Self-Portrait: 2022 Is Also All About My Hair

“There is a lot of breakage.” Don’t we all feel that way?

I balked when she said it and immediately went to defend myself. It must be the scrunchie I had near permanently in my mop since the beginning of the pandemic. It’s because I hadn’t had it cut since then. It’s because the hair is in terrible condition because of pandemic neglect and not, dear gods, because it’s falling out. It’s just broken not heading for the hills. It’s just broken, not endangered. It’s just broken—more, healthy, unbroken hair is just behind it.

I got it cut in December 2021 and I feel like a human again. The broken hairs are still broken, but the unbroken ones are no longer frayed like D-grade straw, looking like a witch’s hair. Gods, was I ever embarrassed when I walked my straw haired witch’s self into the Great Clips and asked them to whack the mess off. The stylist was understanding, matter of fact as the hay hit the floor, and gave me a marvelous new start, jawline length, relief from all the burden of the last two years that had fallen well past my shoulders and almost all the way down to my waist.

So the broken ones are still broken, but they’re also still growing and now don’t have so far to go to catch up to their unbroken sisters. The mop isn’t so long that I have to keep it up in a scrunchie anymore. I don’t have to be bound all the time. No more mass breakage is imminent. 2022 is going to be a good year.

How much further can I carry this hairy pandemic metaphor? Let’s see:

The thing about the short curly hair is that there is no second chance. There is no second day hair so, if you’re going somewhere, if anyone else is meant to see you, you must must must take care of it day by day. It’s a hassle when we’ve all gotten so used to not caring much about ourselves as we huddle and hide away. But also a sign of health, this hassle, and anything, even if it’s vanity, that forces you to bathe and primp and proper yourself, is a good thing and a godsend in a time when it’s far too easy just to let go.

With the short curly do that gives no second chances, I wake up from tossing nights looking like Einstein. That’s why I was able to come up with such completely original, genius, and insightful observations about the pandemic vis-a-vis my hair.

Original, I tell you. Original.

I wish you all the best and healthiest in 2022. My goal is to be here more and make more super genius and purely original observations with both my words and my art, photographic and otherwise. My goal is to read more of your work as well. My hope is we will inspire each other. My hope is we will inspire each other enough so as to give each other the tingles. My hope is we will inspire each other enough that, tingling together, it makes our collective hair, broken and unbreakable, stand on end.

-M. Ashley

Photo: My submission for this week’s 52 Frames challenge, “Self-Portrait” I’m calling it “Gallows Humor.” Taken with an iPhone 10. Flash did not fire.

Second Best Hair

Second Best Hair

Still keeps your head warm

And your lover’s fingers busy.

-M.

(Day 18 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. This one is an “American sentence,” 17 syllables. Definitely not a home run, but enough to keep my streak alive and that’s what I’m all about on through the 67th day! Onward and forward.)

Wild and Considering a Haircut

My hair is gorgeous with platinum curls absolutely everywhere. It can also be the wildest white afro you’ve ever seen. There are frizzy parts and curly parts and parts beat straight from being slept on. When I wake up, I often look like Einstein in dire need of a haircut. 

It’s been getting on my nerves lately. It’s always in my face and sometimes even in my food. It gets caught in my purse strap. It gets under my watch band. It gets in my eyes. It gets in my mouth, even without being food-borne. 

Also, it’s hot under this thing. Seriously hot. I don’t need another reason to sweat and I sweat into this pelt all the time. 

The wildness, at times, is inconvenient, but I do love it. The problem has been that it can’t be wild without being in the way. Wildness is meant for the wilderness, not my civilized lips. 

A common symptom of depression among women is the desire to cut off all of one’s hair. I’ve dabbled in those thoughts many times, but my hair is my glory, like the Bible kinda says, and the Lord himself might weep if I got rid of it. 

I’ve decided to give it an out-of-my-face wilderness all its own.

I’ve decided on a pixie cut, even though I look nothing like a pixie in the face, or, ahem, in the body. I’m more like a bumble bee. I will give it the top of my head and the great heavens above to roam around and howl in. I will put some unnecessarily expensive crap in it after I shower, run my hands through, and let it go. If I’m going to look like Einstein anyway, I might as well not be a shabby one.

I have only a few requirements:

I want something undomesticated that doesn’t even look like it needs to be domesticated. 

I do not want to come out butch.

I do not want to look like a boy, (terrible experiences with that when my mom chopped all my hair off when I was little and every stranger called me a he.)

I don’t want ever to have to spend more than a few minutes styling it, but no styling at all would be preferable. 

Low maintenance baby. Low maintenance. I’m a low maintenance broad who needs a low maintenance do. (You’d think I would be able to type “maintenance” by now with no mistakes, but no. “Maintenance” is a lot higher maintenance than one might think.)

I love the look of wild, straight punk cuts, but I’ve got curly girl, curvy girl, girly girl written all over my scalp. We’ll get as wild as we can. We’ll get as far away from my watch band as we can. Wildness makes no promises.

-M.