June 2, 2011

• Day 2: Hair

  My mother’s hair shined in long, deep brown waves. It stuck to her forehead in thick chunks when she spent 30 hours delivering me. I wrapped it around my finger, stroking it like a teddy bear, claiming it as my security blanket. She cut her hair when I learned to walk, after I grew accustomed to latching onto her hair, pulling myself up like the prince trying to reach Rapunzel.

   

  As I grew, so did my mother’s muscle problems. Her hair was one part of her I could touch without causing her pain. I added barrettes, covering her with multicolored plastic animals facing every direction. I saw her curly hair surrounding her like thick thunderclouds, as she lay in bed, too sick to finish our home schooling classes. I closed the door, took my books to the next room, and watched my own straight hair fall forward as I leaned over to finish my lesson as she slept.  

   

  At 11, I was still short enough to have to stand on my tiptoes to see into the mirror at my grandparent’s butterfly brown bathroom. With one long, cold snip, the hairs slipped to the carpeted floor and I stooped to pick them up before anyone saw them. They noticed well enough as soon as I rolled back the door—my bangs were only a half inch long. It was my hair, I had control. It would grow back, along with the tingling hope that one time I would cut it and the reflection would look just like one of those girls in the magazine.

   

  Long hair was pure, fluid, graceful, and religious. When I picked up scissors I was letting legalism fall in circles around me, some still sticking to the back of my neck and telling me to take another shower to stop the itching. Cutting hair was letting go. I felt lighter, leaving responsibility in the dustpan for the trash man to take away. Cutting hair was a gift.  Donating to Locks of Love transformed an object of selfish beauty into eternal glory.  Growing and cutting became a cycle, a habit, a transformation.

   

  “Lice.” The hairdresser said, as she smacked her gum. “I can’t cut your hair because of LICE.” Every head jerked up from their magazines to look at me. The girl with lice. I could have explained how I worked at an alternative school, trying to give every child the love I knew they did not receive at home. But I left, without looking anyone in the eye, and walked home.

   

  It didn’t help that I was white, with skin that rejected melanin. That I liked boy’s flip-flops instead of girl’s high heels, and my basketball shorts and t-shirts yelled “I am American.” That short hair seemed sensible for a summer in the tropics. I woke up drowsy from layovers and missed flights to find many eyes staring at me. Eyes that belonged to girls with bronze skin, revealing tank tops, and stunning shoes. Girls that tossed their long hair and walked away before I could see their condemnation. My hair was not long enough to hide behind.

   

  Northeast Brazil is known for its beautiful wind. My previous experience with wind was cold Indiana winters blowing through five layers of clothing. This was a new, liberating experience of relief from the hot temperatures that come from living near the equator. I relished the wind running through my hair, pushing and pulling it wherever it wished. Who cared about tangles—I was free.

   

  I heard his voice before I saw him. All grown up, I hadn’t been home in months, but my father’s voice still made me laugh and come running. Stopping in mid-step, I controlled my facial expression, asking, “What happened to your face?” Months of scraggly whiskers moved to reply, “I was waiting for you to come home and trim my beard.” I had become the family hair-cutter, after a weekend of training years ago. I quickly stepped back into my responsibilities.

   

  I tentatively reached out to touch one perfectly white curl, but I couldn’t do it. I returned to my seat next to the rest of my grieving family as they closed the casket. I would never again see my laughing grandmother’s eyes, or feel her soft hair as she leaned in to give me a hug. Hair grows even after you’re dead, or at least it looks like it does.

   

  • 5:10 pm
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