Hair Talk: I Don't Like It When...

...People tell me how they like me to wear my hair. I feel apprehension every time I change my hair. When I put braids in, when I take braids out, when I shave my hair, when I put braids back in when it's just long enough to do so post-shave. 

I always feel apprehension and anxiety. 

It's not cool if you're wearing your hair in a cute little puff and an aunt tells you she prefers when you have it twisted. It's not alright when you cut your hair really short and your mother repeatedly tells you how much better she likes it that way than when you had it in braids. It's not OK when your close friend tells you she's sad that you've decided to wear braids again because you look so mature with your short hair. 

I enjoy compliments, yes, but not when they, explicitly or implicitly, put down something else about me. 

When I wear braids, and you like them, tell me that you like them and leave it at that. Don't say anything about missing my shaved head. When I shave my head and you like it, leave it at that, don't say anything about how you like it so much more than my braids. When I wear box braids and you like them, say so and leave it at that. Don't say how you like them so much more than my twists, and vice versa.  

I hate that apprehension about people noticing and commenting on my hair actually affects/inhibits/influences how I choose to wear my hair. The final choice is always mine, of course, and people always end up liking what I do regardless, but I resent the feelings I go through before I make the choice, feelings that are largely a  result of people's past comments on and "observations" of my hair.

Anyway....I can do more to take back the power and just say 'fuck you, I don't give a damn how you like my hair, I'm going to do what I want and do it well and you're just going to deal with it,' and to fully embody that sentiment...and I'm going to actively try to do that.

I just had to share these feelings first.

December 2013

February 2011

March 2013

Full Circle at the GCN Conference

This January felt incredibly significant (and I think the next few January's will feel this way also). I can't believe this past year with Hannah flew by like it did and that we're here facing another year together. This reality became especially poignant to me when Hannah and I attended a day of the Gay Christian Network (GCN) conference which was hosted in Chicago this January. While telling the story of our relationship to a woman we met at the conference, I realized that Hannah and I had come full circle.

Each week of January 2013 was distinct. During the first one, Hannah and I became more intentional about expressing our attraction to one another. During the second, we began dating but soon both felt that something was awry. You see, I had a plan for how I was going to proceed with the exploration of my sexuality. I was frustrated with the guidance I'd received from my friends, family, and church community for the past four years and with my own  prayerful efforts to be "straight." They'd failed to end  my attraction to women or help me deal with my attractions in any useful way and more so damaged my sense of worthiness as a child of God and, therefore, my sense of self in general. So, I wanted to try something different: meet a woman, have fun with no reservations, and see how things worked out. Hannah obstructed this plan almost immediately. 

Hannah has a way of bypassing frivolity and getting to the core of a person when she senses the need to and from our first date she was too deep, too serious, and too intense for my plan to take effect. She was also overwhelmingly charismatic, funny, and pleasantly weird, but her serious intensity always simmered right below the surface, ready to pour out at any moment. I was simultaneously turned off and intrigued by her desire to discuss the troubles in my relationship with Jesus on our first date, and  by the way she picked up on a few of my [non-gay related] struggles, without me sharing a word about them, on our second date. I didn't want  her to see into my soul; I wanted her to make out with me. But I liked her too much to just dismiss her because of the discomfort her seriousness made me feel.

At the end of that second week in January, we had a conversation about our mutual uneasiness with the way our dating relationship was developing. I told her I couldn't handle the woman I wanted to date trying to be my counselor, and she told me she couldn't operate at surface level with me.  In the span of ten minutes we went from talking about taking everything more slowly to talking about not proceeding in a romantic way at all. And it  blew me. I'd been obsessed with this woman  for over a month--she was beautiful and perfectly dykey, goofy, intelligent, and incredibly strange and unique, while still maintaining an aura of "cool." And she was a Christian-- I eventually hoped to learn from her how to follow Jesus without shutting down my sexuality. She seemed to be actively pursuing God and I was curious about how she was managing that-- although I didn't want to talk too much about it in a way that would prevent us from having all the fun I wanted us to have first.  Our mindsets were different but I wasn't actually prepared to let Hannah go. And when it began to look like I would have to--when she suggested that maybe she wasn't meant to be in my life as a romantic interest--I was sad, disappointed, and confused--even panicked. I didn't want this door to close before it had even fully opened.

I wondered if God had dangled Hannah in front of me and then yanked her away to get my attention. Later that day, however, I began to think that I'd interpreted the conversation too hastily. God wanted my attention, yes, but was he taking Hannah away or was he telling me to not proceed with my careless mindset? I started to believe the latter--maybe the point of that hard conversation hadn't been to completely shut everything down, but, before things went any further, to adjust my thinking about Hannah and the kind of relationship we would have. I think God wanted me to clearly know that I couldn't leave him out of any efforts I was going to make to work out my sexuality. Han and I decided to try to figure it out together during the third week of that January, and we're still immersed in that process.

