Hair In There
List of colors I've dyed my hair: reddish brown, mahogony brown, black, bleach to lighter brown, red again, dark brown, black, highlighted, chunked, natural, back to black, baby, auburn, streaks in the sunlight, grow it out, someone else puts their fingers on my scalp and dies it again, and again, and again.
I dyed my hair before I cut it. I dyed it first right after my first boyfriend moved to the Netherlands my senior year. I didn't cut it until one day before my 21st birthday at the beginning of my junior year in college. I came out that summer to my family, long hair and all. Had already had two girlfriend womyn lover people in fact. With long hair. Almost made it through the coming out process with long hair.
My femininity still in tact.
My gender, my femme identity, blooming.
And since I was coming out as bisexual, I could still own that old femininity while creating a sidebar sexuality.
My (hetero)sexuality.
Didn't know it the day, October 4th, 2000, when I walked into one of those mall hair salon gigs that I was simultaneously coming out and cutting my hair within two short months of each other. Every other time I had a dramatic change in my life--falling for a straight girl that happened to be hockey player (still wonder 'bout that one), hearing about my dad's frequent visits to the ER, getting letters from my first womyn lover and best friend from Germany, I always dyed my hair a different color. That difference sufficed for me. That subtle, superficial color differentiation was enough for me to show the world that I had changed.
Not dramatically, just a little physical piece of me, of my body, of my internal, had
changed.
It wasn't enough this time.
The first hair stylist cut my hair--preppy. Even my best friend told me it didn't look like "me". I couldn't fucking put it behind my ears, but it was still long enough to look like Jennifer Aniston in the early episodes of Friends. It was hideous. I hated it.
I didn't tell the hair stylist. I smiled and nodded like a good girl. I can get used to this.
Two hours later, I went to the Cost Cutters annexed to the Rainbow Foods. This time they cut more off. I started to see a different face in the mirror. I could see the weight of all that damn hair dropping behind me. I kept telling the new stylist to cut more, more inches.
Is that good enough?
No, more.
How about that?
If my hair was short, I was gonna be fucking picky.
No, more.
This?
I finally gave up.
Yes, that's good.
After my second escapade to a salon that day, I ended up with the scissors snipping away even more of my hair in my friend's bathroom. The front was still longer, and we both looked puzzled as to what to do with it. Finally, my friend parted my hair off-center and swept the brown locks over my face.
There.
As I looked into the mirror of my friend's small bathroom, I saw it. I saw Mel for the first time, a Mel that wasn't Nick's girlfriend or Jayne and Tom's daughter or the straight A student or Stacey and Darci's sister or Sarah's best friend or the choir singer Jesus loving churchgoer or even really
that
feminine
anymore.
Was I debunking the stereotype of a bisexual womyn, or crawling into a conventional lesbian contemporary identity?
Three months ago, after my best friend told me she did not want to talk to me anymore and she actually meant it because she wouldn't say it if she didn't, I thought I would grow out my hair. Maybe because I wanted a new drastic persona. Maybe because I wanted to be perceived as more feminine, subverting the gender roles by being a lesbian with *gasp* long hair.
I endured the scratchiness on my neck and the awful transitory styles and even bought new barettes and bows and feminine trinkets for my new hair, for my new identity. Two weeks ago I went to San Francisco (clue here) and wanted to fucking
cut
it
off
So I did when I got back. Went to a fancy Regis establishment in the Bloomington/Normal mall and got my hair washed for the first time in a long time, fingers running through my scalp again, scissors snipping, again, and I
felt
free.
I shook my head as I walked out of the mall.
It was liberating.
And then, I dyed it black, too.
So I'm back, for now. The Mel I've known, that I've shown, for four years. The blunt, confusing, random Mel...the political, spontaneous, fucked up Mel...
the Mel I've chosen to show.
As for the other, long-haired chic--she's still in there. She hasn't come out in awhile and if she did, she'd be a different manifestation than who she was when she was a soft, vulnerable 18 year old. She still likes algebra and deductive reasoning and organization and her womynhood.
She is logical and softer and slower and quieter. She still laughs and cries, but is younger,
more naive,
more vulnerable.
