Re-inventing yourself

How often do we re-invent ourselves? On a daily basis perhaps.

If the re-invention process is successful I wonder what I should do with the old ‘self’, the old Marjorie. Then I realised that it’s not really possible – for me, at least – to separate myself into ‘old’ and ‘new’ versions of me. My life is a tad more complicated than that. I think that I manage multiple parts of my personality at the same time. Let me explain. With different relationships I have a different part of me to share with each person: that’s almost like wearing a different mask, or showing a different face. It’s all me, but different. Like the sun, it’s all sun but it looks different at different times of the day and from various locations of the earth.

I remember when a cousin first travelled to the UK from Jamaica, I saw him standing at the window on his first morning in the shires, he was just looking at the sky. Then he spoke, slowly, and a touch sadly, “The sun is a lie.” I was puzzled, but he continued, his head turned slightly to one side with the heavy disappointment of losing a familiar friend, “It looks like the sun, but it doesn’t feel like the sun.” His conclusion made sense. His relationship to the sun had altered with the miles of travel, but the sun was still the same, just showing a different side of itself in a different situation. Here it was necessarily lightly masked by clouds and driven by wind.

What works in one place doesn’t necessarily work in another. The same can be said for relationships and the parts of our personality that we share.

In a way we can be like the sun and become so good at masking the various parts of our character that we build up a hard exterior and hide under layers of self-deception.  The main concern that I have is that one day it may become too hard to take off any of the masks. The more I think about it, the chief problem that I see with having this interchangeable mask-like life is that one mask may be so effective that it becomes the only one we wear, and then we lose the other, valuable, parts of ourselves.

If we re-invent to prevent others from seeing us, then we have to tread cautiously in case – in the process – we change a single temporary mask into a permanent suit of full-body armour.

The last thing we should do is to be a lie.

I know it’s not comfortable to continue life as an invention, a fiction, a life behind a mask.

I am not my hair

I am not my hair ...

My hair – 9^th April 2013 

... but what will it be like tomorrow? 

© Marjorie H Morgan (2013) 

“You have good hair”

“Is it real?”

“Can I touch it?”

“Have you got any weed?”

“Ha! Jackson 5 hair.”

“Is it all yours?”

“It feels like a carpet.”

“Can I use it for a weave?”

“How do you do it like that?”

“Do you have bad hair?”

“I like it when you wear your hair down.”

“I like it when you wear your hair up.”

“Can I play with it?”

“Is it hard?”

“Is it soft?”

“Does it hurt?”

“It suits you.”

“I don’t like your hair like that.”

“How often do you wash it?”

“Can you comb it?”

“Does it feel like a Brillo pad? It looks like one.”

“Your hair is so soft.”

“You have tough hair.”

“Have you ever cut it?”

“Don’t cut it.”

“Cut it, it’s too long.”

I am not my hair. My hair is part of my identity. Or so it seems. People always have a lot to say about other people’s hair. I have been no exception. I have shared a few of the comments I have heard over the years. These are all fresh in my mind now because I am thinking about cutting my hair – much shorter.

I have no idea why this thought process has taken so long to come to any sort of firm conclusion so I’m releasing them here to find some clarity.

For years as a child I was told that I had “good hair”. What is that exactly? What makes hair good or bad? It’s ability to grow faster than other hair? I guess so because mine did (and still does) just that.

I am on my second lot of locs. The first set I cut off completely about 9 years ago. Back then I grew them down my back, pretty much the same as I have now; this lot is longer – I can almost sit on them now. My history of locs seem to be a cycle of letting them grow and then cutting them off, but the cutting time also appears to have been delayed by me right now. I’ve been musing on a quick trim, a medium cut, or a totally new start for a while but still I hesitate and the scissors stay sheathed. Why is it such a big issue to cut my hair right now – I think it’s starting to become a big thing so I’ve been reflecting on the history of my hair and hair as part of identity.

I’ve looked back at my photographs and remembered what I was doing when I had different hair styles. My hair really does tell a journey of my growth and change in different circumstances. But surely that was my hair changing and not me? Different hair styles show a difference but they don’t show all of me. I am not my hair.

However, I do like having some hair. You see, I’ve been thinking about the loss of hair – through accident, illness, age, or choice. Each situation has a different affect on the person involved. Hair is more important that I first gave it credit for. It’s part of a uniform, a means of entry or exclusion from different groups; it is a badge of identity. Hair has a character all of its own. Hair is both political and social. How your hair is worn has links to gender divisions, theories about sexuality, images of beauty and power and concepts of ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ hair.

Hair speaks volumes whether a skinhead or locs-head. Hair, like eyes or clothes, is a window into a person’s identity.

This has led me back to thinking.

I am not my hair ... or am I?

To snip or not to snip? That is the question ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_5jIt0f5Z4

India.Arie - I Am Not My Hair ft. Akon