Image by Ashton Mullins on Unsplash
A Crone with a Silver Crown
written by: Shayla Malek
I can trace back to almost the precise moment I decided to take a different turn in my spiritual journey. The moment I was ready to become who I had long been dreading. The time had come when I couldn’t keep fooling myself any longer. When no amount of hair dye or hangouts with 30 and 40 something year olds was going to keep up the delusion that I am their age and not in my early fifty’s—calves deep into the next stage of my life. It was the moment I was ready to claim my place in the world, albeit natural and exposed. After almost thirty years I was going to let my grey hair come out of hiding.
That moment of surrender to the inevitable happened around the beginning of June 2023, right after the last great purple phase and right before I chopped it drastically short. I knew doing so would age me at least ten years overnight but I was finally ready to accept my fate and jump fully into being a middle-aged woman and everything it implied.
You may be thinking what’s the big deal? Way more women now are showing their grey than ever before. And while that’s all well and good for them, it still terrified me. Somewhere buried deep in my bones was the message that if I wasn’t young and beautiful then I had no worth or value, and therefore I’d be unwanted, alone and unable to survive.
I don’t know who decided to perpetuate the lie that silver/grey hair was something to be ashamed of and hidden. The lie that I would become invisible and irrelevant to society because I was no longer objectively sexy, commercially pretty, or could bear children. But for as long as I can remember it was the message I was given. Despite the many examples I’d been shown throughout my life by a multitude of incredible mature women claiming their middle aged sovereignty, with every bottle of color I applied, I clung on tighter to the illusion of security.
As much as I’d like to think it was just a story I was making up, that message is still spread in mainstream culture today. Unfortunately it’s not just me being influenced by social media, advertising, TV or movies dictating our self worth and their interpretation of a feminine identity over 40.
Like many other people, I watched the Barbie movie last year and loved it. I loved it for the sheer volume of truth it dispensed and the way it pulled back the delusion of equality that we women have been laboring under all this time.
So imagine my disappointment when even in a movie about empowering women there were no middle aged Barbies at the dream house. Nor were any invited to the dance-party sleepovers. There were no Grandma Barbies in Barbiland. No divorcee or silver-haired widowed Barbies depicted in molded plastic, aging gracefully or proudly. There were no Barbie crones.
The word crone has typically been associated with haggard, hunch-backed, grizzly women, who have a propensity for cooking errant children in gingerbread houses and owning cauldrons and cats. Let’s be real, it’s not a flattering word. It implies that the woman has aged out beyond beauty, beyond grace. Beyond use or worth. She is in the last phase of her life and while some lucky crones may be associated with ‘wise’ there is always the diminutive ‘old’ associated with her title.
It is never a beautiful crone that is described in fairy tales or parables. She is never a strong, resilient and resourceful crone. She is never lauded for her bravery, tenacity or leadership skills. She is never shown as sexy or accomplished. No. Instead a crone is depicted as something to be feared, pitied, avoided or even despised–and that really pisses me off.
My maiden years left a lot to be desired and I never got to be a mother, so fuck it, I’m all into reclaiming the title crone and along with it, the final phase of my life as a woman.
Despite my initial hesitation, I now actually love my short hair and am embracing the new streaky silver/pewter tones I never before let see the light of day. I’m becoming accustomed to the loss of elasticity of my skin and have come to peace with the creases around my eyes and the deep furrow of my brow.
What I can’t come to terms with though is the idea that the best part of my life is over. Instead, I am living into the belief that all the tears-soaked work I did to get me here has paid off, allowing me to unlock the potential of all I can be.
So what shifted? I hear you ask. Surprisingly, it was thanks to reality TV.
Last May, my partner and I were sitting down to watch the one reality TV show that ever gets airtime in our living room; a survivalist challenge called Alone. We love Alone. It allows all our latent armchair-prepper tendencies to come to the surface, mixed in with a healthy dose of schadenfrauder, as we watch the participants dropped off in the middle of nowhere to contend with isolation, the harsh elements, predators and their own demons; with only ten survival items and some cameras for company. And this time, it was finally set in my home country of Australia.
