My Mother is a Cactus
There was a time where I didn’t style and comb my own hair. Possibly years of my childhood I spent attached to a seat somewhere. A chair, makeshift stool, ottoman, or simply standing up through it all. Standing was always the worst. For praising and loving my long locks so much, my mother sure didn’t know how to take care of hair like mine. Unlike her, my hair was thick like a nourished bush, a long tail full of fibers that could serve as a shield. Not only thick, but curly, not coily, but a loose swirl of silk that was as long as half of me. It was half of me. From behind it was a wall of ivy, expansive vines and leaves that obscured my upper body. It may as well have wrapped and entangled itself to my shins and muscles. It demanded my attention, my mother’s attention. I couldn’t just go out and about with my hair down. There is a reason that Cousin It 1has to be a pimp, a wealthy stub of hair that lives a life of catered conditions. Imagine him trying to play any sport, or workout, tripping on himself, if he has legs, suffocating behind the wall that stands between him and open air. So, for hours and hours of any random day, I would be a statue, a teary eyed, slightly crying, sobbing statue while my mother did my hair.
……..
I was her doll. Not all of the time though. More like in the China cabinet doll. Still wrapped and sealed in a box. I’m collecting dust. Only every once in a while does she come by happy to see me, out of the corner of her eye where only the gleaming reflective eye catches her senses, interrupting her thoughts. My hair may as well be plastic, synthetic since there’s only one way she wants it to be. The strands of my hair become the opposite of my mind everchanging, expanding, evolving: my hair trimmed, tamed, and destroyed to maintain its shape. I still go to the same salon as I did when I was young. Somehow these women are qualified to shape my reality, I don’t trust them… can’t trust them. How can my mother? Does she feel so unbothered to not do it herself, to possibly give me the chance to feel a gentle steady hand coaxing me through a period of rebirth. Into the barrel of streaming water where my hair crowds its sides, out to be the same ideal, the same image she has of me.
The hair cape that covers my clothing is tightening around my neck. Sensation unfamiliar and unrelenting to making me feel discomfort. I’m molding into the chair, sinking with the pressure of time; how long have I been sitting here? My hair is already curly, why does Sylvia have to curl it so much? The sections she pulls out are never ending, you never know how much hair really rests on your head until you style it. Or even when someone else styles it. Tighten, restrict. My neck may as well be swelling up, my head inflates. Every curl with the curling iron becomes tug and pull all the way to the root. The type of pressure that happens when a child tries to rip a weed out of the ground. My hair is a weed, all spiky with the split ends that Sylvia has probably missed. Only it’s had decades to grow; I am reluctant to let it stay. Constrict, my eyes water, oh my god do not cry. The mothers and other people will judge you; your pain will become more interesting than the magazine or phone that sits in their lap. Oh no I’m crying; I try to subtly claw at my neck while Sylvia steps away. It’s been hours sitting in this chair that Sylvia had to heighten, yet she still has to bend down to reach the ends of my hair. Ow, why does this hurt so much. I can’t stare at myself for much longer through the large mirror in front of me.
“Oh my God Angelica, stop complaining. You’re crying for nothing. Sit still so that Sylvia can finish your hair; she is almost done!”, my mother exclaims when she walks up to me, assessing why the heck I’m clawing at my neck.
Shame clouds my silence for the duration of the session. I wish I knew how to take care of my hair. Instead, my mother hires a gardener every year or so to manage my mangled mess. At the end of the session, I emerge from a mist of chemicals that harden my heated curls. Lightly damp cheeks from my small amount of tears, the scent of hairspray scraping and itching at my nose.
……..
All I feel is pressure
Shaking and alive
She strains her limited mass pull me in
Equivalent to Jupiter
My Jupiter, my nearest neighbor, for better or worse
…….
