American Hair

Back in Poland, my mother had been a surgeon. She would tell stories from her days working at the hospital, and my favorite one was about the man who ate a bucket of cherries without spitting out the pits. My mother was awoken in the middle of the night by a frantic phone call, and she ran half-asleep to the hospital. As soon as they put the man under, they cut his stomach open to reveal a mass of undigested cherry pits. My mother still remembered the tink-tink-tink of the pits hitting the metal pan as they scraped them out.

As a kid, I loved how visceral the story was - I could picture the man clutching his stomach and groaning as they wheeled him into the operating room. I could feel the stillness of the night as my mother ran down the pitch-black street. I could hear the cherry pits strike metal as they were removed.

Above all, though, I was proud that I loved the story as much as my mother did. Her face lit up with glee as she recounted it, even as she pretended to wince at the grizzly details - but I knew she was being dramatic. She didn’t find any of it gross, and neither did I. I could handle it, and that meant that I was as tough as she was. Every time she told the story, I made sure to pay extra attention. If my eyes were glued to her the entire time, unblinking through the gore, then surely she would realize how special I was.

It took me a while, well into my teens, to figure out that my mom wasn’t a surgeon at all. She wasn’t even a doctor. She was a nurse. Her stories were true - she really was there when they happened - but the way she told them made it sound like she was the one holding the scalpel.

I think she relished in the ambiguity, because for as long as I could remember, I never got a straight answer from her. She was murky about the big things, like why she and dad left Poland, and about the little things, like her hair. She kept her hair short from her hospital days, long after she traded practicing medicine in Poland for homemaking in America. She never let it grow past her ears, and if she couldn’t get a hair appointment fast enough, she trimmed it herself with the gleaming silver scissors she kept in her sewing kit.

But the knowledge that I wouldn’t get a clear answer from her wasn’t enough to stifle my curiosity.

“Did you always have short hair?” I’d ask.

“No.”

“Why did you cut your hair?”

“It was easier at the hospital.”

“Whose idea was it?”

“A friend’s.”

“Why won’t you grow it out?”

“It’s easier now.”

“But don’t you miss having -”

“Kasia!”

My mouth snapped shut and my cheeks burned hot. I did it again. I should have known better, but the need to ask welled inside me like a balloon threatening to burst. It was so hard not to ask.

While my mother had a pixie cut, I had the complete opposite. When it was fully unbraided, my hair fell past my knees. It was never fully unbraided for long, though. It was only down during brushing time.

Every morning and every evening, I would face the bathroom mirror as my mother undid my braids, unraveling her earlier work. She’d pull a wide tooth comb through my hair, from my scalp down to my knees, brushing and brushing until she was satisfied that no knots had escaped her watch. If there wasn’t a tangle, then this part wasn’t so bad. If one had taken residence, though, she’d switch to a finer tooth comb and pick-pick-pick at it until the strands came undone. I could feel individual hairs nearly get plucked out of my scalp as she did it, and I’d have to grit my teeth to keep from yelping. Once she was satisfied, she’d re-braid my hair, tugging each piece tight as she entwined it around the others, making sure that it would stand up to the demands of the day ahead.

”Your hair is beautiful,” she’d sigh as her deft fingers plaited one piece of hair over the other. Brushing my hair was the only time she said it - the only time she said anything like it - and when she did, I felt like I could take a running leap, spread out my arms, and glide through the air. It was worth fighting the urge to cry or yelp as she tore the comb through my hair. Not only did my mother think I was beautiful, but she would see how brave and strong I was, too.

Some days, she’d braid one thick braid, and I’d feel it thump against my back as I ran across the blacktop during recess. For fancy occasions, she’d French braid my hair, yanking the tender hairs on my scalp into submission as tears welled in my eyes. The majority of the time, though, she braided two braids. She would take two industrial-strength berets decorated with gigantic, puffy bows, and snap the ends of each braid on the opposite side of my head - right braid attached to my left side, left braid attached to my right side, comically exaggerated bows practically sprouting from my ears. I looked like a My Little Pony, and my braids were built-in reins. Kids at school found it irresistible to grab fistfuls of my braids and yell, “Giddyap!”

I was ten years old and never had a haircut.

