It's not easy being green!

  Funny how our perceptions change over time, isn’t it? The shock of the new becomes the yawn of the everyday, the cutting edge gets dulled into the commonplace.   

Take punk rock, for example.  What began in the 1970s as a rebellion against overblown “progressive” rock music soon devolved into lifestyle accessories.  The authentic ripped jeans, the safety pin piercings and the spiked hairstyles became today’s “distressed” jeans, 18-karat eyebrow rings and $100 (or more) stylist-created coifs. Yesterday’s rebels with a cause are today’s rebels without a clue.

   

  For would-be iconoclasts, that complicates life – how do you rebel when the symbols of your rebellion have become everyday occurrences?  Worse still, what do you do when the very sorts of people you’re trying to shock approve of your style?

   

  I couldn’t help wondering about that the other day when I encountered a young woman in the supermarket.  Encountered is probably too strong a word – we passed in the soup aisle, both lost in our own thoughts.   

  She was a teenager, shopping with her mother. She was dressed in a Goth/punk style that really wasn’t too extraordinary.  The most notable part of her appearance was her green hair.

   

  It was a lovely spring green, neither St. Patrick’s Day decoration bright nor Easter basket grass pastel.  It was, simply, an attractive shade of green.   A few years ago, I might have been shocked. As it was, I thought,  “Hmm, that green suits her. Looks nice.”

 

  Later, I considered her likely reaction to my opinion. She probably would have been appalled.   

  Think about it. In her eyes I’m an ancient geezer, old enough to be her father. I’m supposed to see the green hair and disapprove, my disapproval validating her rebellion, yes?

  

  Besides, even if I ever had been as young as she – a highly unlikely prospect -- I couldn’t possibly remember what it was like to be that age, to be not yet in control of your own life, to need to assert your individuality in whatever small way possible.

   

  And yet I do know that feeling, as does anyone who’s ever gone to high school, no matter when.  I also know it gets easier to be who you are once those alleged “best years of your life” are behind you. In that sense, the young woman’s rebel challenge still rings true.

   

 So here’s to green hair and what it represents.  And here’s to not being afraid to express yourself in whatever way suits you best.