Stairs in My Head

On bad haircuts, beauty ideals, shame, and the women who stopped caring

I dislike cutting my hair. No. Let me be more honest. I really fucking hate cutting my hair.

I usually write about deep things like vocation and restoring community, about social transformation and the approaching collapse of our civilization. Wisdom, god forbid. I write about wisdom. The name of this project is Wiser fucking Now.

Today, however, I want to write about the VERY SUPERFICIAL TOPIC of the tiny cylinders coming out of my skull. Thousands and thousands of minuscule cylinders that every six or so months I finally convince myself to prune.

Sometimes, like earlier this year, I come out the other side of the hair salon neutral enough, alive. Other times, like yesterday, I come out a ridiculous bag of shame.

*

It is no unusual trope, the attachment of yet another woman to her hair. I grew up in the most wealthy, posh neighborhood of the second capital of Portugal. It’s called Foz, where the river meets the sea in Porto, and its populated by multistory houses and expensive cars that sometimes get stolen. There’s even a name for women from Foz: fozeiras. It is typically used derogatorily.

Fozeiras dress in boho-chic clothes. They wear hip sunglasses and gel nails. You can recognize a fozeira by the way she speaks: not like the other mortals from Porto. A fozeira’s accent is chic, modern, cosmopolitan, slightly—but not overtly—condescending. And, of course, you can spot a fozeira by her hair: the kind of effortlessly perfect vibe that takes a very expensive hair dresser to pull off.

Throughout my life, I tried, with varying degrees of success, to be a good fozeira. As a little girl, my mother tested all sorts of cute hairstyles and outfits on me. I was adorable—an adorable little fozeira.

By primary school I was more of a tomboy. Shy, introverted, overly sensitive. I preferred football with the boys over chat chat chatting with the girls. I had three brothers, three male cousins. I used to pride myself for beating them in arm wrestling. Whenever we needed to decide anything worthwhile—like who picks the next movie, who gets the last slice—there was Carlota, extending her arm on the nearest table: Come on, let’s arm wrestle it.

Then came fifth grade, sixth, seventh. It was no longer cool to be stronger than the boys. To eat as much as them, play as hard as them. It wasn’t sexy. Did I mention that I was kind of chubby? Not fat fat, but never skinny enough either. I was the kind of girl pretty girls wanted to be seen with, so my awkwardness augmented their stardom.

My sexy-fication strategy? Obsessing over my physical appearance. I began counting calories, eliminated whole meals and sugar and gluten from my diet, exercised as often I could. A memory comes to mind: unsuccessfully trying to make myself vomit after a binge. Another one: staring into my bedroom mirror late at night hating my body so deeply I’d punish myself to sleep doing sit-ups in bed until I could no longer move.

My mother did my hair often in those days, for birthday parties, night outs, sometimes just for school. She styled me so skillfully my girlfriends were jealous of my long, pretty, wavy hair. They asked me for advice: which products to use, how exactly to make it look so… effortless. That was also when boys started paying attention to me as a sexual being. I was still playing sports—competitive volleyball, 2x national champion, a level above my age—which made my legs muscular. But it didn’t matter: I had perfect hair and stunning clothes borrowed from my mother. I was sexy enough for the sexual marketplace.

*

If the struggle with beauty ideals could be summed up in a single object, that object would be a hair salon. A room fully dedicated to beautification. A loud, hot room stinking of chemicals that always screamed in my face: YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH AS YOU ARE. YOU MUST SPEND HOURS STARING INTO THE MIRROR LOOKING AT YOUR IMPERFECTIONS, CUTTING YOUR HAIR, COLORING IT, DRYING IT, STRAIGHTENING IT, SO YOU LOOK LIKE A MORE PRESENTABLE WOMAN.

The paradox is that just as badly as I desired to look like a hot fozeira, I also spent my life trying my best not to be perceived as one. I didn’t want my accent, meat suit, or my socio-economic class to define me. I played volleyball with women from more precarious backgrounds and earned their trust through my unpretentiousness. At eighteen I mustered the courage to leave Foz, leave my country, leave behind all those fozeira scripts that so distanced me from my truer self. In my heart, in my solitude, I always knew I was a writer, a researcher, a free spirit. During my teens I was so focused on my looks I barely opened a book.

At twenty eight, I thought I was doing better. Yesterday I did my yoga practice, edited the novel, worked on the pod, figured it was about time I cut my hair. I was in such a good mood I even made small talk with the hair dresser. Sure, I could still feel my pain body, my decades-old anxiety under the surfaces of the hair salon floor while she massaged my hair. I distracted myself further inquiring her about her daughter, a musician, a musician who lives in Switzerland. I even told the woman about my hair salon trauma as if those days were behind me. And when she was done with the scissors and I looked into the mirror… there she was: the little Carlota, consumed with self-hatred, disgust, regret.

