Forward

Much of the writing I completed this semester for this class was done in one sitting, and basically a fast-paced production of whatever came to my mind in that moment. Often I would review it for grammatical errors, but not for stylistic improvements, clarity, or anything of that nature. This is the approach I have for much of my writing—no matter the genre. Most of the time if stylistic revision is required, I have to wait a couple days between writing and revising. During that time I actively read works that are similar in style to the intended style of the piece. When I go back to edit my mindset is altered so that my piece is usually completely different as a result. Sometimes, I have to open a new document entirely and rewrite a piece, using the old draft as a very loose outline of the points I intend to make in the body of work. 

In my portfolio I included the genres of Poetry, Fiction, and Non-fiction Essay. I usually edit these genres very differently. With poetry, I often write with little punctuation or pause in thought. Most of my written poetry is literally what I think on a topic, without much arrangement or editing. This makes most of my poetry more difficult for me to edit. After my normal process of waiting a couple days then re-reading, I evaluate if what is written is genuinely my thoughts on the topic written about, or if that was just my fickle mindset in that moment. If it is still my opinion, I might change a word or two to get a better picture of my point, but otherwise the piece would remain the same. If the poem no longer reflects my viewpoint, and I do not consider the opinion worthy of “preserving”, I open a new document and start from scratch. The second draft of the poem rarely looks or sounds anything like the original aside from the subject. For example, for my poem “Beauty” much of what was written still reflects my thoughts and imagination of the character written about. In order to alter it I changed words for a better vision of the point intended, like in line 10 where I switched the word insistent to unrivaled. Unrivaled is a better adjective for beauty as it would make better sense in that context and prepares the way for the next thought—that her lack of beauty is caused by her desires for unrivaled beauty, so much so that is affects her personality and takes away her chance for beauty of any kind. Another major change to note would be the addition of line 13, which completes the thought, and defines gloom to some degree, gloom is not caused by something out of her control like grief, but by something (arguably) in her control—her mental outlook. Generally this is the kind of editing done to a poem written by me that stays relevant to my opinion, but a poem that no longer fits is discarded. I start over, usually with only a few main points I want to make, based on the points I successfully or unsuccessfully made in the first draft. 

Revising my fiction is a lot more involved, because generally as I am writing fiction I either gloss over details, or detail to much—all the way through the piece. This is difficult to identify unless I wait months in between my writing and revising, because often as I read my fiction, I am thinking about what should happen next. Usually my editing consists of grammatical corrections, and rewriting of “action” scenes—not dialogue or setting descriptions. I find that in my writing I forget to make my characters “human” so I usually have to go back and add in personality, or outline their personality traits as I begin, then review to make sure the character remains “in character” the whole piece. In “Epiphany", I had to change some of the responses of both siblings, to make sure the responses matched the personality traits I outlined for them in the piece. This is done with the intent of  making their interactions reflect how those personality traits would clash or mesh. Small word changes like my use of the description “her diabolical smile” and “holding his bruising” more thoroughly outlines the descriptions I already stated, and perhaps dives into them further. For example, I didn’t mention Dustin’s sensitivity in his quick personality description, but you could see his sensitive nature in his interaction with his sister. This was added in small tweaks after several scans of the story, on many different days. 

Some of the pieces I wrote this semester that I was proud of would be “Fire in Ice”, “Atya”, “On my Hair”, and “Control”. For “Fire in Ice” and “Control" I felt these pieces were pieces of my personal experience, and my mind, and that I wrote them in such a way that captured my actual thought process and experience. It is easy for me to write and make up feelings and thoughts I wish to have, but it is more difficult for me to reflect my actual response or thoughts in a piece, so I was proud of how those two turned out. “Atya” is a character I invented a long time ago in high-school, and wrote shorts about, but never created a backstory for. This piece really helped me get into her mind, and explain to myself why she behaved in a certain way. The sentence describing the character forces an author to ignore the minor details, and get the root of the character. This method definitely helps me with much of my writing, which  in nature is long-winded and lacking the right detail to make a plot potent. 

