WonderBlog

Curly Top

When my mother was pregnant with me, she prayed for a baby girl with curly hair that would sit on her daddy's knee.

She says that when I was barely born, I had perfect little ripples of silky down on my head.

Thanks, Mom. That was the first and last time my hair was perfect.

It was easy for her to want curly hair for me. She never had curly hair. Her attempts to manage her own dark straight hair consisted of keeping it cut short and stabbing at it with a curling iron every once in a while.

Her first three children were boys. They didn't want hair-do's. I, however, was a problem she had no answer for. She tried to brush my matted mop in the morning before she sent me to pre-school. As a mother of four, she was always running late, and had to rip the comb through the impossible knots. I would cry because it hurt. Mom cried too.

If only it ended there. I would see all the other girls in their cute little hair-do's. Barettes and bows and pig-tails. Pigtails really were the thing in kindergarten. "Mommy, why can't I have pigtails like all the other girls?"

My mother did not state the obvious, which was: "You need to have hair that obeys the laws of gravity for pigtails. Your hair hovers around your head like a dust cloud." No, mom was going to help her baby girl if she could. She bought me powder blue puffy yarn ties, you know the kind, and took a comb and determination to my head.

The hard-won results were a part dividing the left and right hemispheres of my head and two buoyant spheres anchored by blue yarn bows. When I looked in the mirror, I was astonished at their size and fluffiness. But, like a good hairdresser, mom sold me on the idea that it was supposed to look like that. "You have two puffballs! You look so cute!" She was truly enthusiastic, and complimented and cooed over me. I finally believed her.

But then I had to face my brothers.

When they saw me leave the bathroom-turned-beauty-salon, they stopped dead in their tracks. "What did you do to your hair?"

I raised my chin. "I have pigtails, " I said with imperious 5-year-old pride.

It was a decisive moment. My brother Mark said, "I bet your shadow would look just like Mickey Mouse."

That was a happy prospect. We all went to find a lamp to check. It was true!

Fortified with my family's approval and my mother's delight, I could shrug off the taunts at school.

Children are so tough when they're young. A few years later, my mother's delight was not enough protection.

My hair came from my father's side. He had three sisters, all of them with varying levels of curliness. It was known as The Hair. I had The Hair full-strength. My cousin Claudia had a lighter case. Jane had stick-straight hair. But it was red. We envied her.

When she grew up, she got a perm.

My teenage dream was to grow my hair long. Long and flowing. Flowing, yes. Kinking, no. I envisioned beautiful cascading hair falling down my shoulders and back.

You know that awkward growing-your-hair-out stage? That was my entire childhood and teen years.

The hairdressers were sabotaging my efforts. They kept cutting my hair short, instead of letting it grow long as I asked them to. "Just a trim! I'm trying to grow it out."
“Your hair is damaged, “ they would carp. Yes, by YOUR scisors, bitch!

I remember in jr. high, girls would come up to me and ask, "Did you want your hair to look like that? I mean, do you like your hair?" When I hotly answered yes, they would say "oh..." and slide away.

I had gotten used to the "Stuck your finger in a light socket?" joke. But when I was in high school, absolutely everyone started to give me hair advice. I mean everyone. My mother's friends. My friend's mothers. The librarian. Strangers in the grocery store. People visiting from out of town for the day. They all shared one thing in common: naturally straight hair.

Perhaps I shared my dream for long hair with a little too much pathetic fervor. It was like I was some kind of leukemia child. People could look at my split-ended, heat-fried frizzy head and their hearts cried for pity. "Someone grant her her wish!" was their benevolent impulse.

I can't deny it. I was doing terrible, terrible misdeeds to my hair. With a combination of ignorance and desperation, I attacked my mane with curling irons and the most powerful beauty product I knew: Hairspray.

The tragedy was, neither seemed to have any effect whatsoever. And they were all I had.

The only thing I could do was do it more! Leave that curling iron in longer! Use even more hairspray! MORE HAIRSPRAY!

It wasn't working. I tried to listen to the avalanche of advice that came my way, but it was contradictory. "Cut your hair more often!" "Don't cut it for at least 6 months!" "Leave your hair natural!" "Fix your hair everyday to 'train' it to keep the style!"

It was a heavy burden, my hair. I finally collapsed under the weight.

No more. I gave up. I forget when. Maybe it was my first year of college. I just couldn’t keep up with it. I stopped curling it; it didn’t work anyway. The ozone layer gave a convincing plea, I abandoned the hairspray. I let my hair go free, knowing it looked bad. I was helpless against my fate.

When a few months had passed, I realized that my hair was actually getting some length. Astonishing! It could even be called “medium-length.” I was halfway to heaven!

But true enlightenment was still waiting for me.

I was at a folkdance class, when a girl came up to me and said, “I worship your hair.”

What?! I could barely respond. This girl was younger than me. She was not a pathetic loser. Her hair was golden blonde, thick, and in a ponytail. How could she admire my hair?

The mystery haunted me for days. Could she really mean that she admired my hair? All my previous experience rejected this Acham’s Razor explanation.

Could she really be sincere?

Her simple statement led me on a journey of exploration. In the new world opened to me, I discovered that there were more hair products than hairspray. Curls, under the right circumstances and care, could be shiny and bouncy.

Maybe Frieda, from Charlie Brown’s Peanuts had it right.

I always hated Frieda. Who was she kidding? The world is full of people who want to persecute the curly among us.

The women's version of Dress for Success says that you should contain your hair, that curly hair makes you look out of control. Who could deny it? Curls have a will of their own

I've always felt like my hair was an intelligent evil being that inhabited my head. Wherever I go, it sheds off curly spores. I am sure that it hopes to take over the world somehow.

Perhaps businesses have figured this out. That's the real reason they want compliant, contained hair.

They fear what they do not understand.

I read a book once, about a man in love with a curly-headed woman, Of Such Small Differences by Joanne Greenberg. He said that her hair sprung up out of her, like it was excited to be near her. He could understand that even her hair would be electrified by the amazing woman he was in love with.

Okay. Yeah. I'll be that.

Sexy.

Out of control.

Unmanageable.

Threatening.

Exciting.

Unpredictable.

This is us. We are the ones with The Hair. There is no use fighting it.

...

Posted by murphy at March 10, 2003 05:48 PM