And yet - I never questioned it. I didn’t question a lot of things. I knew we were different from other families, that I was different from other kids, and I tried my hardest to accept that. It came down to certain rules. We didn’t go out for dinner or order pizza. We didn’t go to the cinema or rent movies. My mother wouldn’t volunteer for the PTA or supervise class field trips, but she would drive an extra hour to go to the Polish speaking doctor or dentist. We went out of our way to shop at Polish stores, and the Polish radio would be on all day at home. If my mother had to interact with someone who didn’t speak Polish - if she had to ask the pharmacist for a prescription or return a shirt to K-Mart - I would get shoved in front of her to do the talking instead. “Powiedz im,” she’d hiss. “Tell them.”

I think I just assumed that the braids, like everything else that made us different, were because my parents were Polish. Just like the pierogi and golabki and bigos that my mother made for dinner, the braids were something that they brought over when they came to America.

A part of me knew that it wasn’t forever. Eventually, the braids would be no more - and my biggest piece of evidence was my mother. She didn’t have them, so at some point, I wouldn’t have them either. My time would come someday. It had to, right?

This didn’t go over well when I asked my mother about it.

“When will I get my hair cut?”

She jumped and whipped her head around, her eyes practically on fire. “What do you mean, get your hair cut? You don’t like how I do your hair?”

“What?” I gasped. “No!”

“You think you could do a better job than me?”

“No! That’s not what I meant -”

But the damage was done, and there was nothing I could do to reverse it. By the time my dad came home from work, my mother was still fuming. She slammed his food down on the table and stalked off without a word.

He picked up his fork and sighed as I slid onto the chair across from him.

“It’s my fault,” I admitted.

“Oh?”

“I asked her when I would get my hair cut.”

He nodded as he brought a forkful of potatoes to his mouth. “She didn’t like that, huh?”

“No.” I bit my lip. “She didn’t.”

He chewed and swallowed. “Your mother had long hair until she went to medical school. She was known for it.”

“How old was she in medical school?”

“Twenty-one, maybe twenty-two years old.”

I felt my stomach drop. “I have to wait twelve more years until I cut my hair?”

He shook his head. “I think she realizes that can’t happen. America is different. When you go to middle school, when you become a teenager - I think she’ll realize that the braids will be too difficult.” He looked up at me and gave me a half-smile. “It’s not much longer.”

But the braids were already getting difficult. I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers because no one would be there to do my hair at night or in the morning. I could go to the pool sometimes, and my mother would pin my two horse-rein braids high on top of my head, but I wasn’t allowed to dunk my head underwater because I’d have to wash my hair when I got home. On the days I absolutely had to wash my hair, I thought my neck would snap from the sheer weight of my wet tresses dragging me down. It took half a bottle of shampoo to wash and hours to dry. My mother had to plan her day around it. There was no way I could do it all alone.

Everything came to a head when I got invited to Brittany Boswell’s birthday party.

Brittany Boswell had a swimming pool in her backyard, and she invited all the girls in our class for a pool party that turned into a sleepover. A day to night party - I couldn’t think of anything more sophisticated.

When I got the invitation in the mail, my heart soared for a split second before it plummeted to my feet. The two things I wasn’t allowed to do - go swimming and stay overnight - were wrapped into one mega-event. It was all but created in a laboratory to offend my mother.

I knew that she would object to me going, but I didn’t expect her to attack everyone else.

”What kind of a parent would come up with this?” She cried. “What kind of parent would agree to this? Their child, filthy, full of chlorine, spending the night on a stranger’s floor - not getting a proper bath before bedtime -”

”But they’ll shower!” I held up the invitation. “It says to bring your own bath towel, that everyone can shower after swimming -”

”At a stranger’s house? Have they gone mad? How disgusting! I don’t know these people -”

I knew it was out of the question for me to shower at Brittany Boswell’s house or even try to wash my hair there - but a thought bubbled up, an angry one. These kinds of thoughts were coming up more and more often as I realized how simpler it was for the other girls. They’d show up at the party with their hair in pigtails or ponytails, or maybe completely down! They’d dunk their heads underwater to swim and do handstands. They’d get out of the pool to have lunch, and by the time they finished eating, their hair would be dry! And when they were done swimming, they could hop into the shower and wash their own hair, all by themselves.

The utter ease of their situation boggled my mind. Why weren’t they easy for me?

My mother picked up a comb and motioned for me to come forward. “Your hair,” she murmured as she undid my braids. “It’s so beautiful.”

The flying, happy feeling I got when she said that was muddled by something heavy. I felt like a hot air balloon weighed down with sandbags.