This class revealed to me ways to describe powerfully without excess words, and highlighted many differences in creative genres I did not notice before. Burroway certainly  does and excellent job of navigating the reader through techniques for excellent writing that has distinctive flair, and her textbook certainly helped me develop my style further. While revising is not my strong suit, I have certainly improved my skills, and made my style more distinctive. 

Table of Contents

Poetry

Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Roles and Hats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 

Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Fiction

Epiphany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Fire in Ice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Atya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

In the Trash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Non-fiction Essay

On My Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Beauty

Tired sighs escape her lips frequently.

Bare-faced and weary she slumps in her seat. 

Polish chipping and nails looking broken,

Hair hangs as weak dry melancholy strands. 

At one time she prided in her own look.

Now she looked lumpy and unattractive.

Pressure did not make her a rare diamond. 

Pressure made her a misshapen small stone.

Chapped lips never smile. They always grimace, galled. 

She prayed for unrivaled beauty revived. 

Beauty never comes, unsuited for gloom.

Gloom settles around her like a somber cloud. 

Evidence of a firm negative psyche.

She does not realize her smile is beauty.

She does not realize kindness is beauty.

So she remains an angry ogre, ugly. 

Epiphany

Gravity weighed heavier on everything that day. The breeze was slow, and rare, teasing the branches of the trees with a faint hint of coolness. The sun was painfully bright and beat on the green earth—so hard that heat rose in waves of protest. Nothing was moving outside, not even the bugs. The heat seemed to choke vivacity. Dustin and Rebecca don’t feel the heat. They peer at the endlessly blue sky in a small rectangle of sunlight on a hardwood floor. Yet they lay there on the ground with the same sluggishness as nature outside. Rebecca rolls her eyes and sighs every few minutes. Dustin wrinkles his brow in irritation and grunts in response. 

It’s a little past midsummer, far enough past the end of school for the thrill of freedom to be dimmed, and not near enough to the start of school for a desire to make use of the freedom given. Dustin at 15 is not old enough to drive himself or his little sister anywhere, but both are old enough to be left to their own devices all summer—as long as it is within walking distance of the house. Walking distance is definitely defined differently by the two siblings, especially on boiling days like that day. Don’t let their current state of idleness fool you. Dustin is normally athletic—bursting with energy—sweet, optimistic and charismatic—Never hesitating to take on a challenge. Rebecca at 13 was angel-faced but mischievous and conniving, always causing trouble. Usually in bitter competition towards on another—with rare occasions of tenderness—the siblings seem to hate each other.  On previous days they would never run out of things to do to rile each other—but today was mind-numbingly boring and uninspired. Seconds stumbled by and the sun squashed the energy of the siblings. 

“Let’s go on a bike ride.” Dustin mumbled half-heartedly. He turned his head to read Rebecca’s response, and she rolled her head to look at him scowling in a temperamental manner. He initially wasn’t that enthusiastic about the idea, but Rebecca’s response provoked stubbornness.“Well you think of something better to do then!” Dustin growled under his breath suddenly irritated. 

“I dunno.” Rebecca whined pitifully then huffed. ‘All your suggestions suck.” She crossed her arms and pouted. 

Dustin squeezed the bridge of his nose mimicking his father when he was done with his wild children’s shenanigans. “If you can’t think of anything we are going on a bike ride.” Dustin made his voice authoritative and so it was final. Rebecca furrowed her brow obstinately. She never liked being bossed around. 

“It’s hot—and where would we even go idiot—are we just gonna ride off into the sun and burn to death?” She made sure the ridicule in her voice was as insulting as it could be. Her brother liked a challenge so he stayed silent—thinking. Dustin knew the only way to appeal to his sister’s unique tastes was to add in some havoc causing activities so he racked his brain for something brilliantly devious. 

“We could… We could go to the cliff.” Dustin whispered it with forced excitement hoping his status as the eldest child could encourage his sister to think the idea was cool. The cliff was a location their parents forbid the siblings to play after their neighbor went there and shattered his shin doing things daring teenage boys do with their foolish friends. The thrill of disobedience was not enough to intrigue Rebecca. Her face flatted in boredom even more and she rolled her eyes. 

