Hair, There or Anywhere

"There’s a part of being intimidating that I think is really a compliment, because it means that you’re sort of unrelentingly yourself."

Maggie Rogers

I run my hand across my head, fingertips pressing into the skin of my scalp, a sensation that is new to me. This must be the forty or sixtieth time today that I’ve slid my hand from forehead down to the nape of my neck. I notice wind differently now, as it moves through the short hair on my head. As I move this body, in dance or exercise or hiking, I notice the sweat beginning to seep from my scalp more quickly, mingling with the mountain air. The rain now falls closer to me. The water in the river provides me with more instantaneous relief against the midday sun.

I moved to Tanzania in February. Yet something started to shift deeply during March. I completed another year of my life. I settled into a newly “normal” routine living here. I read a letter from someone back home that brought to light the reality of what it meant to leave America and move here. Suddenly I was stripped, raw and vulnerable. Beginning in March, I believe I began to undergo a deep shift. And it was around that time that a quiet thought entered my mind, shave your head.

Sitting alone on an unusually cold evening, I am watching the sunset, and I know, that the reason that little voice told me to shave my head is because I am stripping myself of all illusions and facades. I am revealing my Self, to myself. I am redefining my sense of beauty. I am learning to trace the contours of my head in a new way, without the shroud of hair.

As I thought, day in and day out, about shaving my head, I was able to unpack many truths before I even took the buzzer in hand. I thought, perhaps I should wait until the beginning of July. When I dug deeper, I realized that the reason I would wait was related to seeing people for certain events before then and wanting to be perceived as beautiful. My ego was directly tied to my plan to wait. I thought, what will people in my village think. When I dug deeper, I need only remind myself that the norm here is for women to have their heads shaved. Additionally, I already spend a huge majority of my day being stared at and noticed, being the only white person in my village. No matter how I look, my days are filled with the same refrain – umependeza – you look great. This is high praise here in the village, and frankly they could care less that I shaved my head. In fact, it’s a great opportunity for me to learn new vocabulary. I have mastered how to respond to “Umenoya nywele! Kwa nini?” (You have shaved your hair. Why?). My response, “Kwa sababu, nimetaka kuona kichwa kwangu. Sasa nimefanana mama wa Tanzania.” (Because, I wanted to see my head. Now, I resemble a Tazanian mama.) We hold hands as we laugh together, and they rub their hands on my head.

There was, of course, the concern that I am already feeling so raw and vulnerable, constantly doing deep self-reflection and emotional unpacking, maybe now might not be the best time to totally shift my physical appearance as well. This concern should not be discounted. After all, this experience is already one that has unveiled deep thoughts, emotions and wounds in need of unpacking. My physical and emotional wellbeing here is directly connected to my ability to accomplish sustainable work for my community. Eventually I simply asked myself, “If not now, when?” I feel I have found my edges and jumped off the cliff into the ocean below. And yes, the ocean is forgiving and gentle. The current, supportive and encouraging; asking me to venture further, deeper and more wholly into this experience. The only difference now is that salty water mustn’t get tangled in a web of hair to reach me.

While I was living in New York City I found myself cultivating a strong sense of self-love and confidence over the last two years. I wore clothes that complemented my many moods. I styled my hair depending on those same moods, wild, severe, controlled, sensual. Somedays I wore a full face of make-up and others I washed my face and walked out the door. I have spent years of my life without wearing make-up, without shaving parts of my body, and without caring much how this made me appear to others. My sense of sensuality, beauty and desirability came from somewhere within the deepest parts of me. I desired myself, in a way that is somehow unlanguagable. I cultivated and am still constantly cultivating an awareness of how deeply one’s sense of beauty is rooted; it is earth-bound and buried deep. How much time do we spend considering how others perceive us? I admit, it’s more time than I’d like to imagine. And what could we do with that time if we chose to redirect our energy elsewhere? Perhaps directing that energy into ourselves, into service to others, and cultivating joy and beauty; a home within ourselves.

Here on this mountain, I spend a great deal of time thinking. And I am now quite viscerally aware of why the great thinkers of times of old had such deep and pensive thoughts. They had so much time, no cell service, and were mostly self-indulgent into their mental landscapes, a mixture of curiosity, ego and a driving force of discovery. So much of our existence, as women, is geared and curated and socialized for the male gaze. We cut and paste and curate for the sake of another; for the sake of being considered beautiful. Dare I say, we are not searching for beauty, but something far more temporary. Imagine for a moment all those pristine marble statues of Greek goddesses, women contorted into all sorts of shapes. Imagine, instead of a male sculptor gazing upon their bodies, that they themselves sculpted the voluptuous shapes and curves of their body, that with every chisel they paid homage to that spectacular curvature and skin, the edges and imperfections. Turn that same eye inward. Imagine how much more forgiving your own gaze can become. Beauty is not something bestowed upon you by another. Just like joy is not something you receive from that outside world. These are deeply cultivated, essential truths that we create and grow within ourselves.