At her mother's suggestion Hannah and I went to the Gay Christian Network (GCN) Conference on January 11, 2014. The experience was surreal. I've been to many Christian conferences, so the general format and atmosphere were familiar. But to look around and know that I was worshiping God with people who openly shared a sexual identity with me--who, like me, at a  "regular" Christian conference would have been made to feel that something was so wrong and impure in them that they couldn't worship God wholeheartedly--was amazing. We weren't being told (explicitly or implicitly) that we had to change part of our identity to be acceptable, to even ascend to the same level as sinner as a straight person. We were being told that we belonged to Christ because we chose Christ and Christ chose us and that he called us to worship him and be in a relationship with him as we were.

It was also great to meet other women in same sex relationships, and hear their stories, particularly about how they reconciled their strong faith with the outworking of their sexuality. As Hannah and I told our story to a woman named Amber, it hit me that this was the day. On the same day last year, the second Saturday in January 2013, we'd had a pivotal conversation about our relationship, both hearing from God in different ways, and had spent most of the day (and the start of the fourth week) trying to figure out what we were supposed to do about our relationship and our feelings (me particularly wondering how I would survive going back to the old way of dealing with my sexuality). Now, a year later, here we stood together at a conference with people like us being affirmed in our equal worthiness to follow and worship God. 

Overall, the conference had some issues--mainly scant  POC, queer, and trans representation--and I did not feel completely at home, but the realization that I'd found part of the answer to a question I'd despaired about exactly a year ago, and the fact that I could now look back and see the faithfulness of God and how he'd continuously brought me closer to him through the year, was almost too great and meaningful for me to handle. I wasn't aware of  this growth happening throughout 2013 but the evidence is that in January 2014, my heart was turned to God, my desire was to keep seeking him,  and my goal was to keep walking with him, growing in my knowledge and experience of him. And feeling free to do so as a queer woman.

The majority of people I know, will disagree when I say that God had/ has a good purpose in my being with Hannah. Many think I'm being disobedient to scripture and simply doing what I want and casually believing what makes me happy.  But there isn't and hasn't ever been anything simple or casual about this undertaking and happy is only one of a wide range of emotions I've experienced since last January. I can't deny how God has worked in this relationship--in my heart through this relationship-- and honestly made a path for Han and I to continue to be together.

Hannah and I haven't done our relationship perfectly or always in a God-glorifying way and I'm not convinced of the rightness of it. But I'm also not convicted of its wrongness and I'm certain there's a reason for that, a reason I'm still learning. Overall God's grace and love has so far trumped our mistakes. I'm closer to God and more committed to seeking him than I have been in the last five years and my journey with Han over the past year has a lot to do with that fact. We both have a ways to go and a lot to learn before we're settled in our choices concerning each other, but so far I think we've borne some good fruit together.

Why I Chopped It Off

“Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy."  James 4:9

 

A month and a half ago, a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in several months asked me why I decided to cut my hair so short. We were engaged in an early morning mission to move me out of my then condo and as we carried boxes from my gate to her car, I told her my ready reasons: I wanted to start over with my hair, I wanted to stop hiding who I really was, I was ready for a change in my life and this symbolized a fresh start—the reasons I already had in my head, the reasons I’d already been telling other people, the reasons I knew I was still trying to figure out. Then Delia said something that made me momentarily forget all of those reasons. She said something that rang so true that I recognized it immediately as the unnamed one, the reason I felt but didn’t know how to express.  Mourning.  She mentioned that in some ancient religions people shaved their heads as a sign of mourning.  And I thought without a doubt, “Yes… that’s what I did! That’s what I’m doing.”  

 I was in a lot of pain when I decided to do this big chop.  I’d been struggling with various things for a while and hadn’t had the time to work them out.  And then something happened, one particular incident that brought too much of my pain to the surface. I know it’s cliché but I truly felt like my heart was bleeding out.  And I remember thinking “I wonder how long it’s going to take me to get over this one.”

 After a couple of days I began to feel frantic. I couldn’t get away from what happened and I desperately needed to. I also needed a way to deal with the issues that this one incident had stirred up. For some reason I ended up listening to a teaching that a friend had sent me a few days before, not having any idea what the teaching would be about. Well it was very timely—It focused on the damage that we do to ourselves and others when we hide the truth of our struggles. It added to my inner mess the burning desire to do something to make things right. That’s when I had the idea of shaving my head.  It popped up and I thought “Yes. Then I’ll be new, and everything from here on out will be new like the hair growing out of my head.”  I then came up with a set of life changes that I would implement with the haircut and I felt such relief.