“Your lame.” His shoulder’s slumped and he grunted now feeling properly shamed. Before he could open his mouth and respond, Rebecca grinned wildly until her face looked downright diabolical. Fear struck his heart for a second. “Let’s go to the cliff.” He stared at her waiting for her to reveal her true intentions. “Get the bb guns. We can shoot birds out of the sky.” Dustin now furrowed his brow—what if they hit an endangered bird? Wasn’t that  a crime? Not to mention those poor birds didn’t deserve to be injured that way. What if the bb pellet killed them? When he looked to his impish little sister to voice these concerns her eyes were narrowed threateningly and he knew if he chickened out he would face the force that was Rebecca’s pranking wrath. 

“Ok” he said grudgingly—knowing this was a terrible idea. With that decision made they both dragged their muscles to cooperate. The bikes were readied and the bb guns and ammo loaded. Dustin packed snacks and water for them both along with a bible to conduct the poor birds’ funeral. Then they left their suburban upper middle class home. Dustin slouches over his bike in the pounding heat and his thin white beater and basketball shorts suddenly seem like to much. His tannish freckled skin turns rosy, but his fair-skinned sister reddens like ripe strawberries. Still they travel on their bikes in the agonizing heat through their neighborhood, to the next connecting one, and through a few half-way built neighborhoods until the path begins to go uphill, and becomes dirt. 

Rebecca fusses—downright angry in the heat—calling her more athletic older brother the most harmful cruel names she could think of. Dustin scowls—holding in his bruising and pedals faster up the hill. He can’t help but think that if she died of heat stroke out here it would be a good riddance. He immediately regrets the thought and mentally asks for forgiveness from whatever god heard it. Then they reach the cliff. It’s not terribly high or particularly life threatening, but it drops off suddenly, and if you happen to fall the wrong way you could break an appendage. Trees lounge around the path and off the cliff casually, and the foliage give just enough cover for the siblings to avoid outright melting under the unrelenting beams of the sun. Rebecca with a villainous grin snatches up a bb gun from her brother’s backpack and settles in position to practice her marksmanship. Dustin sighs eyeing his gun worriedly, and decides that instead of joining in his sister’s cruel entertainment method, he would sit closer to the edge of the cliff and eat his delicious snacks while watching nature struggle in the overbearing heat. His activity would have been a smarter choice if his sister wasn’t an evil, manipulative little hellion. The birds weren’t flying because they were also hiding from the sun. So she shot her brother in the back at close range out in cold-blood. Well maybe hot-blood—because she was now flushed so much in the heat she was nearly purple, and pissed as hell. It hurt so badly he saw stars. His wounds bled aggressively and his tears poured down his face. While a small brilliant part of his brain realized he should back away from the edge of the cliff—which he did—a larger pain-blinded side lashed out by grabbing his own gun and aiming for his downright heinous sister.  His blurred vision cause him to miss and his sister let out an evil cackle. “Are you crying you little wimp?” She sounded absolutely giddy with glee. Biting his lip because he could think of no scathing rebuke, Dustin shot again this time into the air in fit of frustration. All he did was get his sister out of trouble, and this was how she repaid him? Rebecca couldn’t have be less concerned about her brother’s sensitive temperament or skin. It was his fault she was flushed purple and miserable in this heat. 

At least she thought she didn’t care. Then a hive fell from the tree above Dustin. A live hive filled with angry bees. Eyes widened in horror as her flushed and crying older brother swells up rapidly beyond recognition. Dustin was severely allergic to bee stings. The fear of losing her sweet protective brother made her villainous glee vanish to panic. In seconds she drenched her brother and the bees in water repeatedly so they flew away. Her brother was now barley coherent. Then she immediately called 911. Rushing over to her swollen brother she cuddled his head and cried. Her back bent now not only under the weight of suffocating heat, but also the weight of unbearable guilt. It seemed that nothing could save her or her brother from this torture. She cried frantically to keep her brother alert, but he faded from this burning hell leaving her to burn alone. 

