el pelo

"A girl with short hair is a shame." -- Actual human

A girl's relationship with her hair is, well, a surprisingly important and influential thing on her experience in life, view of herself, and other's view of her.

I've always thought how strange aliens observing us would find it, us trimming and primping these dead cells coming out of our heads, painting them with chemicals to watch it turn different colors, endlessly straightening and curling, torching with hot air and spraying with mystery liquids.

But you can see why. Hair is beautiful. It is. Long, short, curly, stick straight. It's a pretty great feature of the human body.

Until I was 4, I was blonde. Then brown, shoulder length. In first grade, I sucked on the ends of my hair (What, it was right there.  Yes, I know it's gross.) to the point my mom threatened and then did in fact give me a matching bowl-cut with my little brother. My sister had gorgeous, unruly long hair that she and my mother seemed to vacillate between loving and loathing trying to control. I always loved it. But also didn't mind in the least looking very much like a boy in my own hair.


Eventually it grew, and in junior high and high school, my hair remained mid-back length. At a time of identity search and solidification, it became a huge part of Brinn. I was the girl with the long pretty brown hair. I loved my hair, and while I didn't own a curling iron, straightener, or hairspray, I did all sorts of different braids and twists and found my creative outlet I suppose in my locks. From time to time, thoughts of shaving it all off would come, just to see what that would feel like and if it would change how I felt about myself. I sort of loved the power of this idea to make me simultaneously smile and get super nervous.


 One summer I decided to try cornrows ( I have always wished I was african american. Really.) I even bought fake black hair at NPS to braid in with it, and wore the look for months. In taking it out, I only got halfway before I was pooped and went to sleep. When I awoke, small gnomes had come in the night and knitted my hair into the biggest , most ridiculous knot I have ever seen. It was a dense egg of hair, and it simply would not come out. It was determined I had to cut my hair. Chin length. My boyfriend at the time assured me I would still be the most beautiful woman in the world. But I ended up looking like a middle-aged newscaster. It was a bad haircut. And I decided I never wanted short again.

Fortuitously, my hair grows fast. It had been down my back again for a good while by the time Dorius left for Taiwan.  The day he left I went in my backyard and buzzed it. Once again I had the same hair as my brother. My mom cried, and was genuinely upset and dissapointed. Beyond what I had ever imagined. "It's just hair!" I told her in disbelief. I learned it is more.

Then I was in China with inch long hair. Never having died my hair, I decided if I was ever going to go hot pink (another look I'd contemplated, but never too seriously), it was now. So, not speaking Chinese, I told the stylist in that Beijing salon to do it, encouraged by his thumbs up and emphatic tapping on a pink bottle. Came out looking like Ronald McDonald.

That grew out, and now for the past 5 years or so, I've been back to the long brown hair. It's probably the first thing people notice about me or use in describing me to others. Lately I feel like I've become too attached to it, too comfortable in letting it define. I don't want to get stuck in viewing myself one way. I don't want to feel like it's such a big part of who I am. And frankly, I want to do something that scares me.  So I'm cutting it all off. Short. As silly and small as cutting off hair seems, it is nonetheless a big deal, to me. I am beside myself nervous.

I'll be explaining to parents, uncles, grandparents, chinese friends (for whom short hair is something only grandmas do) and who knows who else.

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ta Da!

And done! Thanks Dorius for this post-cut evening couch phone photo shoot. I am probably one of the top ten worst people in the world when it comes to having my picture taken. Hence me not looking at him in most of these.