 

A few weeks into my new do I realized that cutting my hair hadn’t made anything but my hair new. I had not begun an immediate, dramatic change in my life; less hair did not mean less struggles; and not only did I not experience the instant relief I’d been after,  I’d also given myself an extra dose of self-consciousness to bear.  

 

 But that was all fine because from the day I moved out of my condo to the moment you are reading this post, I’ve been realizing how right Delia was about this mourning thing. Every time I run my hands over and through my short kinks I’m reminded that [3 weeks ago, 1 month ago, 6 weeks ago] 2 and a half months ago there was something that I wanted to cut off, something about which I was very sorry. I’m reminded that a long time ago, even before that particular incident, there was a way I lived that I deeply regretted—a life involving a great deal of hiding, a life lacking integrity.

 
At the time I cut my hair I wanted to take these things away, I wanted to start over, I wanted to be a new person. But solely cutting my hair could not make me new.  At the time I cut my hair, I didn’t realize that what I was truly seeking was a way to express grief, to offer up an “I’m sorry,” to mourn. I didn’t realize it then, but I do now.

Thank you so much Delia for helping me understand.

Sweet Jamaica mine.

“ Help me big up Jamaica/the land of food and wata/the system might nuh propa, but wi love di vibes, di food, and di culcha/ Woi, can’t you see the beauty of dis country/  mi nevah know a serious ting/ until mi reach a foreign…”

Today my country is celebrating 50 years of independence from Great Britain.  I am sure that celebrations of “Jamaica 50” are in full swing. I am happy for Jamaica and the people around the world who are having a good time in her honor right now. I am also, as I usually am when I think about my country, a little sad. I have a hard time thinking about her because when I do, I can’t help think of the ways people have constantly challenged my right to claim her as my own.

 When I first left Jamaica 11 years ago there was very little questioning of whether or not I was Jamaican. Although I had visited the United States, Miami specifically, a couple of times in the years prior, in 2001 I knew I was in Miami to stay and I felt like a foreigner: The food was different— I was particularly grossed out by how thick hot dog sausages were here, “patties” didn’t mean a flaky pastry crust stuffed with meat/and or vegetables, and spices, but rather, hamburger meat shaped into a flat circle, KFC didn’t have barbeque chicken sandwiches or fries only potato wedges, apparently eating rice and peas and plantains (now pronounced plan-taynes, instead of plan-tins) with EVERY meal was not the norm, and everyone did not love ackee and saltfish and fried dumplins. A new culture surrounded me—most people seemed to speak Spanish, most people greeted me with a kiss on the cheek; there were new words and phrases like oyé! Mira! Dimé, Can I hold your pencil? I’m finna go…I found myself in a new type of school with no uniforms and no morning assembly, a school that offered “free or reduced lunch,” that sold CRAP cafeteria food (no patties or pizza pockets or cooked lunch or amazing assortment of candy), that did not insist on standing up when a teacher entered the classroom to show respect, that gave out progress reports, and where you moved around for most classes instead of the teachers coming to you...I could make a much more extensive list describing my culture shock but I’ll stop here. Everything was different, everything was new.  In the beginning I processed those differences negatively and so I clung to my family, I kept in close touch with my friends back home, and made my first new friends ones who were either Jamaican or had a strong Jamaican or Caribbean background/ connection.

 Over the years, things changed. I became acclimatized to the U.S; my mother cooked run down, ackee and saltfish, fried dumplings and festival , “yellow” soup, and red peas soup  less and less often; my accent faded;  and the majority of my friends became people who knew very little about my pretty little island. I found that I liked my American high school a great deal. I was known and celebrated there because I was smart.  I began kissing people on the cheek in greeting.  I  legally became a U.S citizen. I could no longer name all the Jamaican parishes and their capitals. I could barely remember an Anancy story or the plot of A Cow Called Boy, the U.S government and U.S universities worked together to finance both of my degrees. And during these years people began to either imply or straight out tell me that I was no longer Jamaican or not Jamaican enough. They haven’t stopped. These people were strangers and these people were family and friends.  And their words hurt very much.

 For the past 10 years I have hated the question “Where are you from?” I hated that the asker didn’t realize that their question was not a simple thing to answer. “I am from Jamaica.” “No, where are you really from?”  “….My immediate family lives in Miami…but I was born in Jamaica and lived there for 13 years.” “But you don’t have an accent…can you say something in Jamaican? C’mon let me hear it.”

Nearly two months ago, I visited my country for the first time since I’d immigrated and I once again felt like a foreigner. I was there for 6 days and had an amazing time with family on both my mother’s and father’s side, with my god parents, and with friends.  I was jealous though. Jealous of the people who hadn’t had the formation of their ethnic identity disrupted the people who were so clearly Jamaican and sounded like it. I felt out of place and that the comfort I should have had being around my people had been stolen from me. I had to deal with the comments about how “Americanized” I was.  And I mourned.  I mourned the other life I could have had— the life that would have been mine, the certainty in being Jamaican that I would have possessed, if I’d spent years 13-24 there.

