Trapped in the folds
I keep finding loose curls trapped in the folds of the sweaters I packed last Spring.
On the yarn I’ve forgotten about.
Stuck to packing tape.
Long curled strands—
caught.
Is there a fate, where the many lines of potential realities all cross at a particular decision? In every universe does it feel remarkably unimportant to shave off my hair?
Meant to be, a phrase reserved most often for relationships feels accurate here.
Both important and mundane.
A round of movie clips comes to mind –about cancer, about being mentally ill, about disguise, about becoming someone different. These transformations, framed and motivated across many contexts of losing or gaining control, flash by. Then the trend mid- and late quarantine of head shaving just because everyone should do it once. The images keep flipping and the audio plays, “Do it, just do it!”
It didn’t feel like making a decision. There wasn’t a decision.
It was not unlike the unconscious forward motion of taking a step,
and then,
another.
Did you know?
“In telogen effluvium (TEL-o-jun uh-FLOO-vee-um), significant stress pushes large numbers of hair follicles into a resting phase. Within a few months, affected hairs might fall out suddenly when simply combing or washing your hair.” Mayo Clinic
I would watch clumps of my hair collect and slither from my fingertips, cascading with the shower’s water to the drain. A gentle comb would dislodge or break the webbed, tangled chunks.
“Do I have a bald spot?”
I asked the third hair stylist. She assured me that I did not. My scalp and hair were healthy. She worked tirelessly to revive my curls. Bringing them back for the night, held together by a variety of oils, mousses, gels, and hope, probably. Briefly, I saw myself in the mirror only for her to disappear the next day.
I am thankful to have a supportive family who didn’t push back but eagerly helped. One chopped braided chunk. Then a shave, a slight fade, crisp lines carved along the edges. The sensation of clippers going back and forth was totally new. It is a rare thing to have a new feeling.
“All I am is face now.”
I keep touching my head. When I am thinking or stressed or doing nothing, I find myself running my hand over my hair. I was joking for a while about shaving it. I once remarked that I wasn’t totally convinced I had the head shape for shaving it all off. And confronting the shape of my head, and the size of it, is a bodily reality I had also not felt. I cannot believe the gooey machine that is endlessly explorable, and in part, unexplorable, is contained here.
Since middle school, I have photographed myself, not out of an abundance of confidence or solipsism, but for confirmation. This is me. This is what I look like. And now the reflection or photograph is so different from my imagined self. It’s lost on me how I am perceived or what to think of this new image.
For so long, all I could see was loss. The imagined future I would never have. Derailment from where I was supposed to be, from who I was supposed to become. Finally, the bitterness of loss has dissolved. In one anxious thought, it has taken too long since After to get to this feeling. In one compassionate thought, it has taken as long as it needed to.
A friend reminded me of the power of hair. The energy it holds and what it means to let it go. She told me, with pride and understanding, I was tasked to rediscover.
I don’t especially know my reflection anymore. I am getting to know her though—this version that is just as complex as the last. The last, still planted, has left reminders in the folds of the sweaters I packed last Spring.
On the yarn I’ve forgotten about.
Stuck to packing tape.
Long curled strands—
released.