Hair
she was a stranger
who felt no compunction
in reaching out to touch my hair
I must have been in my mid-twenties
at the time
my hair was freshly washed
shoulder length
‘it’s like baby hair,’ she said
I was a natural blond
even blonder
after a month of summer sun
‘I would kill to have like yours’
she smiled
‘thanks’ I replied
not adding
that I hate my hair
I hate it being so smooth
hate being asked
are you a boy or are you girl
being called fruit
by guys because of my hair
not that I was mr masculine
to begin with
shortly after that
I dyed my hair for the first time
I wanted a change
I bought a home kit
to make it permanent jet black
the look was striking
my mother said
‘what were you thinking’
I went to work
raised a few eye brows
but no comments
the black faded after the first wash
so much for permanent
in a week it was ash
in three weeks
back to baby fine blond
my hair
was like my sexuality
something I couldn’t disguise
no matter what women
I flirted with
what I tried to call it
what I drank to blot it out
it would always be
I had to live with the envy
some felt about that hair
about something I was powerless over
something I hadn’t constructed
something I learned to live with
I remember my first perm
a head of tight blond curls
they bounced in the light
it was my face
but a different me
the stylist conferred with a colourist
both agreed
that my hair was too fine
to hold colour for long
that it would be a shame
to tamper with it anyway
the permanent curls
would flatten within a week
I wasn’t willing
to go to bed with hairpins in
to look like my mother
so I’d get that perm
every month or so
I loved my hair for the first week
then a week of doing what I could
to keep the curl in
it was too much work
too much time checking in mirrors
I had a friend who was
what he referred to as
a hair burner
he touched my freshly washed
uncurled hair one day
‘you have baby hair.
I have clients
who would kill to have hair like that.’
I said
‘I hate my hair.
it’s too much work.’
he said
‘do you trust me?’
I let him do what he wanted
it took a couple of hours
that first time
to cut it short short short
then incise it with electric razor
patterns into the hair
sometimes a maze
other times circle or triangles
always different
then he died
murdered by HIV meds
I shaved my head for his funeral
no one would ever touch my hair
again
This piece was directly inspired by reading posts, tweets, cultural analysis of race & hair. Black women, in particular, frequently have co-workers, friends of friends & complete strangers of all races, walk up to them to touch their hair, often without asking. It is seen as a lack of boundary respect.
This is something that happened to me more than once. Perhaps as a man it hasn’t had the same response from me. There is a cultural difference between a woman touching a strange man casually – than a man touching a woman’s hair casually. A woman’s touch isn’t threatening whereas a man’s is. Recently someone, without asking, stroked my fresh shaven head and said ‘smooth.’
Anyway this piece isn’t about sexual or racial politics but about my hair. This hair touching did happen often when I was a child, less often as a teen but until I actually started shaving my head it continued. The dialogue is actual, the hating of my hair is an exaggeration. I loved the colour but hated that it was baby fine. It was shiny but shapeless. I was hounded in high school by teachers to get my hair cut when it was getting to length I liked. Brian Jones-ish.
I did dye my hair jet black & as the piece says, it washed out within a week, I never tried to dye it again. There was no altering it just ways of cutting it. As a big I usually had a brush cut, hight school was mod mop top; I never went for scraggly hippie long though. I was grappling with my sexuality & what masculinity meant. Though caring at all about my hair was then seen as being a more feminine attribute.
When I moved to Toronto one of the first things I started was getting my hair permed. I might photos of that somewhere. I would go to House of Lords to get that done. It was there the colourist said my hair would never hold colour. It would also not hold curls, unless I did extra work myself.
The hair burner was a friend in recovery. Ed – he was also from my hometown, Sydney, Cape Breton; though we never knew each other when we were living there. I often wondered what might have happened had we met way back when. As the piece says he cut my hair super short then ‘etched’ patterns into it with an electric razor. I loved it. Our haircutting sessions were slow, mediative talks for many years, in which we became spiritually connected.
He was an early HIV diagnosis & thus one of the guinea pigs as science figured out dosages. The meds killed him, not HIV. ‘So sorry.’ Before he passed I did try another hair-burner friend in recovery but he didn’t have the patience for the cut that Ed gave me. For Ed’s funeral I shaved my head for the first time. I knew that in some religions mourners would wail, tear their clothes, even scar themselves in a display of grief. This was/is my display.
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