 The United States as a country has never felt like “home” for me.  And despite my great love for President Obama, I don’t possess an ounce of “patriotism,” and I will never ever be a “proud American” (not because it is a bad place but because it’s not “mine.”) I lived 13 years in Kingston, Jamaica, 4 years in Miami, Florida, 5 years in Gainesville, Florida, and  I've been here in Chicago, Illinois for nearly 2. Right now Chicago feels like “home” but I’ll never be “from” here and no matter which U.S city I live in and grow to love, it will never translate to me feeling like an “American.” I am very thankful for the opportunity living in the U.S. has given me, I am grateful for the life I have here for the amazing, amazing relationships I’ve formed and experiences I’ve had here. I like the privilege I receive from having this country on my passport but…

Nothing can change the fact that on July 5^th, 1988 I was born in Nuttall Memorial Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. No one can change that I spent the first 13 years of my life living on Grovedale Drive and then in Acadia Circle. No one can take away the Christmas days that I would drive to country with my family to visit my great-grandmother “Granny Blanche,” my uncle Lance and my cousins Mark and Chester “the man from Manchester.”  No one can take away the 10 years I danced at Jamaica School of Dance and all of my performances at The Little Theater. No one can take away the mornings that I would listen to Reggae and Soca music as mommy or daddy drove me to Discovery World, St. Andrew Prep, and then Campion College, or the afternoons that I’d listen to Barbara Gloudon on the way home from those places. No one can change the times I spent playing “Ring around the Rosy,” “What can you do Puncinella Little Fella,” “There’s a Brown Girl in the Ring,” or “Farmer in the Den” on the school playground with my friends or at home with my sisters. No one can change the fact that I know why the phrase “we don’t play hockey, we eat [h]ackee” is hi-larious or the fact that I used to watch Royal Palm Estate.

Who can take the jingle “Me-etric fever, me-tric fever; everybody haffi learn fi use-metric; everybody haffi learn fi use-metric;” out of my mind? Who can say that I never enjoyed Chippees Banana Chips, Cheez Zees, Kiss Cupcakes, Cheese Trix, Dominoes cookies, Cheese Popcorn, Big Foot, bag juice, box drinks, patty and cocoa bread, fried dumplings, mackerel run down, curry goat and chicken, jerk chicken, gungo rice and peas, stew peas,  guineps, and oataheite apples? Who can change that I knew paw paw and pak choy before I knew “papaya” and “bok choy”?  Who can re-write my history to not include the times I would stand to attention with my right arm crossed over my heart and proudly sing the words “Eternal Father, Bless our Land…” or the special morning assemblies at St. Andrew Prep where they would raise the flag and we would say the National Pledge?  Who can change that I grew up watching JBC/ TVJ, CVM, and Love TV? Who can change that I was born going to St. Andrew Parish Church and was christened by Father Thompson? Who can erase the fun I had during November Prizegiving ceremonies, and December bazaars and Christmas concerts at my prep school? Who can say that I didn’t take the GSAT and earn the right to be a first-former at Campion College? Who can say that I Mrs. Edwards didn’t teach me to write in cursive or read, Miss Lynch didn’t teach me art or that Mr. Stone didn’t teach me history, that I didn’t survive Mrs. Ogilve’s clasroom when I was 6 and Mrs. Frasier’s when I was 10, that I never had extra lessons with Mrs. Williams? Who can tell me what it was like for me to go to the market with my mother on Saturday mornings or to spend Sunday evenings with my family at Devon House, eating ice cream and standing on the small bridge over the pond to see the turtles and little orange fish!

 Who knows the grief I felt at leaving my home behind?  Who feels my grief now when I realize that there’s so much about it that I that I no longer remember?

 I don’t understand why people feel the need to define my identity for me and I resent them for trying. But the truth is no one can change the blood running through my veins—my mother’s blood, my father’s blood, the blood of their mothers and their fathers and their mother’s mothers and their father’s fathers and their mother’s fathers and father’s mothers. I have centuries of Jamaican ancestry to support me and I will always be Jamaican. It is the place that holds my history, the place that is the foundation of my heritage. I will never forget the words of our pledge or our anthem. I will never feel such pride for and loyalty to another country. I will never be from anywhere else. And I have only two words for the people who want to challenge me on that. I won’t say them here though.

I love you Jamaica. Happy 50^th year of Independence!

“This is the land of my birth/ This is the land of my birth/ This is Jamaica, my Jamaica/ This is the land of my birth.”