Over the winter we offered a number of online writing classes, called Islanders Write Immersives. This essay was written by Cecilia Carter during a “Fictionalizing Your Life” workshop taught by Kate Feiffer, and was written during a 15-minute prompt. The prompt that inspired this incredible essay was: Write something from the perspective of a part of your body.
I have been with her since the very beginning. Long before she knew what to do with me, I was watching.
“Oh, baby, give me one more chance, I want you back!” she sang with a teenage yearning in her voice so strong you could believe Michael Jackson was performing in her living room. Gripping the latest issue of Tiger Beat magazine with Michael and his afro on the cover made her feel giggly and equal to the Donnie Osmond–loving, one-bad-apple crowd she went to school with.
It was the start of the ’70s, and big hair was the rage. I watched her with a side eye as she donned her mother’s wigs and danced the boogaloo in front of the family Motorola black-and-white TV. I even smiled when she grabbed the curling irons and used them like a microphone to transform into Diana Ross after seeing her on The Ed Sullivan Show. Yes, honey, she loved those beehive, chignon, bobbed wigs. In fact, she loved them so much she would sneak them out to wear at school just to fit in and be cool.
She wanted straight hair so badly, thinking it was the magic key to being popular. And she thought changing me would make it all better. Yup — ever since she went to school that first day after the big move to the suburbs, and they called her a little [n—–] with nappy hair, she has hated me. She tried everything to change me: hot straightening combs, braids, and finally the Crack Crème from Johnson Products — smelling of chemicals and quiet desperation — made to slick it down and blow in the wind. Everything she did, I hated. The smells, the pulls, the obsessive desire to turn me — her crowning glory — into something I am not.
I simply decided to lay in wait until it was time for my voice to be heard. Nothing likes to be cast aside as though it is useless or made to feel unloved. That’s how I felt in her early years when Mom did her hair. Why couldn’t she just be happy with those pigtails and afro puffs? Especially when they dressed me up for Easter, interweaving silk ribbons matching the hues of dyed Easter eggs in her basket.
Then she tried the afro — but even that was not natural. She permed me first, then added rods and twisted me into contortions I was not meant to do. But ahhhh, she was a cutie. Truth is, I did like her. She was bold, brave, and brazenly defiant in the face of the most turbulent times in her young life. She could defend her position on most things, except for me. I just wanted her to stand up for me. So, I waited for her to get older — to show her who was really in control.
“Oh my God, what is wrong with my scalp!” she screamed at her hairdresser. She was having her 25th birthday party and had to look fly — but I was not cooperating. She blamed him. But I will let you in on a secret: It was me. I had made up my mind to do my own thing. That is when I left her with a quarter-sized bald spot to match her 25 years on earth.
She tried hats. She tried weaves. She tried pretending it wasn’t happening. Each year I would visit her and build scalp houses, taking over more real estate on her symmetrically shaped head. I thought it looked pretty — lots of patterns and swirls and dips between missing strands of hair. She, of course, thought anything but.
“Oh, is this a fashion statement or treatment?” someone asked when she went to the Links Black Tie. By now, she was in her late 40s with two kids and a booming career — but not feeling very confident, or sexy, in her look. It was the turning point. The moment she realized she was not in control.
Going back to her same hairdresser of all these years, she asked him to shave me off. She finally recognized me. I felt heard, important, and knew I would be a part of her narrative for the rest of her life. She embraced me, even smiled when she looked in the mirror. In return, I taught her how to wear diamond earrings, makeup, and even sexy, outlandish glass frames to bring out the glow of her beauty.
I can remember the day she stood in front of the mirror playing India.Arie’s “I Am Not My Hair” with swagger. Finally, after our 50-year journey — her baldness was vogue.
Cecilia Carter, “the Strategy Chick,” is a renowned self-empowerment artist, speaker and executive coach. Inspirational and compassionate, she combines her engaging style and experience to educate and motivate audiences from college graduates to corporate leaders. A former corporate affairs executive with several world-class brands, she has become highly sought after as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and as a guest speaker, assisting them in unlocking their power to accomplish extraordinary things.