A few days ago, while at the gas station pumping petrol into my vehicle, a man who was passing me on the way to his car, said quite cordially (apparently as a salutation): “Wh’appen, Granny?”
Although taken aback, I was amused. Having only – to my surprise – been previously referred to as "Mums" or "Tants," "Granny" was a new one.
Ironically, days before, a store attendant had called me "Mums." I had joked afterwards to a friend (one of my many friends who also experience this phenomenon) that: “At least we have not yet been called Gran”...although, technically, had we had children, we could be grandmothers. Normally, "Granny" is a category reserved for women above 70 years of age. However, in fact, the classification of "Granny" could be applicable to a woman in her thirties who gave birth at an early age and whose child(ren) followed suit.
In many instances, the ranks of "Mums," "Tants" and "Gran" might be bestowed upon a woman based on the quantity of grey hair on her head.
However, this is not always the case. Many friends of mine above 40 who dye their hair also have had the "Mums" and "Tants" experience, to their surprise.
Are "Mums" and "Tants" candidates also being assessed by the wrinkles or lines that naturally appear on human faces over the course of time? We all acquire these "etchings." Our life experiences and the resulting facial expressions chisel them into our countenance.
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I can look at lines on my face and "read" the thoughts and experiences from which they resulted owing to repetitive contraction of certain facial muscles. For example: the deeply carved "11" between my eyebrows comes from squinting or from furrowing my brow while observing or thinking deeply about things.
Shortly after the "Wh’appen Granny" encounter, I was walking away from an establishment en route to my vehicle. A man standing at the corner with another male, aborted their conversation to call out to me: “How you going, baby?”
“I’m good,” I responded, thinking for a while that I knew him, based on his familiar face, the ease in his tone and the abrupt and eager way in which he had stopped to address me.
“Ah could see that!” he said, his eyes slowly scanning my body from head to toe.
Within less than half an hour, even if just metaphorically speaking, my perceived "age group" had been reduced from that of a "granny" to a "baby."
Over the years my "silvers" (as I call them) have increased with rapidity, salt-and-peppering mainly the front and top, while the back remains darker. Whatever the reason(s) for the colour transformation, I have never felt the need or desire to dye my hair. I quite like the silvers, seeing them not as "age" but as an expression of my evolving character – in the way that colours of a painting may be adjusted as the artist continues to work on it. During covid many women accustomed to dyeing their hair stopped doing so. Away the from public gaze, there was no need to conceal what was naturally there – and
