Every morning when I make my bed, part of the ritual is picking up fallen hair. This is one of my hair’s traits. It falls all day all over the place leaving a casual informal trail. My kitchen floor is white tiles, plus maybe three stray strands of hair. My bathroom floor is beige tiles plus maybe five strands of hair. My hairline is never even, has little hair growing all the time. When I wore my hair long and pulled back, I had to use Tancho tique, the smelly predecessor of gel to get it down tidily. Now that my hair is short, I am gel-dependent.
Hair has always been some kind of a problem with me. When I was a child, a nun I loved dearly called my hair wild and every day she would scold me. "Come here, did you comb your hair?"
"Yes, Sister, I did, this morning before I got on the bus, really, it was neat, slicked down with water (gel hadn’t been invented)."
"But look at those wisps escaping! What kind of clip is that? Maybe you need a stronger one. Your hair is too wild. . . can’t you do something about it?" I laughed much later when I had blue streaks put in and I thought of running into her though she had passed on by then. I would show her my hair, "You think it is wild? Look at the lovely blue streaks and spikes put in. See how wild wild can be! Do you like me less for it?
Underneath all that I’m still the same smart student. I learned everything you taught me . . . and more. I learned things you would not teach me. I learned them well. I can do anything, be anything. I don’t have to watch, I don’t need to match. My eyes don’t, though they both sparkle with laughter and joy as the world is my toy to play with as I please. When I was a child, you called my hair wild. Well, Sister, what do you call it now?
I was told me to keep my hair neat but that was just the start, wasn’t it?
It meant: Be perfect. Do what’s right. Pull the hair tight until your eyebrows stretch taut and your face feels like a mask that will break if you laugh too hard. I’m sorry I could not then, and certainly cannot now. Once, again and again, the question arose: Will I be what they want me to be? Or will I just be true to me?
I decided a long time ago, after high school, more than forty years ago, that I would just be true to me. I have been at various stages of my life. In my twenties and thirties, I was as irresponsible as one could get emotionally but dedicated professionally. I had made a mess of my life, had four children to support, no man to help me. I worked hard to earn the money and was a totally imperfect mother. My hair was long and yes, still tousled, but it was thick, lush and attractive. It was falling though, always a few strays on my pillow in the morning, at my office floor during the day, in the kitchen on weekends, a trail of stray hair is what I left behind.
Now I am 60. I should feel old but I don’t. I should not be so alone but I am. The children I raised so well have walked away and I commend them for it. They are responsible adults focused on their children who don’t cast a backward glance at a mother who now is feeling somewhat lost, who is herself a daughter trying not to freeze in panic over her mother in Vancouver who is aging and forgetful, who needs her there, for whom she is trying to sell her house to raise the funds. I must go over there.
In the meantime, ah, in the meantime, I teach writing and knitting and try to straighten out my things and just to keep my mind together I pick up and tidy up my trail of stray hair.