I’m getting to the more embarassing part. I’m so activated by hair salons that I try to make my visits as short as possible. I never dry my hair. I just give the same instructions as always—the same instructions my mother gave years ago when she spoke for me: cut just the ends, four fingers max, “escalado”. When I lived abroad I never knew the Spanish term for “escalado”, so I just explained with my hands how I wanted my hair to look: shorter but long, slight U shape, simple. What I realized yesterday was that while I always thought “escalado” meant that U shape effect I like, it actually means to cut the hair in different layers, which I despise.

I’m a writer and it didn’t dawn on me that “escalado”, from the etymology “scala”, means “stairs”. No, I DO NOT LIKE STAIRS IN MY HEAD. And not only did the kind hair dresser made my hair look like a staircase—it’s a short, shoulder-length staircase. RIP long, pretty, wavy hair.

*

Two insights emerged from this capillary incident. First: always ask for what you want, using your damn voice as clearly as you can, in your own damn words, not your mother’s words from twenty years ago. Bring photos. Use the dictionary if necessary. Ask Claude, for heaven’s sake. Be reeeeeeeally specific. Mean every single tiny word you say. And hopefully, your hair, once it grows, will be fine for the next decade.

Second: wow. You have some serious hospicing ahead of you, girl. So much shame, so much attachment, controoooooool issues, resistance to chaaaaaaaaaaange. I’m so identified with my long hair that my head hurts—as if a stack of books is being pressed down from my crown, trying to get me on my knees.

Rationally, I know no one cares, no one will probably even notice. It’s really not that bad. Emotionally, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, stop looking at every, single, mirror. Last night, I was so rageful I went for a run, Eminem’s ‘Till I Collapse’ blasting through my headphones. Woke up, still obsessive. Spent the whole day obsessing, writing this piece, researching women who shaved their heads, older women who STOPPED GIVING A DAMN FUCK ABOUT HOW THEY LOOK ALL THE TIME. Wise women who understood the ABSOLUTE TRAP BEAUTY IDEALS ARE BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU TOO WILL GET OLD AND YOUR SKIN WILL WRINKLE, YOUR ARMS WILL GET FLAKY, YOUR KNEES SHAKY, AND THAT WON’T EVEN BE THE WORST PART BECAUSE YOUR FRIENDS WILL BE DEAD AND NOT EVEN YOUR WORLDY ACCOMPLISHMENTS WILL SAVE YOU FROM DREAD AND GRIEF AND LONELINESS, FROM THE INEVITABLY TRAGIC AND MAGIC COURSE OF THIS MAGNIFICENT LIFE, SO MUCH MORE GRANDIOSE THAN YOUR STUPID STAIRCASE-LIKE HAIR.

*

Okay. I’m done with my caps lock vent. I do want to add that thoughts about body image have been more present since I decided to include video in the Wiser Now podcast. I feel like a pendulum: one minute I’m convinced I should capitalize on my physical beauty: go the gym more, get those arms more defined, nails colored, more stylish outfits. The next, I’m fantasizing about not caring at all: eating what I want, not moving, becoming a hunched young lady so devoted to writing and interviews that me and the keyboard merge into one being giving public appearances as the first cyborg writer.

I look up women I admire and place them across the pendulum. Noor from At Your Service is on the pages of fashion magazines, full make-up on, with outfits I would never pull off. Marianne Williamson, in her more conservative style, always appears equally impeccable: colored lips, nails and hair done, fancy suit on. Anne Lamott, the hilarious writer and Marianne’s friend, has voiced several times publicly she stopped caring about what people think of her butt. Elizabeth Gilbert told Oprah nine months ago how liberating it was to shave her blond head.

There’s a middle path. It’s the one I’m after. I sense it has less to do with whether or not I choose to wear make-up on the next Wiser Now video. I’ve read enough spiritual texts to know the answer lies within—deeper than the bad haircut, the shame, the self-hatred; deeper than my attachment to all the physical traits I still like about myself. I thought I loved myself more. I thought I was freer. Perhaps that’s part of the problem: thinking, thinking, thinking. How do I be it?

Here’s a wonderful quote from Anne Lamott I found during my desperate rabbit staircase:

"… about a month before my friend Pammy died, she said something that may have permanently changed me. We had gone shopping for a dress for me to wear that night to a nightclub with the man I was seeing at the time. Pammy was in a wheelchair, wearing her Queen Mum wig, the Easy Rider look in her eyes. I tried on a lavender minidress, which is not my usual style. I tend to wear big, baggy clothes. People used to tell me I dressed like John Goodman. Anyway, the dress fit perfectly, and I came out to model it for her. I stood there feeling very shy and self-conscious and pleased. Then I said, 'Do you think it makes my hips look too big?' and she said to me slowly, 'Annie? I really don't think you have that kind of time.'"

May this essay be worth the bad haircut, a reclamation of our time, a return to freedom.

With love,
Carlota

P.S. Launched a new video podcast interview on Youtube on ‘Building (and Failing to Sustain) Intentional Community, if you haven’t checked it out yet.