17 December 1998: Shining Cape

More than a month ago, I was cleared to return to contact lenses. Since then I have worn them a couple of days a week, easing back into them, sensing every nuance and twinge of my eyes. With lenses I wear earrings, I walk taller and stride longer, and overall I feel more attractive. Mostly only the myopic notice this.

Last week I decided I would attempt to wear my hair down for the day. This is another major departure from my usual. Everyone seems to notice this.

I started to grow my hair (stupid idiom; as if it didn't grow before) in the summer of 1990; someone french-braided it for me in January 1992; I could braid it inversely (the p.c. term) myself a year after that, and it reached its longest, the small of my back, in the summer of 1996. Since then it has undergone a net loss of several inches and now falls to my shoulder blades.

When I first ceased to have it cut, I was wholly unused to my hair hanging in my face. Always before it was either curly enough to spring from my skull or only skimmed my forehead in front and cropped short like a Labrador's snout (my standard) in back. And especially when it reached its first awkward stage of too long to be short, I did whatever I could to keep it out of my face. As soon as I could make a ponytail, that's how I wore it. I was ugly anyway, breaking out for the second time in my life (both times in keen emotional stress), and I didn't want hair in my face making it oilier.

So I've always worn it back. In a braid, simple or inverted, or in a chignon, simple or braided. Occasionally a ponytail. Extremely rarely, I would draw only my front hair back in a barrette and let it hang. These lapses would end in a braid fastened with the elastic that I always carry. (In addition to the change in my wallet's coin pocket live a purple elastic and a lavender guitar pick. Just in case.)

I never wore my hair down. I don't believe in bangs and so needed at least a barrette to keep it out of my face. It was always flyaway and felt parched and looked staticky, particularly after moving to Denver. The curls of my childhood, the pipecurls of my second grade school picture and the bouncy pigtails of third grade, straightened over time from corrugated iron in middle school and unruly waves in early high school to the sculptured body of a professional, sleek cut in late high school and throughout college. My hair, once long and straightened further by weight, neither waved in harmony nor lay obediently straight.

And I wore it up, back, braided, away from my face. I have always disliked long hair that obscures the proud line of a person's jaw, interferes with the broad forehead and the windows of the soul. I dislike impractical long hair that obscures peripheral vision, that falls forward when one leans forward, that gets under a backpack strap or collar, that one needs one's hands in always to tuck behind an ear or flip behind a shoulder. Also I dislike to see someone shedding hair almost as much as to see someone toss down a cigarette stub. Both are littering.

Well. Last Thursday I decided to give wearing it down another try. In the morning I washed my hair and then, instead of braiding and ignoring it until the next morning, I blew it dry. From the salon of my last trim, I had a free sample of a leave-in conditioner--more unnecessary chemicals--that purported to protect hair from overheating--and I used it liberally. Somehow, I achieved hair that I could wear down, loose, without barrettes or the least braid, that lay relatively flat, with body and wave, that agreed to stay behind my ears or my shoulders when I put it there. Also, I had no fringe of abused or immature tendrils popping out along my browline: I beat them into submission.

People at work were wild about it, some whom I pay to compliment me, some who despise their own hair and crave others', and some who just honestly liked it. Then I met RDC at the mall after work to find a present for DMB. I told him I thought there was a Liz Claiborne store and if there was, we'd meet there, but if there wasn't, to meet by the directory at the bus entrance. When I strode in, he wasn't at the directory: there was such a store--I was pretty sure I knew that much mall geography. I continued in the direction of Liz Claiborne but spotted his ski jacket in the Colorado Pen Company. As I entered, RDC's salesperson looked up to greet me, and he followed her line of sight. It took a moment for his expression to change into one of recognition. He was all agog. He thinks it looked lovely--and it did, that one day--and that wearing it loose makes my face look softer and so on and so forth.

Well. Here's the thing. When I do something with my hair, I do it and that's it. I don't have to mess with it for the rest of the day. I don't have to think about it, tuck it away off my face, pick up shed two-foot strands, flip it away if I wish to drink from a fountain, haul it out from under my backpack straps, or anything. There's just me, living. It's the state of being I look forward to one day about my eyes, too, if I can ever afford laser surgery that won't leave me with halos in my night vision.

I don't wear make-up because my face had better have integrity of its own and if it doesn't, I should have the integrity to know it and not slather unnecessary chemicals onto my face. I don't wear nail polish because I use my hands. Anyone who has one of those little tools so they can open a can of soda without harming their nails should go out and work on a farm, do something useful, for a while, to see how long a manicure lasts. How much time do people spend on their nails, anyway? Do something useful, I say. I don't wear nail polish on my feet because they're feet, made for walking. Calloused, broad, gnarled. Feet, I say, not leg finials. On these same principle I don't want to have to keep thinking about my hair, which I must do if it's loose. I have to keep shoving one side over my head so it doesn't part along the center, to keep tucking it behind an ear so it doesn't fall in my face, to tuck it behind an ear again and again because mine are just regular ears not particularly protuberantly grippy.

Succintly put, the beauty of my body is in its utilitarian aspects, not its ornamentation. I can sprint, leap, dance, caper, skip, cavort, climb, tote, toss, stretch, relax into down dog pose, and I can swim. I can hammer, paint, knead, massage, trowel, turn pages, sew, play piano and clarinet, scrub, type, write with a pen. In none of these activities do I bother about keratin sprouting from my body's extremities and whether it's in my way, might be harmed, broken, or soaked in chlorine, or whether I must hold my hands straight over a keyboard and reduce my typing speed or use an unnatural grip on my pen because of my nails. Damn it.

To achieve the look of last Thursday, I would have to wash my hair every day, which it doesn't need, and then spend--waste--several minutes every morning (better spent doing crunches) blowing it dry hoping it would look right--which it hasn't the subsequent three or four days I've tried to leave it loose. I have my fringe again and the ends already feel parched from blowdrying. I'm trying again to grow my hair to my waist, which I can do with it less in my way than at its current length but loose.

And what really pisses me off is people commenting more on my hair being unfettered than my face being unfettered. I don't look different because I've got a mane hanging in my face like a staticky veil, I look different because I'm not wearing spectacles and am therefore happier. Damn it.