The door is open with the bathroom directly across my mother’s room. Overhead, four lights attached to an over working fan blazingly light my scalp lining for my mother’s poor intercepting eyes. A stool attempts to support my weight, I have to shift check to check when my leg and foot become to numb. Despite being a young teenager, my toes don’t have the opportunity to touch the floor. There was a space on the bed where my mother plopped my extensive headband collection. My hair became a mangled track of fiber and time. The world outside couldn’t stop somehow freeze so my mother didn’t have to rush, rush and jam a comb through my dried-up hair. My hair was dry scaled up roots, dry as a tumbleweed out in the last of the wild west. However, it didn’t matter how much time she had, a hair would always go out of place.
“Arghh. Stay still! I have to start all over again.” Her frustration isn’t high pitched, it comes from a place deep in her throat, a growl and sigh all in one package. Even though my back is what faces my mother, I can easily imagine her eyebrows pinning themselves together. Her eyes look up to the ceiling as she groans, as if somehow the God she believes in will have mercy on her to make this session go by faster. Each eye-rolling becomes a sign that even an ounce of her willpower to do this had vanished.
“……”, my eyes twitch, and eyebrows cannot help but wiggle in desperation.
A tile became the object of my ire, a distraction from the prolonged pain I felt slithering up my spine, into my shoulders. My upper and lower back always having to support the amount of weight I carry. The bathroom was a collage of warm brown and beige square tiles. Centered in the middle of selected tiles is a flower looped to impressionistic completion. My neck remains in an awkward position, some of my muscles straining under the long duration of time that passes for the simple three section tale to be completed, never to satisfaction, I guess.
“Why does it choose today, of all days, to become difficult! I have somewhere to go in an hour!”
……
My mother is a cactus
Shaped by her father, popularly a harsh man
My mother is a soldier with her armor hugging the curves of her skin
Weighing her down, rooted in place
One day she’ll be able to build the strength
To remove the weight of her past, but she doesn’t see that
Not yet
……
My mother’s hair is a parenthesis, root to end each bunch of strands stick together creating one uniform swoop. One can say that art style can be defined as a sum of deliberate choices influenced by internal and external forces sometimes out of the artist’s control. I guess the same can be said for the way a person treats their hair, each day you wake up with the opportunity to do whatever brash decision you want with this thing that grows from roots in your head. So, what stops someone from not constantly changing? No matter the day of the year, for at least the past decade, my mother has always only had one to three ways of wearing her hair. Practical and buoyant, her hair manages to have volume without obstructing the planes of her aging face. In the essence of routine, to this day I can accurately predict the amount of time that she will take in the bathroom to get ready. Since we’ve stayed in the same apartment for the majority of my life, the one bathroom is meant to sustain my mother, brother, and I.
….
“You’re going to have to get a trim soon. I’ll probably book an appointment with Gloria in a couple of weeks. I know she isn’t that rough with your hair like Sylvia.” I’m thrown off by the passing note as she always tells me important things in passing, in between movements.
“Um, okay… just remind me again the day before or of the appointment so I know not to put product in my hair.” I have to prepare myself to be seen. The sensation of someone touching my hair. I’m hoping that the style my mother chooses doesn’t take forever; going through strand after strand of hair to artificially curl is a painful process. Not painful in terms of the heat, its consistent pressure, a tug and pull to force it into place. They always use too much hair spray; my naturally flowy and soft curls get masked in plastic, turned crunchy and stiff. I dread having to eventually wash all that product out. I never actually know if I get all of it out.
“What if one day I decided to cut or dye my hair? You know, so that I can heal my curls and they’ll actually be more defined.” For some time now I wanted to go to an actual hair stylist, someone that can actually help me take care of my hair. Yes it is probably more expensive, but I’m willing to try and receive help.
I get a daggering side eye, “No you can just still go to Gloria and get your trim. There’s no need for you to go and do something else to your hair. You have beautiful hair mamas; you should be grateful for the abundant hair you have when other people can’t say the same.”
“Do you think my hair is more like my heritage from Puerto Rico? They all have that big hair no?” I ignore the guilt trip that is somehow meant to make me feel better, make me thankful to God I guess for my hair even though I was simply born with it? A flash of a bald head comes to mind, she was a distant friend that I played softball with. I never saw her again, but I hope she’s doing alright.