The day of Brittany Boswell’s party was approaching, and my mother would not budge. I asked if I could go to the pool party but not the sleepover. I asked if I could go to the pool party but not dunk my head underwater. I asked if I could go to the pool party but only dip my feet.

The answer was always: No, no, no.

”But why?” I’d ask.

”Kasia!”

”But why?”

“Because no!”

That night before bed, my mother had to spend extra time untangling a massive knot in my hair. “See? You get tangles just doing nothing - and you want to go to a pool party.”

I screwed up my eyes and tried not to topple over from her incessant yanking. My scalp was screaming. My face was burning. The angry bubble in my chest felt like it was about to pop. I didn’t do anything to my hair, just like she wanted, but I got blamed. She never noticed how brave I was. She never noticed how I didn't cry.

That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I ran my fingers down my silky braids and tried to remember how beautiful they made me feel, but in that moment, I only felt chained. I wondered how much longer I would be shackled to them.

For as long as you’d like, a voice inside me whispered.

I sat upright, eyes wide. I asked my mother when it would be time to cut my hair. I hadn’t considered that it was something I could do myself.

I all but buzzed with excitement, but I forced myself to stay quiet. Bit by bit, I slid out of bed and inched my way down the hallway. I took the stairs one at a time, praying they wouldn’t creak, and then tip-toed into the living room until I found what I was looking for.

I held my breath as I pried the sewing kit open. There they were, gleaming in the moonlight - the silver scissors.

Prize in hand, I crept back up the stairs, pausing at every step to make sure that no one else was awake. I walked into the bathroom, closed the door as gently as I could, and turned on the lights.

The first step was already monumental for me: at ten years old, I was finally unbraiding my own hair. I yanked off the hair ties and combed my fingers through my plaits until they were completely undone. I stared at myself in the mirror and realized that I had never seen myself, just myself, with my hair down. My mother had always been right behind me.

I stroked my hair, feeling its softness between my fingers. I shook my head from side to side and felt the ends of my hair tickle the backs of my knees as they swished back and forth. I giggled, then clasped my hands over my mouth. This had to be a silent operation.

No more fooling around, I thought as I picked up the scissors. I paused and frowned, realizing that I didn’t know where to cut.

Shoulder length seems fine? I thought. I pried the scissors open, placed my hair between the blades, and cut.

Snip-snip-snip. Snip-snip-snip. Hair fell all around me, and soon, it covered the bathroom floor like a thick carpet. I worked in chunks, grabbing hair that hadn’t been liberated yet and freeing it with the scissors.

I was almost done when my mother burst in.

At first, she couldn’t speak. I don’t know if she was blinded by the bathroom light, or if she couldn’t believe her eyes. A few seconds passed as she opened and closed her mouth, but when she found her voice, she screamed the loudest I had ever heard her scream.

”KASIA!”

I bolted past her and ran into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. My chest was heaving, my mind frantic - of course I knew that my mother would notice what I had done, of course I knew that - and yet, I hadn't exactly thought this part through.

I locked my bedroom door, convinced that it wouldn’t be enough to stop her if she decided to come barreling through. I sank to the floor with shaky knees and a woozy head, waiting for her to pound on my door and demand to be let in.

It never happened.

I remember feeling so worried and so anxious that I thought I was going to puke. My head was pulsing and it felt like my brain had been replaced with fuzz. I shook like a leaf, convinced that at any second, my mother would break down my door and scream at me for taking away the one thing she liked about me.

But my mother never confronted me that night, nor did she yell at me the next day. When the time came for my typical hair brushing, she took the scissors and evened out my choppy midnight cut.

"You made a mistake," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. My heart froze, waiting for more that never came.

It was the only comment she made about it, and she never told me that my hair was beautiful ever again.

With all excuses gone, I went to Brittany Boswell’s party. I dunked my head underwater and did my first handstand. I brushed my own hair before I got into my sleeping bag, and again when I woke up the next day. My mother insisted, though, that I came home to shower in between.

A moment from my midnight haircut, one that I wouldn't understand until I got older, was that the dizziness and headache that overwhelmed me weren’t entirely from fear. I had gotten so used to the weight of my hair that, when the weight was suddenly gone, it made me lightheaded. I didn’t realize how much I was carrying around every day.

The lesson that I understood sooner was, in a way, was the harder one. I used to think that freedom would feel, well, freeing. But at ten years old, when I was laying on my bedroom floor with a brand new haircut, my head throbbing, my vision blurring, and hearing my mother sob in the bathroom - I realized that sometimes, it was more complicated than that.