As usual ten contestants were left to fend for themselves, to build a shelter and find food and water, seeing who could last the longest and win the $250k prize. Amongst them was a 52 year old woman called Gina Chick.
As I sat watching Gina, for the first time I personally understood how much representation matters. Seeing someone who looks just like me, talks like me, swears like me and is the same age as me–literally surviving by doing something hard and incredible–lit up my mirror neurons like a Christmas tree and filled me with excitement and hope for my own possibilities.
I know, I know. TV and movies are filled with white women doing white women things. But how many of them are sassy, greying-haired Australian hippies testing their limits, knowledge and skills, while sharing their wisdom, grief and endurance?
When Gina shared during the show about the pain she felt about losing her child, I felt that pain with her. While I have not lost a child, I have lost both my parents and my ability to have any of my own children. My heart recognized and resonated with that level of grief. And like me, she had come through it.
When she talked about needing her community and missing her people, an echoing chord of vulnerability chimed deep within me. I have felt that pain too. I have not been isolated from all humanity, but I have still felt that heart wrenching isolation of distance being on the other side of the world from my support network, with the dull ache of knowing that the people who are precious to you are living their lives and you are living yours. All the while the streams are not able to be crossed.
In Gina, I saw all the things I was missing from the Barbie movie. I saw a version of being middle-aged that was empowered and resilient. She, like me, had been through trauma and found a way through to the other side. I saw a woman fully confident and independent, not afraid to face the world alone. I saw a woman showing me not just how to survive, but that I might even enjoy it! She was striding around and totally at home in the harsh Aussie wilderness, barefoot and crooning to nature. Gina was in her element and at the same time taught me that I could find mine.
Thankfully Gina is not doing all the heavy lifting on her own. Along with her account (@gigiamazonia), when scrolling through Instagram I’ve found other women like Gail McNeill (@Fiftysister), and Luisa (@thesilverlining_1970) who are carrying the baton of being a role model for someone like me aging proudly and powerfully. They are willfully ignoring the negative comments and hate mail about their natural hair and wrinkles, and instead keep forging forward, making it easier for me and others to follow in their footsteps.
Shayla Malek
Shayla Malek grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia during the 70's and 80's when kids were encouraged to get out of the house and explore the neighborhood with nothing more than their siblings, their dogs, and twenty cents for an emergency phone call, just making sure they were home in time for dinner.
Always an adventurer and never wanting to be home for too long, Shayla was a natural traveller and first ventured to fantasy realms within sci fi and romance novels, before setting off in her mid 20's in the real world for the UK, Europe and later the USA. It was on her travels that Shayla ignited her love of photography, documenting the world as she saw it.
When she isn't writing, she is studying to be an Integration Coach and teaching emotional intelligence skills or roaming around exploring and photographing her Seattle neighborhood with her dog, still making sure she is home in time for dinner.
To learn more about Shayla and her writing, check out her website shaylamalek.com
It’s these women and all the others doing the same that I’d invite to a sleepover at the dream house. And while they are glimpses of the woman I want to be, that’s just the start. I’d like to see every flavor of middle and elder-aged minorities represented in Barbiland and beyond.
I want to see crones of every color and creed, every sexual orientation and gender, every type of disability–all standing tall and strong and leading by example, sharing the tips and tricks that helped them survive along the way, lighting the path for those who are treading it in the dark.
I want to invite them to join me on this quest to embrace this next stage of life and all the gifts that come with it, instead of living in dread of what we might become. With deliberate acts of defiance at imposed societal norms, I will continue to challenge my limiting beliefs about what being middle-aged means and hold my head high with my grey hair shining, and demonstrate my active choice to step out into the world as a proud crone adorned by a silver crown.