35. Look Good, Feel Better

Wednesday I went to a Workshop for people who have cancer called "Look Good, Feel Better". It focuses mainly on skin care, make up and head wear. Not really my thing, make up I mean. I've worn make up twice in my life, both when I was a bridesmaid and hated it both times. These days I tend to avoid certain moisturisers, creams, sunscreen, bug spray as I have had hives (see Bumps post). Saying all that, I chose to go and be with other people who are going through a similar life path to mine at the moment. I always like to take the opportunity to learn.

It was held at the Gymea Tradies. The email said it was going to be in the Dharawal room. I thought that was nice as we are all on Dharawal Country here. At reception I had to check in and for some reason my digital drivers license app wouldn't scan their QR code properly, maybe because there was only 1 bar of 3G phone reception. Anyway, I did have my physical card and with some grunting and pulling got it out of the section in my wallet that had a plastic window. I don't think I'd taken it out for years and it was stuck! Signed in and when I asked which way to Dharawal room was the guy said "The workshop has been moved to the Chimera room". That's what I thought he said. I thought it was a bit strange to have a workshop for people who are going through chemo and have lost hair and have other physical changes to be in the room that was named after a mythical beast that is made up of different animal parts. However, when I found the room it was the "Kai-Mia" room. I had to google it to see if it was part of the Dharawal language and it is. Kai'mia is the story of the Gymea Lily. Kai'eemah is the Dharawal name for the George's River. I did look up chimera (as I said, I like to learn) and apparently you can have human chimeras, they have two different types of DND. Naturally occurring human chimeras are rare, but there isn't much research into it so perhaps there are a lot more. Fascinating, I might look into that further.

The room was set up in a U shape for the tables and chairs. In front of 10 chairs there was a mirror and a whole bunch of beauty products. We got to take home all of them too. Along a table at the top of the U there was a whole bunch of scarfs, hats, wigs etc. I get a name tag and introduce myself. I'm about 10 mins early but there are a couple of other ladies who have arrived a similar time. I walk around the room looking for the chair that is under the air con vents. It's a yucky stinky humid hot day again and I'm sweating!

Once everyone had arrived we are led through how to do a skin care routine, to remove make up and then clean and moisturise. I tell them that I will avoid products with sunscreen and most moisturisers to avoid any weird skin reactions. I watched the other ladies and chatted with the lady next to me. I did use the cleansing face wipe as I had used that brand before. It was nice to wipe my sweaty face. I was cooling down, drinking iced water from my water bottle was helping too.

After the cleaning of the face it was time to do make up. Also all the products had some sort of SPF number so again, I mainly watched. My brain started thinking back to a class I had done in 2021 called "The Social Construct of Ageing". A social construct is where a group of people all agree on the "norms" in society of how things are and if someone were to go outside these norms then they can be discriminated against. Examples of social constructs are language, culture, beauty, religion, gender, social class, race, leadership, money, intelligence, marriage, etc etc. Ageism is a big thing in society and it doesn't have to be against older people. Young people can other be victims of ageism. Policies during the covid-19 pandemic were ageist. Young people were irresponsible, going out when they shouldn't and spreading the virus. Older people were vulnerable when they hit that magical number of 65. One of my professors at Uni wrote a whole paper on it. Sexism and ageism are closely linked. Why is it ok that men that go grey and/or bald but if it happens to a women then often she is overlooked as a full member of society.

I don't want to get too preachy but I couldn't help but think of these things. Only women were present at the workshop, attending and assisting. Is that because the brochure is only handed to women? Maybe some people who identify as male, transgender or non binary might want to know how to care for their skin and apply make up if they are going through cancer treatment. Why does society tell us that we have to look at certain way to be accepted? I proudly wear my bald head around, maybe in defiance of these "social norms" just so that people who look at me and wonder why I have a bald head might think beyond their safe zone. Look what happened with Jada Pinket Smith and that infamous slap by Will Smith. I remember a sticker Grandpa Heldon gave me when I was a teenager. "Why be normal when you can be yourself".

I can get a little fired up at inequality and discrimination. This week I was sent a photo of a public female figure in Australia with the comment "she looks like she is dead". This person thought it was funny but it was mean. Would they have said it to this person's face? If not then why say it at all. I probably look like I'm dead the days directly following my chemo. It was a terrible photo taken of this lady and obviously used by the media to dehumanise her role in society. Often birthday cards for anyone over the age of 40 are ageist, sexist, ableist or all three. Someone recently quoted the "Sticks and stones" saying to me in response that words don't hurt and you can just shrug it off. I disagree. Words can be powerful tools to abuse, coerce and can lead to physical violence. Look at Donald Trump's careless words when he called covid-19 the "China Virus". Abuse against Asian American's skyrocketed.

Anyway, back to the workshop. I did have a good time watching and learning how to put on makeup and to choose the right shades and colours. I probably won't ever use the skills on myself but I might be able to help someone else put on make up who can't anymore. Someone who is frail, or lives with dementia or lives with disability. I decided I might try a little tiny light brush of eyeshadow. I closed my eyes and very lightly brushed a light shade over my eyelids. A few minutes later in the corner of my left eye there was a bloom of red. Bugger! Did some of the eyeshadow get in? Or was it fumes from the toner that I had used sparingly earlier? I start laughing. One of the volunteers came over (she is employed by the beauty industry who donated all the beauty products for the workshops) and I ask what would be best to get the eyeshadow off and she gives me one of the wipes I had used before. She says "Oh, you weren't kidding when you said you can get weird reactions". No, I wasn't kidding. I had some eye drops in my wallet and get them out and put it in both eyes to flush them out. The makeup session came to an end and all the ladies checked out their new faces. They did look happy. One lady had never put on makeup herself before and didn't really wear it and she looked really nice and her smile lit up the room. The workshop is there mainly help people "feel better" and that is what we all want isn't it. To feel good in ourselves.

After the makeup it was head wear. I got lots of comments about my headscarf (the one Adriane sent me), the lovely colours and design. One lady mentioned she was scared of getting the really big ones as she didn't know how to put them on. I told her about the braveryco website and that they have online tutorials which were really easy to follow. There are many options for head wear. Wigs (waaaaaay too hot for me) - full wigs, half wigs, fringe wigs, eyebrow wigs, hats with wigs attached. There was a lot of discussion around head wear between us all, tips and tricks. One lady had bought a wig but she said it was "too booffy" and another lady said that there was a hairdresser that was close by that was great at cutting the wig so that it suited how you liked your hair. The wig she was wearing had been trimmed and it looked great on her. When I got home from the workshop there was a package waiting for me. It was another headscarf, a present from my friends, the Robo's, in Ballarat. It is blues and reds, orange and peach colours. It's the "Lobster in Love" by Frederica Palma from the Braveryco website. I have a giggle, even though it has two lobsters in the middle it reminds me of the funny crab walk that Eddie Redmayne does in the Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore movie. If you don't know what I mean you need to watch the movie, or at least go to YouTube and look it up. It is SO funny!!!! It makes sense the scarf would make me laugh, when I visit the Robo's there is always so much laugher.

I want to end on something that a friend Julian said at one of our church camps years ago. I don't know who came up with it but I heard it from him first. In a world where we could all use more kindness and not discriminate (people can unknowingly discriminate - that's a whole other blog post...) before you speak, THINK.

T = is it True?

H = Is it Helpful?

I = Is it Inspiring?

N = Is it Necessary?

K = Is it Kind?

Wouldn't this make us all "feel better" if everyone followed this?