The Story of My Body: Hair
People have always been telling me to stop hiding behind my hair. My mother used to take it back from my face, roughly, & snap at me when I recoiled. I looked wild, she would say, like I was living on the streets. Of course, it was more than just the dense curls shrouding my face - she never got over my rejection of hairbrushes & rollers.
In 7th grade, I had Latina friends who taught me that natural curls were bomb, who played with my hair & didn’t make me feel like Exotic Barbie. I learned about extreme side parts, edging my fingernail through the hair above my ear & flipping my whole head sideways to spray & twist. I learned about celebrating the bigness.
In high school art class, S-- told me my hair was like a waterfall, & I gazed at my reflection that night, notching my fingers into the ripples that cascaded along my face. She made a relief sculpture of it - my waterfall hair. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t feel ugly. It was notable.
When I cut all of my hair off at 17, my family was horrified. My brothers called me ugly & one sneeringly asked if this was ‘some kind of lesbian thing’. My abuser wept, as if this was the worst harm he had caused me. My father didn’t speak to me for a month, his lips pressing into a bloodless line every time he slowed his eyes to rest on me for more than a moment. My mother, like a Greek heroine collecting the bones of her loved ones, scooped the elbow-length locks from the bathroom sink, arranged them into pigtails that she tied with ribbon, & laid them side by side in a box in her closet. Even when I was alive beside her, she was always preserving me, curating my memory.
I haven’t had this much hair in awhile. Last summer, at the end of a professional training, the group lingered to wish each other well. The week had brought us all closer than we’d expected. I had told them that I was writing a book, something I hadn’t yet said to anyone outside of my closest. R-- reached up and pushed my hair back out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “You won’t be hiding behind your hair next time I see you,” she told me. I placed my hand on her arm, smiling. “I’m not hiding now.” My hair unstuck itself, as it does, & tumbled back into place.
In 7th grade, I had Latina friends who taught me that natural curls were bomb, who played with my hair & didn’t make me feel like Exotic Barbie. I learned about extreme side parts, edging my fingernail through the hair above my ear & flipping my whole head sideways to spray & twist. I learned about celebrating the bigness.
In high school art class, S-- told me my hair was like a waterfall, & I gazed at my reflection that night, notching my fingers into the ripples that cascaded along my face. She made a relief sculpture of it - my waterfall hair. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t feel ugly. It was notable.
When I cut all of my hair off at 17, my family was horrified. My brothers called me ugly & one sneeringly asked if this was ‘some kind of lesbian thing’. My abuser wept, as if this was the worst harm he had caused me. My father didn’t speak to me for a month, his lips pressing into a bloodless line every time he slowed his eyes to rest on me for more than a moment. My mother, like a Greek heroine collecting the bones of her loved ones, scooped the elbow-length locks from the bathroom sink, arranged them into pigtails that she tied with ribbon, & laid them side by side in a box in her closet. Even when I was alive beside her, she was always preserving me, curating my memory.
I haven’t had this much hair in awhile. Last summer, at the end of a professional training, the group lingered to wish each other well. The week had brought us all closer than we’d expected. I had told them that I was writing a book, something I hadn’t yet said to anyone outside of my closest. R-- reached up and pushed my hair back out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “You won’t be hiding behind your hair next time I see you,” she told me. I placed my hand on her arm, smiling. “I’m not hiding now.” My hair unstuck itself, as it does, & tumbled back into place.