life have been wholly supportive of my decision and think it will look beautiful.

It has got me wondering: why should women be considered unattractive with grey hair? It seems to me that beauty has nothing to do with hair colour. I feel a philosophical pondering coming on. Keep an eye on the articles in My Voice. I think a reflection on grey hair and beauty will turn up there soon!

I have lost that youthful black bob, that style that seems to be my signature and that I have returned to again and again. I am losing the ‘darkest natural brown’ – a false colour which I tried to match to my own real youthful shade of black, chemical black being too stark and unnatural. I am losing the pretence of being youthful to grow into the authenticity of being a woman in her mid 40s who has done much, experienced life to the full, gained knowledge (all too often the hard way) and found a wisdom that youth simply cannot claim because she hasn’t been around long enough.

This is, I know, a transition of greater importance than just the colour of my hair. It is the transition from who I was as a younger woman – always striving, always needing to do better, always feeling that I fell short of my standards and my dreams, never quite good enough – to who I am now, a calmer, wiser, gentler woman. A woman whose strength comes from a different place, a place of peace and self love, a place of being loved, rather than a place of singular determination not to be defeated. Don’t get me wrong, that determination is still very much there but it comes from a place of inner power, rather than inner fear. It comes from aknowledge that I am good enough, rather than a fear that I’m not.

And that power seems to sit very nicely with silvery hair. Hair that no longer needs pigment to define it. Hair that defines itself by its stunning whiteness, its purity, its radiance. Hair that quietly reminds us that real beauty lies in its naturalness not its artifice, and that that is the beauty of age as well as of youth. My beautiful natural hair, I am so looking forward to meeting you. And I will grow you back into a sleek asymmetric bob, for it is still my signature style and as timeless as Chanel.

It is no coincidence that I have chosen to make this transition over the autumn and winter months. Autumn is a time of harvest but also a time of slowing down, of shedding, of preparation for the dormancy of winter. Winter, a time of death, hibernation, rest and preparation for the rebirth of spring. The rich vibrant browns and oranges of autumn turn to the brilliant, crisp and frosty whites of winter. What better metaphor could there be!

And so I am traversing these next few months, shedding, resting and preparing for a rebirth too; a rebirth of my hair and a rebirth of myself. Bring it on!