When help finally arrived they realized Dustin was in critical condition and Rebecca had heat stroke. Rebecca repeatedly wished that they had just stayed in the rectangle of sunlight—bored and staring at the sky. She realized that her sensitive brother was more valuable to her than anyone else, and that she couldn’t hate him. That is the thought that plagued her when she was questioned by the doctor’s about the wounds she caused on her brother’s back. That is what continued plaguing her when she was lectured by her parents and halfway delirious in her own personal hell called heat stroke. That is what caused her to cling to her very confused brother bawling when he finally came to a week later. All Dustin could ask her was who hurt her. His concern made her cry more. 

Roles and Hats

Warm scents curl and stretch in the  kitchen air like a satisfied cat.

She wears a brightly colored apron a chef’s hat and a dress that drapes around her curves.

Her hands flit around the kitchen creating more layers to the warm scents. 

The tension of a deadline pulls her eyes to the door to another world and away from her cubicle. 

Tightly her collar grips her neck, her headband restrains wild hair and her pencil skirt cuts her in two. 

She sighs and types frantically, blinking to prevent blurring. 

Her toes to her fingertips stretch like a rubber band, she watches this in the mirror of a studio. 

The leotard conforms to her curves like a purple second skin.

She dances gracefully to the jazzy rhythm creating one of her own.

The air angrily whips her hair and toes on the track outside her gym.

Her running shorts and tank top don’t keep her warm.

She runs to fight the wind and give her body heat. 

Sound is muffled like her ears are underwater, she stands backstage.

The gown is a firm stand to hold her torso—supporting while she trembles in her skin.

She walks onto the stage and parts her lips to perform. 

High tide is her mind—the lab hums with genius energy. 

Crisp blouse, perfectly ironed slacks and a white lab coat make her easy to identify

She writes her observations and connects the results to previous experiments.

Her vocal cords cut the open room into organized pieces, and Uniforms snap to attention. 

The army print and sturdy boots tell what she does, but her decorations tell who she is. 

She calls for order and moves the sea of bodies to work. 

Her eyes are leashes. The wandering child does not leave the store aisle.

The t-shirt and worn yoga pants are tired like she.

Sluggishly her limbs move filling the cart with goods.

Fire in Ice

I start my second day at a new school today. I stare at my reflection. My uniform is perfectly ironed matte and dull—But my skin glows. My nails are filed down to the bone but my hair stands on end, defying the laws of nature, against gravity. I practice my blank face of submission, but in my eyes burn a fire, that won’t be put out—just like my hair won’t lay down— unlike my sad dull uniform. Then I hear my mother call, cutting through the thick reflective loud silence. She calls for my movement. Down the stairs and out the door and into the car. To take me the place where the happiness of little black girls die. I stand like a rock. Maybe if I don’t move or make sound she will forget me. She is clanging pots downstairs in her rush to get ready for the day. Maybe I should straighten my hair and then they would not pull on my puffs, to make them lay down. Maybe I should put baby powder on my dark skin as a white cloudy screen to make me fit in. I think these thoughts, and let them run wild—until I hear pounding on the steps. Quickly my thoughts go back to their cages, and I turn from stone to wet clay, my feet still dragging, but moving for my bag. My mom charges in, yelling we are late, and burning like fire, grabbing my wrist. This makes me like water in a zip lock bag. Fighting is not an option. She plows forward with momentum that cannot be stopped. She chugs like a train, and I flop like a rag doll. 

