my mom's hair

my mom has a sweatshirt with a print of a native american woman on the front. the woman's hair is wild and flowing, curling in the wind. it seems to be alive in its own untamable way. it makes the woman look strong and independant and free. my mom has the same hair. It's thick and wild and silver. and most of the time she wears it long, just like the woman on her sweatshirt.

even when i was little i knew my mom was different. and the way i could tell was that her hair was not cut short and proper like all the other moms. of course, her personality was different. but this difference was, for me, made manifest in her wild hair. it was a physical difference that anyone could recognize. i love my mom's hair.

but, i did not always love it. i remember this one time when my mom tried to dye her hair red. the silver in her hair soaked up the red while the black rejected it. my mom had flaming RED WINGS. i remember sitting in church watching my mom up at the front signing the song we were singing. i was a teenager at that time and i was horrified that a) my mom knew sign language and was signing every song at the front of church and b) she had flaming red wings. i recall wishing that the gates of hell would take back its flames and then waiting for the gates of hell to open up and swallow ME for having such horrible thoughts.

once, when i was in the seventh grade i was in the girls' bathroom at school primping before the boys' A-team basketball game. i was a cheerleader, a very skinny, dorky cheerleader. one of the other girls walked in and said, "sara your mom's here. she has a fishnet on her head." oh man.

i've grown up watching my mom wrestle with her hair. these were epic battles--buns, french braids, fish nets, huge thick pony-tails, and ultimately... scissors. one time my mom came home and her hair had been chopped back, quieted, all the way up to her ears! i couldn't believe it. i felt as if the whole world had been knocked out of orbit. where was my mom?

it took me awhile to recognize my mother's strenth and beauty. it took me awhile to appreciate her independance and her being different. it took me awhile to understand why she wanted to take me to an indian pow-wow rather than take me to the mall. it took me awhile to realize that riding the public bus WAS actually fun. it took me awhile to be thankful that she, along with her fishnet head, came to watch me be a horrible cheerleader. it took me awhile to figure out that it's not actually a fishnet but a really cool hair holder type thing. my mom is so different than any other woman on the planet. as a youngster i would have much rather had her just blend in. but then she chopped her hair and suddenly i realized that this was the woman who was teaching me to be a woman. she was the one teaching me what it meant to be independant, creative, and strong. luckily her hair fought back and grew long again.