Allison Howard – Walking heart

You know I have never really liked my hair. Now, this may not seem like a strange confession. However, people that know me would actually have a slightly eye rolling/ annoyed response to this statement. Why? Well, basically it is because I have the kind of hair people only dream of.

When I wear it down, in all it’s golden, silky, soft splendour, the strangest thing happens. I seem to stand out, and people tend to gravitate towards me. Usually, people just spontaneously compliment me with “Oh my God! you have the most beautiful hair”. In more disturbing moments individuals have even reached out and touched my hair, without asking. This can be quite unnerving, especially when my back is turned and all of a sudden, I feel a gentle hand stroking the top of my head, it is the creepiest feeling ever.

One particular incident, I remember, was unfortunately inspired by a teacher at my primary school. You see, we were being taught the concept of difference in humanity and being in a mostly Caucasian demographic the poor teacher didn’t want to single any one culture out, and he was obviously finding it hard to appropriately show examples of “difference” within our community. But  thinking sideways, this amazing teacher thought of an interesting solution to his problem. Unfortunately for me he came up with the idea of using hair colour instead of skin. Thinking back now, I giggle picturing him feeling so smart at the start of the day. He must have thought himself so very clever, I mean how benign is hair colour right?

For the lesson, the teacher started separating us up into different groups correlated to what type of colour hair we had. The brunettes went to one corner, the blonds to the other, and as I started walking over to the red head corner, the teacher, suddenly infected by OCD, yelled across the classroom, “NO Allison, you don’t belong with the red heads.” so I turned to head over to the blond corner; again the teacher spouted out “No Allison you don’t belong there either.” And then proceeded to direct me to the last corner in the room that was empty of anyone else. 

As I stood there in my strange hair corner, isolated and alone, not even allowed to associate with the other red heads. The whole classroom turned on me like a pack of wolves, laughing and yelling horrible insults towards my tiny little corner. Here in this story, I would have loved to have acknowledge, that the red heads, who were used to this treatment in the playground would have come to my rescue, but sadly no, some of the boys in that camp where the loudest and cruellest of the bunch. 

At that moment the teacher lost complete control of the classroom and I dissolved into a puddle of tears in my corner, melting down into the blue and yellow synthetic vinyl carpet of the classroom floor and that poor teacher, frustrated with how the exercise went, grabbed my arm and hauled me all the way to sick bay. As he even saw there would be no safe refuge for me that day.

Now, considering I can still recall this incident in quite vivid detail, I feel it right that I can claim this event of my childhood a pippie. Another aspect of this pippie is how my hair was controlled by my parents. You see as a child my Dad loved my hair and wanted it long. So, mum let my hair grow down over my shoulders, much to her frustration, as she found it hard to care for, as it has a thick and fine texture, often easily and quickly tangled and would spring into a knotted mess the instant I left the bathroom. This part of my grooming quickly became a great source of anger, fighting, and tears. Which I quickly resolved, at an early age, by teaching myself how to do my own hair and discovering the magic wonder of the hair tie.

Now, as you have been reading, I hope you have noticed that during my childhood I did not have a lot of control over, or any autonomy with what happened to my hair and how I looked. This powerlessness also extended to what I wore and as I grew into teenage hood it became a great source of cringable misery that followed me around and was just another avenue for the bullies at high school to have over me.

As horrible as this was, it all came to an abrupt end, when one day at the movies a group of girls, during the session, thought it would be funny by surrounding me while I was seated and proceeded to shove their half-chewed chocolate bars and bubble gum in and through my hair. It was so disgusting and by the time I eventually got home, the mess had dried so hard that no amount of combing or tears could release the candy from my hair, and much to my surprise, my mother’s relief and fathers heart break, I had to get all my lovely locks chopped off just below my chin in a wonderful 1980’s bob, (I was not allowed a spiked fringe of course).

Now this bullying event happened in my tween years and was something that sparked a myriad of different hair styles over the years that I used to help disguise myself. I have cut, layered, permed, (it was the 90’s), dyed, and once, much to my parents’ horror shaved my head completely, all in the name of trying to get comfortable with what was on top of my head. As I have gotten older and looking back through the past, I have realised that this helplessness in regards my physical person, is a strange concept to come to terms with. What I wore, and what I adorned my body with was chosen not by me but by pressure and expectations of society and others.

This powerlessness I had, not only encompassed my childhood but I also unconsciously carried it well into adulthood. Here I rebelled quite visibly where I became so cavalier with my appearance that now as I am older, I wonder, if I hadn’t been so controlled and bullied as a child that maybe things might have been different. Would I be any different if I was left to quietly and safely discover a healthy relationship with my body and how I looked? Developing a knowledge and acceptance of who I was, instead of practicing/pretending to be.

Now, as I am staring down the barrel of the big 50, I have become acutely aware of the trauma produced by the above events and situations, and have finally come to the realisation that in order to move through this I have to confront the major cause, of my grief and take back my control. You see up until a couple of years ago I had been mundanely keeping my hair back and out of the way in my usual wrapped up bun, rarely letting it out in public, and always carrying a spare hair tie just encase. 

I had developed this grey mindset, up until recently, where one morning I was getting ready for work and as I started to brush my hair back into my usual tight knot, I suddenly stopped, and thought to myself, “No Allison, not this time, you don’t belong in that corner either.” And holding my stare in the mirror, I let my hair fall over my shoulders and kept it that way all day.

So what happened? Absolutely nothing. I had the obligatory compliments and standard niceties, but that was about it. Some people where even excited to see something new about me for a change, which was the most thrilling part. The only thing I can vividly recall from this first outing, was that through the day I slowly started to get annoyed with constantly adjusting my hair as it kept on scooping behind my neck and falling along the side of my face, giving me a slightly annoyed claustrophobic feeling. You see, unlike what the Pantene shampoo commercials promote, big changes can’t happen overnight. It takes time to recognise your own power and acknowledge who you really are. To slowly dig underneath the layers of other people’s perceptions, actions, and opinions, to rediscover your true self. 

Now I do what I feel, sometimes I have my hair up, sometimes it is down, other times I make sure I take a hair tie with me just encase. Most importantly, I see my hair as something apart of me and not the “Other” and I can now, perhaps enjoy; even find a peace and self acceptance that everyone else dreams of.

These thoughts have inspired my latest illustration titled “Pippies in My Hair” – Felt pen and water colour on paper. It took me a while to get this one, I nearly finished another more intricate illustration however this came to me the other day in a moment of quiet thought, where the image of me floating on the oceans edge seemed so peaceful, which is where I feel I am in my life, not what I have described above or previously.

You see perhaps I have it wrong, maybe I am not so much digging for pippies is that I am finally still and they are just floating to the surface. The challenge here is to be able to capture these moments in time, break them down decipher what they mean to me and how to move forward from there, I guess that is what I am doing here, and I want to thank you my lovely reader for floating with me.

I will leave you with these thoughts and I hope you are all having a wonderful start to August and keeping safe and warm in what ever you are doing.