She gets scared of herself sometimes, and would maybe even admit it from time to time.
Maybe I'll grow my hair out,
some day.
I dyed my hair before I cut it. I dyed it first right after my first boyfriend moved to the Netherlands my senior year. I didn't cut it until one day before my 21st birthday at the beginning of my junior year in college. I came out that summer to my family, long hair and all. Had already had two girlfriend womyn lover people in fact. With long hair. Almost made it through the coming out process with long hair.
My femininity still in tact.
My gender, my femme identity, blooming.
And since I was coming out as bisexual, I could still own that old femininity while creating a sidebar sexuality.
My (hetero)sexuality.
Didn't know it the day, October 4th, 2000, when I walked into one of those mall hair salon gigs that I was simultaneously coming out and cutting my hair within two short months of each other. Every other time I had a dramatic change in my life--falling for a straight girl that happened to be hockey player (still wonder 'bout that one), hearing about my dad's frequent visits to the ER, getting letters from my first womyn lover and best friend from Germany, I always dyed my hair a different color. That difference sufficed for me. That subtle, superficial color differentiation was enough for me to show the world that I had changed.
Not dramatically, just a little physical piece of me, of my body, of my internal, had
changed.
It wasn't enough this time.
The first hair stylist cut my hair--preppy. Even my best friend told me it didn't look like "me". I couldn't fucking put it behind my ears, but it was still long enough to look like Jennifer Aniston in the early episodes of Friends. It was hideous. I hated it.
I didn't tell the hair stylist. I smiled and nodded like a good girl. I can get used to this.
Two hours later, I went to the Cost Cutters annexed to the Rainbow Foods. This time they cut more off. I started to see a different face in the mirror. I could see the weight of all that damn hair dropping behind me. I kept telling the new stylist to cut more, more inches.
Is that good enough?
No, more.
How about that?
If my hair was short, I was gonna be fucking picky.
No, more.
This?
I finally gave up.
Yes, that's good.
After my second escapade to a salon that day, I ended up with the scissors snipping away even more of my hair in my friend's bathroom. The front was still longer, and we both looked puzzled as to what to do with it. Finally, my friend parted my hair off-center and swept the brown locks over my face.
There.
As I looked into the mirror of my friend's small bathroom, I saw it. I saw Mel for the first time, a Mel that wasn't Nick's girlfriend or Jayne and Tom's daughter or the straight A student or Stacey and Darci's sister or Sarah's best friend or the choir singer Jesus loving churchgoer or even really
that
feminine
anymore.
Was I debunking the stereotype of a bisexual womyn, or crawling into a conventional lesbian contemporary identity?
Three months ago, after my best friend told me she did not want to talk to me anymore and she actually meant it because she wouldn't say it if she didn't, I thought I would grow out my hair. Maybe because I wanted a new drastic persona. Maybe because I wanted to be perceived as more feminine, subverting the gender roles by being a lesbian with *gasp* long hair.
I endured the scratchiness on my neck and the awful transitory styles and even bought new barettes and bows and feminine trinkets for my new hair, for my new identity. Two weeks ago I went to San Francisco (clue here) and wanted to fucking
cut
it
off
So I did when I got back. Went to a fancy Regis establishment in the Bloomington/Normal mall and got my hair washed for the first time in a long time, fingers running through my scalp again, scissors snipping, again, and I
felt
free.
I shook my head as I walked out of the mall.
It was liberating.
And then, I dyed it black, too.
So I'm back, for now. The Mel I've known, that I've shown, for four years. The blunt, confusing, random Mel...the political, spontaneous, fucked up Mel...
the Mel I've chosen to show.
As for the other, long-haired chic--she's still in there. She hasn't come out in awhile and if she did, she'd be a different manifestation than who she was when she was a soft, vulnerable 18 year old. She still likes algebra and deductive reasoning and organization and her womynhood.
She is logical and softer and slower and quieter. She still laughs and cries, but is younger,
more naive,
more vulnerable.
She gets scared of herself sometimes, and would maybe even admit it from time to time.
Maybe I'll grow my hair out,
some day.