Looked in the Mirror for the First Time and Saw That . . .

I was working with my tutee yesterday, and we were working on reading comprehension. I know what you think, reading comprehension? feh, so boring! But it was actually an enlightening and really great experience. I was testing how she worked with reading comp versus listening comprehension. I read a piece aloud to her. It was not short, or easy to comprehend, especially for a high school kid. I think this is high level stuff, but I also think this girl can handle it. It was a piece called "Straightening our Hair" by Bell Hooks that was excerpted from a magazine in the eighties.
It's this amazing piece about black women and the subculture of their hair, and dealing with it, and the many different codes and social cues that are intertwined in that. The essay discusses when Hooks was a little girl, always wanting to have her hair straightened with the rest of the girls, in the kitchen, where the women would gossip and have fun. Hooks saw it as a ritual, part of becoming a woman. Then she talked about straightening black hair, and what it does, to one's sense of self. She talked about the idea that keeping one's hair "natural" means you are rebelling against society, and the conformists that are looming, and that you are not feminine. You are showing your blackness and pride and spirit by keeping your hair natural or in an afro.
I feel like it's not so different for white people. If she read this, she'd probably call me out and I'd end up in tears. I'm not trying to say I could come anywhere close to understanding her experience as a black woman. I can't. I am not one. But I understand what it is like to be a woman with unruly, big hair, that doesn't want to be tamed and put into an iron. I understand what it's like to be a woman that made the choice to remain "natural" and not conform.
It's hard.
I remember in college,
I thought this was very interesting. If I went out, to a club, or a party, or wherever, I would see all of these girls with obviously straightened hair, so painfully insecure, trying so desperately to fit in. The ones who were confident were few and far between. You could spot them, because they didn't look like their hair, or any part about them was forced. I remember this one girl who was older than me and really, ridiculously talented as a singer. She had super straight hair. I think it was natural, but I don't know. What I do know, is that it didn't matter, because she was confident, and pretty, and natural, and didn't look like she spent hours in front of a mirror trying to obtain a state of perfection.
I'm not saying that women who straighten their hair are not beautiful. Many of them are. I just know, for me, when I tried to straighten my hair, when I was younger, I felt like a fraud. My hair would always give me away.
The other day someone said that for teaching interviews you should always wear a suit, minimal jewelry, and straighten your hair. Well, that sucks. I guess I'm a horrible teacher, because I don't do any of that. I know, don't rock the boat, don't be different, just say yes, and you'll get hired.
You know what? I don't want a job from a school if all they are buying is the image of a plain and boring individual.
I have curly hair, and sometimes I want to shave my head. Not because I hate it, I don't, rather because it gets hot under the hair, and the hair gets frizzy. But do I hate my hair. No. It is a part of me. When I straighten it, it looks like another person. I'm not meant to look like that person. I'm meant to look like me.
And as for my tutee, she is a sweet, funny, young Chinese girl, who is pretty in her own right. She was telling me that she always had straight hair, but she saw all these girls in school straighten theirs, so she started to, but now she regrets it, because it's not soft and natural anymore. I don't know if it's really about it not being soft, I think she wishes she could be innocent like she used to be, when she kept her hair naturally straight. I think a lot of us wish we could unlearn insecurity and wanting to change our appearance. But I don't know if it's possible to unlearn something. I think you just have to learn something new, and use that new knowledge to help free yourself of the burdens you have now.
I think the moments when we, as people, realize that we are not so different, that all of us struggle, are the really clear ones. Lots of women don't like their natural hair. Lots of women don't like their natural skin. You can change it, or you can grow into it. That kind of growing takes maturity and patience, and can be very trying. But I think I'd rather grow into my hair, than spend three hours every morning attempting to straighten it.

Are you there, God? It's me, Fiona.

I remember, when I was doing the callbacks for "Hairspray" how happy I was, yet it was this half-longing kind of thing. I knew I was almost there, but I wasn't quite, and something was missing, my Link, in a sense. And now I've found him.
But does that mean a happy ending? I am now watching a youtube video of "I Know It's Today" from "Shrek, the Musical". Yet another song about finding "the one" or the "one that will appear". These musical fantasies are really far fetched. I mean, that's what you would think.
I found a wonderful man. But is that all there is? I think it's one amazing part of life, but the idea that the perfect man for you will make your entire life complete is a story, a fairytale, a fable. I'm not saying that Pierre hasn't made me a better woman and I am not madly in love with him. But I think you also have to have self-satisfaction. I mean, in the sense, that you have to live for yourself and your dreams, as well as you and your partner's dreams. I'm starting to understand the dreams that he and I have together. But, what I thought was so clear, my own dreams, are really a murky mess.
I wanted to be on stage, and to sing in front of the whole world, but when it got down to it, I just couldn't handle, couldn't do that kind of life, and I had to be realistic. Running around NYC on a wing and a prayer, hoping that maybe, out of hundreds of thousands of girls with more talent and training than I have, I might get a lead in a broadway show was a joke. It was a joke. I wasn't ready emotionally, mentally or physically for that kind of responsibility. I could barely handle a dramatic lead in college. It's funny, how dreams change and shift when you get older. It's not that I've given up, or sold out, or any of those cliches I used to think. It's that I know myself more. Even if I had lost however many pounds it would've taken, I still didn't have the dancing ability or the really high belt it would've taken to get that part. I just wasn't good enough. And admitting that is really hard. At least it's really hard for me. I spent my youth thinking that all I was, was someone who had talent. I didn't value me, for me, at all. I didn't think that as a person I was worthy of anything, whether it be happiness or success. I internalized my anger and took it out on my body that was already suffering because I was so heavy. That was not fair of me to do.
I wondered why people would look at me funny, and it was not only because I was heavy, but it was because I so obviously didn't like myself. And I've seen it in others and it's a hard thing to watch, someone who doesn't like his or herself.
I don't know if I like myself now, but at least I know myself more. I know where my weaknesses and strengths lie. Am I ever going to be on Broadway? No. Am I ever going to audition for a show again? Sure, why not? There's no harm in trying. Will I ever be Tracy Turnblad? No, I'm too old and inexperienced for that now. But I never really wanted to be Tracy anyway. I wanted to be famous, and that was just a vehicle for becoming famous. I always wanted to be, what I am now, in a sense. A girl with a warm, loving heart, who has a wonderful family, a husband, wonderful friends, and is an academic, working towards a career to be proud of. So, through all of the beating myself up about, why I didn't do this or that, or audition for this, or lose that weight, I sit here as a I am. I'm a short, chubby, Jewish girl from New Jersey. I don't have any regrets. I have enjoyed all of this.
Do I need to change some things about my life? I sure do. Do I need to change who I am? I don't think so.