I’m in the car. My mother lectures, and tells me to eat the oatmeal she cooked last minute. It burns my icy hands. At her command I shovel oatmeal to my tongue and it burns. I don't complain. It is better to burn than freeze, like I will at the glares of my fellow classmates. I hardly get time to think. The car is stopped, and my door snaps open but I sit like a tree. Until I am uprooted. My mother’s frustration is like a giant that plucks trees from the ground like weeds. I suddenly feel a little safer inside the cold building than outside in range of her flaming exclamations. That is where the fire in my eyes came from—my mother. My bag in grasp like a flimsy shield, I march inside and reach the classroom. It is full, and I rush to a rare empty seat. My lungs flatten like a ballon without helium gas. I float down to be seated. Then I look around. I stare. My reflection is different but similar. There is someone new today. With tan skin and wavy hair and smiling lips. Her hair stands on end, but her uniform is not crisp. She glares at the glares, and the ice melts so quick. She is not a flame like me. She is a fiery blaze—and she turns and offers her hand to shake. I have a new friend. I shake her hand and the fire spreads to me.

Control

control is a dictator 

she inhabits my bones and rules with and iron fist

She possesses my mind like an evil spirt.

Evidence of her domain is in color-coded planners

categorized with obsessive details,

In neat order.

If the vessel she rules deviates

fury burns, and devastation leaves the frame in ruins

If I deviate—I break. 

Naturally I fixate.

Other action is insanity.

it is for my own well-being

Every minute is a box

color-coded.

filled with a very specific task.

It is to be completed. 

No matter what. 

it is the demon in my mind.

I have to protect myself. 

I warned you. 

I can’t mess this up.

I won’t allow my oppressor to ruin me.

You came close to ruining me. 

The demon woke up. 

My connections crumble.

Those bridges burn. 

you push further, and more defenses rise. 

My extremities become lioness claws.

My words become a hurricane.

You cry.

I gave warning. 

I was human before I was a mother lion.

I was a growling lioness before I was an attacking one.

I was an attacking lioness before I became a storm

--a hurricane. 

I am not ruined.

My frame is shaking— yet intact.

But you are gone. 

Atya

Atya is a timid, passive 20-year-old journalist who wants to be acknowledged in her field.

She is the type of person to give her coat to a person in the street if they seemed colder than she did. Taller than most at 5’9, with big curly hair, caramel skin and awkwardly long stick-like appendages—Atya often tried to shrink to make room for others. Today, she walks in the rain, her hair dripping and shrunken hanging pitifully without her jacket or umbrella, because she gave her jacket to the poor old woman leaving the supermarket, and her umbrella to the little kid who said she thought it was pretty. She was fired today. Because she had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw something her boss wanted to hide. She tried to do what she majored in journalism for, to expose and fight for justice and right with the power of symbolic symbols on a page, but her boss found her sudden voice to be disconcerting and “not what we at ‘The Impact’ are looking for.” So now she was walking in the rain, water on her face a mix of her own and the sky’s. Her first job was a dead end. 

Atya just wanted to be a journalist. A journalist who could say she was a journalist and follow that statement with relevant projects she is working on. A new college graduate, who graduated sum cum laden with recommendations from nearly all of her professors, Atya was certain she could swim with the sharks. Then her editor gave her a 4-inch section in the magazine talking about lighting for fashion photography. The Impact was a current events magazine. She joined with naivety and a smile brighter than the sun and lasted two months. Now she was in the pouring rain cursing her timidity, her awkward timing, and her lack of assertiveness. A cutthroat journalist would have found a way to force her editor’s hand and keep her job. She would not be able to get a job even close to the prestige of the first one. Her paranoid ex-boss would make sure of it. At this point she would be better off changing her name and starting her own organization. 

“That’s not a bad idea.” That is what Atya’s impulsive best friend said after listening to Atya’s tear-soaked rendition of her day at her pity party. Atya was shocked. Excited wild green eyes and freckles stared at her and wide lips with big teeth proceeded to dump more impossible things into the air. Like, a blog, and a pseudonym, and social media marketing, and missions digging up things to expose. A tiny portion of herself bought into her best friend’s crazy idea. What if she proved herself right? Then people would take her seriously. Then the bigger part of her who walked away from her editor with her tail between her legs was suddenly irate, and ready to vindicate herself. That night her blog was born, and her pseudonym. Alveera Salman—truth seeker, Author of Blaze Blog and (soon to be) publishing. 

