"You're a better mother, mom, now that you changed your hair. You're happy," my 11 year old son informed me.

Can it be true? After five years of therapy , reading Kierkegard and Simone de Beauvoir, late night talks with friends over decaf cappuccino, studying Kaballah, searching and searching… Looking for happiness.

All I needed was dye job? (and a hair cut and highlighting)

My God, I've become a walking cliche.

Before this, I wanted to be natural. (I was a natural cliche.) I wore my hair wild, in the same style I've worn since college. I would have continued. But suddenly curly had gone the way of Charlie's Angels. And my dirty blonde had given way to dirty grey.

I didn't want to dye my hair. I didn't want to be like my mom with the roots and the plastic gloves-and the endless discussions: should I go blonde? Should I go red? Brown? Tone? Tints?

But I needed…something.

Now I have joined the sisterhood of the Women Who Want to Look Young. All over America you can find us, toting our gym shoes to appointments with our physical therapists, acupuncturists, periodentists, crystal healers, personal trainers, and hair colorists.

In the salon, it was a bit traumatic wearing a plastic cap with hairs threaded through the holes.

I looked like a lunatic lifeguard back from an unsuccessful mission.

But when my colorist showed me the names we would choose from, I couldn't resist: Nordic auburn, cocoa blonde, honey sun kissed flaxen wheat blonde apricot.

And then my colorist told me-- He was going to dye my hair with: Sparkling Sherry.

Now I've heard of fate and destiny, moments when God reaches down and shines his light on you.

This was literally one of those moments.

The guy didn't even know my name and yet he had chosen for me:

The color of my name, the color that brought me back to myself.

When I got home, my kids jumped up and down.
Here was the mother who had given birth to them--
The mother in the pictures--

My 13 year old screamed.

I was no longer the drab mother of silver

But the vibrant mother--

The one who could scale a fence, hop a brook, skip a stone, skip a rope, sing a tune, turn a cartwheel,

That young mother. The Clairol mother.

My husband asked "Did he put makeup on you?"

No, honey,
I have color. Remember color?

Like an old movie,
I've gone from black and white-to color.

In dyeing,
I've been born again.