Roots

I hate getting my hair cut. I don’t know why. It seems like one of those really personal things like going to the dentist or the doctor. A stranger you’ve known for all of 5 minutes is touching you , making critique silently or not. Plus, as weird as it sounds, all three of those professions involve holding sharp objects to your person. A doctor has an array of medical equipment to poke and prod one with, a dentist has drills and picks and a Beautician has scissors aimed at your scalp. I probably need not relate that I don’t just put off getting a hair cut.

So, because I am not only a procrastinator but also a cheap procrastinator, I decided on a whim to go to one of those quick salon’s where there is only two kinds of Beauticians; Young, bubble gum chewing women with too much product in their hair, or mature women with Old lady Perms who frequently sing along to the country music playing in the background. Soon, my name was called by a woman of about 55 with a large blonde Bouffant hairdo, breasts that beat her to any destination and a makeup job that rivaled all previous or current cast members of the Broadway musical ‘CATS’. She attempted to make chit-chat while I steadied myself in the swivel chair awaiting sharp objects. I explained briefly what I wanted as a spray bottle came out discharging a shower of tiny drops all around me. Ms. Bouffant then plunged her fingers into my hair like pudding, squeezing and wiggling her hand around as if to loosen my uptight mane from its lazy slumber. I was told I had ‘lovely body’ to my hair – to which I awkwardly smiled and thanked her for. I commented then how my thick hair often got unruly which often led me to using gobs of gel. I was advised that I might think about ‘curling and blow-drying the ends up to add a flip’. I smiled in reply which was a kinder retort than ‘good god no. I hate that girly shit.’ But it wasn’t Ms. Bouffant’s fault, she didn’t know me. Suddenly I got an image of her at my age – in her thirties with a bit more hair, painstakingly curled and sprayed, teased and fretted over. I tried to clear the image of my head and commented on my early graying which had been present in my hair for at least the last 8 years. She said, “Oh well did members of your family grey early?” and I hesitated before answering “yes”. My thoughts jumbled but rested on Mom who didn’t gray early, and Dad who also didn’t. But, my birth Mother did so I always pause on those kinds of questions. Later, while trimming my hair, Ms. Bouffant asked, “Did your mom and Dad both have thick curly hair?” and I paused again uncomfortably before saying ‘yes’ quietly. My Mom and Dad had thin straight hair. I felt like a liar. But, how can one answer these kinds of questions in a brief encounter at a hair salon and not sound crazy? I wasn’t about to tell her that the woman I called my ‘B.M’ did indeed have hair exactly like mine- thick, streaked with gray, wavy and identical. I wasn’t going to say how Pa might or might not have my hair, that I didn’t know because technically I was just another ‘bastard’ that didn’t know who her father was. I was told he could be one of several men. But my ‘B.M’ was a fraud on many levels and wasn’t a parent at all. She gave me my hair and I owned up to that sitting in this swivel chair with no escape. I wanted to take my answers back but I couldn’t. I had said them and they stuck in the air like stale grease. Yes, I was her biological daughter and my hair would always give me away.

I suddenly wanted to tear my hair out at the roots. Start over. I wanted to tell Ms. Bouffant she could have all my ‘lovely body’ if she could help me grow in straight thin hair like Mom’s. I swallowed all of this instead but still wished I had answered differently. If she could make my hair like my mother’s – like the woman who raised, loved me and then died too soon, maybe my answers wouldn’t come with a pause.