“Pftttt, no. You’ve seen your family from Puerto Rico, and they don’t have hair as thick as yours. You look more like your tia’s in Mexico.” Contrary to my mother’s statement there is probably only one time I remember being in the same space as my Puerto Rican relatives. It was my Aunt Millie’s wedding, and they all flew in for just this occasion. Even though I was stuck in a nice party room with food, surrounded by my family, I never actually learned any of their names or engage in a single conversation. The same can be said for my family in Mexico; except I never have been in their presence. Somehow my family moved across the border and went all the way North to Chicago, possibly one of the only places in the recent past that had a diverse set of people living there, working, eating, and sleeping. Maybe if my braid is long enough, I could chain it all the way back to the place we used to be. It would be a bridge of my own making, possibly the only way that I’d be willing to go to an unfamiliar-familiar place.
….
Her hair pricks my skin
Hugging a cactus seems counterproductive
The only thing for miles with arms to wrap your arms around
Low hanging fruit in a brutal place
Maybe her sharp spikes are retractable
I hope so
For I don’t know how long I’ll endure it
….
I don’t believe there has ever been a moment where my mother has dropped so much lore at the attempt of explaining her life like this before. Lore, meaning that your parent finds in them the vulnerability necessary to share details about their past. It’s as if a book materialized in front of you to tag you along their speech, years of frustrations, doubt, and work coming out in unpredictable levels, never steady. My mother had just had a single serving of red wine while she watched me practice bowling during my winter break. Since the college bowling season expands across the months where people live the cozy fireplace aesthetic, winter break is one of the only times where tournaments don’t take place. Blue Bird lanes had a special that allowed people to bowl unlimitedly for a constant price for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Bowling as a repetitive routine flew by and I bowled five or six games.
Despite sitting in a medium sized SUV style truck, the lack of light and darkness seeping into the car separated us from the outside world. After five o’clock, Chicago in the winter is completely void of sunlight with only the streetlamps to assist people down the street. My mind rather than my body felt exhausted after practicing the same shots for over 2 hours. At least in softball you have other people to keep you company, but in bowling it’s literally you and the ball for most of the time competing at the alley. My mother was insistent on taking me practice at least twice while I wasn’t in school. She didn’t want me to decline in any of my consistencies during competition play.
“I just hope that you know how I do all of the things I do for you guys because I love you. That’s why what your brother J.P said to me was so hurtful, don’t even know why he said that. ‘Why did you have us then? We didn’t ask to be here.’ He says that shit to me not knowing all of the things I went through with you two during pregnancy.” My brother J.P, my mother, and I went previously in the summer to a restaurant to have dinner, at Les Brothers. However, me and my brother had to meet her there since she was coming straight from work. That particular evening J.P was unrelenting, constantly irritated with the things my mother says and does. I guess that is what happens when he spends too much time alone with her at the apartment, it’s just the two of them when I’m gone. While he was socially irritable, my mother and him going back and forth, I was trying to eat my pork chops, they were massive.
“Especially you being my only girl, I was so afraid that I was doing too little or the wrong things to keep you healthy. It was bad enough J.P was premature, and he had his heart problems, but then you were so small as a preme’”, my mother was now slightly in tears. Unlike J.P, I learned to stay silent when she talks, it’s easier that way. The less that I talk, the faster she can vent. Whenever she talks to me about the past, the things that she has to let off her chest, I’m inclined to listen to the parts I haven’t heard before. This was different. The entirety of her life revolved around us, my brothers and I, especially since she had my oldest brother Jesse at a mere 18 years old. Frustrations and pains of the past hang from her like chained body weights, she is the master of her own healing, the only one capable of taking them off. My own life is forming, diverging from her in small ways, the weight lessens. I wonder who she’ll become, how this being sitting to my left will morph. For now, I in silent appreciation and agony, how can she understand that I once held her weight?