Boxing The Bang Blues

Of my five sisters, I am the one who most favors my paternal grandmother, Sophie Mae Moss, a woman who epitomizes the words strength, intelligence and beauty. Yet, in spite of possessing her face and head, I have spent most of my fifty-three years hiding from the wind, yanked firmly under hats, bandanna-tied under scarves and above all else, safely ensconced behind crisply cut Geisha-girl bangs or a side-parted, side-sweep of hair (which I'm certain loudly announced I was engaged in a cover-up).

I lamented the size and shape of my high, sloping forehead, as if it were the most horrific feature ever unrecorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. How could this have happened to me? Why was I The Chosen One for rude comments from passing strangers, bodacious teens, classmates and, sometimes, even siblings and cousins? Just now, the thought crossed my mind if my grandma ever experienced the coming of age trauma of being different from the others. Somehow, I never thought to question her while she was living. Possibly because I'd have had to confess that, for me, to look like her was a constant source of pain.

The names---most of which I have since trained myself to forget---once shone down on me as bright and glaring as a hanging neon light. "Big Forehead" seemed to be the one that made the largest splash, whenever some kid wanted to be particularly nasty. So I learned to sweet-talk my mother into combing a shock of my hair (thank God it was always long once straightened) into my face and, pressing one hand to my head while her other snipped the hair into a blunt line snaking across my face, just above my brows. To encourage them to lie as protective as sentry, I resorted to tying a scarf across my forehead at night, at the expense, of course, of the bumps that would spring up in my adolescent face, considering oil and pores, same as oil and water, don't usually jive. That was when "Bumpy Face" got added to "Big Forehead" to weld a double whammy!

One long-lasting memory of the first part of my life is the ingenuity I'd muster to hide my genetic faux pas from the world. Yes, I walked backward in rambunctious wind, avoided direct eye contact with other people with high foreheads for fear they'd witness the self pity in my eyes, and walked with my hand plastered over my bangs if a fan or other wind-generating mishap occurred.

I learned to stand aloof from people, especially other children, when I was younger. Children were prone to observe whatever it was you were concealing, and like adults and animals, they'd find themselves drawn to my forehead; hands moving lightening fast to lift and slick back my non-antagonistic bangs. Yes, that was childhood. Great! Now fast-forward to young adulthood and you have a young teacher making sure to maintain a respectably healthy distance from those youngsters who were prone to invading another person's privacy...didn't matter if the other was the teacher.

One afternoon during sixth period, the last period of the day, I dropped my guard. The student had been standing near my desk rattling pleasantly for a few minutes, both of us charmed Spring Break loomed close enough to smell Panama Beach breezes. And as I'm grading essays, half listening, trying not to take too many sets of papers home with me, this student reaches out and gently but firmly swipes back my bangs! Mercy! I thought I'd be sued and suspended and sentenced, if I hadn't remembered I enjoyed my freedom and had bills to pay. Everything hidden inside me longed to bolt up from that teacher's desk and snatch a crank out of that child. Steam literally roiled up from my nostrils. Momentarily, the whites of my eyes turned alcohol red. I was so heated my hair went nappy then straight in seconds.

In a flash, he apologized and softly inquired if that was why I perennially wore bangs or styled my hair in my face. It took me a minute or two, but I eventually mustered a muffled yes. Surprisingly, the entire scene was privy only to us, but the aftermath remained with me for quite some time.

As the years played out, I vowed to overcome such a mentally and emotionally crippling self-prejudice. It didn't feel right. It didn't make me feel good to judge me. I told myself, I will learn to swim in this lifetime, same as I will hurdle the nudity I felt whenever I wasn't posted up behind my infamous bangs. I was notorious. As the times changed and the styles did the same, I didn't. What? I found a way to work my super-big Angela Davis Afro into a banged wonder. Braids arrived and were everywhere except at the front of my head. And my short natural had to be trimmed with enough hair on the top to tease down onto my bumpy forehead. Drats!

Then came the day I graduated from Tuskegee Institute with Highest Honors and relocated to Atlanta, GA. Wholly loving working and living outside of the confines of dormitories and my parents' hallowed home, I defied the odds one weekend and styled my hair off my forehead and turned the nose of my blue Chevy Chevrolet towards Tuskegee and returned for a weekend visit with my hair, for some unfathomable reason, styled completely off my forehead. My stepmother, I recall, studied me for a second and said, "Wow! I like you with your hair back off your forehead! I can see your whole face! You look wonderful!" And though there was nothing about her expression and tone that bespoke ridicule, I figured she had to be pulling my leg!

But she wasn't. Unbeknownst to me, I faced more years of walking toward total self acceptance and self love. And though that walk was to take a circuitous route at times, much like a snake hunting its tail, I eventually, finally, thankfully, proudly, I accept my forehead in all of its wonder and uniqueness. I am precisely the way the Divine wants me and made me to be. I am a legacy; my son has a slight bit of my forehead and, so too, definitely does my granddaughter, Laila Amor.

