seeing red

I hope The Beauty doesn't see red. When she looks at her hair. So far she seems to like it. Why wouldn't she? I don't quite remember when I started hating the colour of my hair. Honestly, I was passionate enough about the hate to really 'hate' it. It must have been when I was singled out and laughed at.

I think it's a uniquely British thing because other people I speak to in other places are surprised when I tell then the derision and loathing and 'ugliness' of having red hair in this country. Where does it come from I wonder? I have been told more times than I could ever ever remember, that when I am mad, it must be because I have red hair. Right. Because there could *never* be any other valid reason for anger. I have stopped finding it absurd that people associate my every emotion to my having red hair. What? Could it be any other way? I remember when as a newborn Isaac cried, the midwives laughed, 'oh-ho! Look at him! It's his hair! ha, ha. Ha.' He doesn't even have red hair! Oh no! Not properly, not like me, believe me when I say there are shades of difference which matter a lot when it comes to the degree of redness and how it can be interpreted along the line of ugliness. As a child I have been GLAD when a fat kid showed up, or someone with glasses, or someone with red AND frizzy hair came along. I could sigh in relief because I wouldn't be singled out. There was someone worse. Phew! The shame. In it all. The shame I felt in having red hair to start with which I didn't have any say in (and couldn't ever really talk about to anyone because it was, well, so shameful, and wrong, for every reason. Who when being bullied wants to admit to it, to actually say, yes there is something so wrong with me that I feel so terrible about myself, that others see it too and comment upon it in the cruelest of ways). The shame I felt in being glad when someone worse in the scale of bully potential came along.



I am happy to say I don't care now. Yes, after three decades on this earth I actually don't mind my hair. I think it's only in the last five years or so I have made peace with it. Accepted it, and befriended it even. I had stages of dying it blond, brown once even (yuck, it was so yuck, I looked like a ghost).

The Man likes it alot. He is allowed to comment, wryly, slyly, when I am glowering at him for something or 'seeing red' that I get so mad only because of my hair. It makes me smile. I am the Goddess with red hair who can hold her anger and who's wrath is pure red. The one who simultaneously changes to glow, orange, the comforting womb. I am both sides of the same whole, like everyone. It's not my hair, but if my power as a female is attributed to it, then so be it. I will accept, finally, graciously and learn to love it. From anyone else I wouldn't take it like I do from him. When you let someone love you sometimes it becomes easier to love yourself too.

I always had the adults around me, my whole life ohhing and ahhing over it and I always wanted to tell them to just shut up - what did they know? Really? Those brown haired, easily blending in people! I was always the one in flame, always picked from the crowd, always singled out, no matter how much I looked away. Beautiful was NOT my hair! Now it's still adults who comment, and actually I take the compliments and am glad of them. I have found out some things about red haired people along my journey. They have soft skin. It's true! They need more anesthetic because they feel pain more acutely (bizarre but seemingly true, I can vouch for that from the dentist chair). I am sure there are other weird things, who knows if coincidental or not.



I feel overly protective of my daughter's red hair and her feelings towards it. She is only 3, so she probably isn't even aware that she has hair or what it is or can mean. She likes to comment that she wants hers loooong, like mine. And that is about it. I think mainly though, its me, who will be her guide. Maybe if she sees me loving mine she will find it easier to do so too. Hers is wispy and fine and looks like gold on her pillow. I think it's beautiful. Is this what people meant when they said mine was? Am I seeing through my rose coloured Mama-Specs? either way, seeing red has never been so sweet.