A few years ago I remember watching Tyra Banks, who also possesses a high forehead, host a show about accepting what is unique about you and making that feature or characteristic your calling card, your strength, your birthright. And that is what I have embraced...all that makes me One-of-a-Kind. On the journey, I've come to understand that once you accept you, others who love and care about you will also.


Cherishing this golden existence as I box the Bang Blues,
TheGoldenGoddess
2/28/2011

A Healing Letter I Remember for Self...

This letter comes from an e-mail of healing and love that I wrote to a young sistahfriend seeking advice.

In rereading it, I discover it is worthy for me to reread tonight, to remember all over again, that I AM because THE DIVINE IS...

Good evening Mi Joven Amiga Querida,
I trust you have been blessed with a lovely Easter at this writing. I have!
First, let me commend you for what you have done. Many people would never have come out of their shells or stepped around the walls they build to say what you have said. It takes courage. It takes self love. It takes the willingness to learn.
Yes, I have lived long enough in my fantastic years to have been where you are now.
Please know that it is a blessing that you are there. It is where your soul desires you to be...or else you would not be there---here, to live and love and learn.
You have vowed to choose love instead of angry, to release the antagonistic individual you once were. That is a beautiful decision, a milestone of a transformation.
No matter how hard it seems to remain on this road of your journey, stay. It is well worth your time.
It is true, people take kindness for weakness. That has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the other person. She is yet learning, and we do certain things until we don't. It's all good. Continue to be kind anyway. It is not for her that you are being kind; it is because you have chosen to be no other way (and remember Love is the Way).
You, mi amiga, are faced with a situation in which you must know what it feels like to turn the love you are giving this young lady, so desperately wanting her to receive, to yourself, to Miss Tucker.
The love you seek from her you must lavish on yourself!
That means you must love yourself enough to accept that (for whatever reason she is running and sidestepping your vows of love and affection) you can walk away. When you walk away, you affirm your love for her and, most importantly, for you.
No, you do not choose to go upside her head, call her a few choice bitches, and remind her she is not the only dime in the ATL, because you can collect 5 of her before you reach your block.
You are a new woman. You are choosing to love in the seeming face of no love. Before you leave for your trip, tell her how you feel about her, even though you think you know she knows how you feel. Tell her you don't ever wish to abuse her by staying around, when her actions are screaming "Go, sistah, go!" Why? You love yourself too much to do that.
Then you walk away. Don't look back. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don't buckle and call. Don't inquire if she's okay? Don't look for her in the places you used to go, in the places you know she'll be.
Look forward. And if you must do anything, send her loving thoughts, send her good wishes. Want for her what you'd want for yourself: love, happiness, health and wealth.
Doing this is a healing act. You choose love in a powerful way.
I have lived and loved long enough to know....whatever happens, her coming back to discover where you went, why you aren't seeking her; you walking into the sun, where another young woman will be waiting to love you; where you may need to be alone, to know from deep within yourself that you are WHOLE, COMPLETE, and BEAUTIFUL already, and that YOU ARE ENOUGH, just as you are, every curl, every smile, and every gestures.
Trust that you will have what you thank the Divine for. She may or may not be the response to your desire to love. But know anyway that if you asked the Goddess for a woman, a lover, a mate, she will be there. Just for you. And when you ask, ask in gratitude, as if she is already present, for she is.
Allow the feelings of rejection and shame and inadequacy to course through you. They are emotions that come to visit to teach us. You are, like Rumi, a great philosopher says, a guest house, and at your front door, emotions will come knocking throughout your life. Welcome all of them...JUST do NOT stand in the way when it is time for them to leave. To do so is to create your own living hell. If you do, they will be worse than year-old fish grease in your nostrils, worse than tar on your soul.
So welcome each new day. It is a gift, another opportunity to love yourself and others.
I loved a woman much like you love this young lady once. Poured myself everywhere you could imagine. Wrote poems about her. Asked her out. Showed up on her doorstep. Took her home to my sisters. I imagined her accompanying me everywhere. Stroked her in my dreams. Woke with her in my head, on my whines. But the more I spread the feast of me at her feet, the faster she ran. And for the first time in my life, I met true sadness...and it was of my own making. Then the day arrived that I realized that I was enough. For myself and others. And I took sadness by the hand and led her out my back door.
I stood on the porch, reflecting. The love I was giving someone who did not want it I gave to myself, and from that day to this I walk with my head to the sky, my heart open wider than India Aire's desire to live with an open heart. The lesson I learned was I am a gift to myself. You do not continue to ply a gift towards someone who does not desire it. You are a prize. Walk like it. Talk like it. And others will perceive it, and receive you accordingly.

Beautiful Easter Blessings,