In the Trash

In the corner of the sweet smelling workroom sits a simple silver tinted metal wastebasket about three-fourths the height of her average-sized distressed wooden desk with hair pin legs. Her waste basket was cylindrical and larger than most, and for good reason, because it filled up at least once a day, especially when she worked at home. If for some reason and by some miracle you escaped past the secretive, reserved girl’s barriers into her apartment, and then through her apartment to her work room, you would see a relatively clean, bare-walled room.  If you then decided to meticulously go through her trash before she shredded every piece and soaked the shredded pieces till they were a slushy pulp then threw them away—you would find a lot of paper. 

Small brightly colored post-it notes holding notes like “Frank did not clock in on the third of June.” in her stiff, neat script, and “Eat your damn food Atya!” In her best friend’s free-flowing curvy scrawl would be crumbled lightly. You would also find ripped pieces of newspapers and magazines missing paragraph and pages, showing that the skimmer took the cream without the milk that day. I say cream and not milk, because all the areas of the magazine and newspaper that an individual would normally find the most interesting, would still be there, despite the abducted neighboring words and paragraphs. Large droves of white printer paper with groups of words circled scratched out and annotated in red gel ink can be found in a weighty pile in the disposal bin, normally crushing other things in its wake.  Then occasionally, in this bin you could find tea bags—and fruit snack wrappers, more than one person would consume normally, and always all together in a crumpled, spherical clump. Regularly, like clockwork, once a month you could find tear-soaked tissues in the trash blurring the ink on much of the other papers and overflowing the metal container. Randomly, you could find a faulty pen viciously stabbed through three or more layers of paper grouping unrelated sheets together against their will.

On My Hair

Every week, I plan my hairstyle. On Mondays I spend hours styling it in the image I imagined. I adorn it with accessories and jewelry and beads and I smile at every finished product. It’s therapeutic. I style my hair, and listen to jazzy tunes and drink tea and practice a mood for that hairstyle. Who am I channeling through my style? What is the feeling I want to be feeling with this style?  Yes, I do ask that of myself. My hair is an art. Even when I wash it, condition it and let it run wild, is an art piece. When I wander in the streets, if I see another with an eye-catching style, I comment without inhibition on how much I appreciate their art. 

I get the same response from a good hairstyle as I do from and classically astounding art piece. As I get chills from a truly emotionally relevant intricate song. The chills—the awe tiptoes up my spine and to the roots of my curls. Some consider hair an extension of you spiritually. It’s a spiritual antenna. My hair is a talking point—an indicator of my mood, of the vibes I happen to be feeling that week. I use it to connect to my cultural roots, even the cultural roots of others. The same way I embrace jazz, drink tea, cook and devour curry and rice noodles, and learn Spanish. I connect with cultures because they make me bigger than just me. 

I become a tapestry of many cultures. 

  The body housing my soul is a glowing absorbent feeder off my history and knowledge. Habits that dabble in culture make me more cultural and are constantly answering the question— “Who am I?” I explore many to answer this inquiry. So this month I listen to jazz and color my hair and wear thrift clothes and thick rimmed glasses. The next month I experiment in the kitchen and paint on everything, translating as much as I can into Spanish. I listen to Latino music and dance, and read about women in the workforce and in the world. Then the next I am an activist. Not because I wasn’t all along, but because I didn’t know all the things to stand for so I explore—and as I explore I evolve and develop and I find myself deciding causes to champion that affect me and the world. All of these moments are included in my hair journey. My hair records them with her styles. My hair is my diversity in the embodiment. 

I’m not the only person who uses their hair as a statement piece to every outfit. Many people use their hair as a statement. A trivial example would be the Legally Blonde movies, where she flipped her hair while she was making a point and trying to persuade someone to do something for her. A more belligerent example would be movements in history like the Black Panther movement where members wore their hair in afros, specifically picked out to stand on end, making the statement that they were comfortable natural the way they were born among other things. It wasn’t normal to wear your hair like that, just like it was unusual for girls to flip their hair in the flamboyant manner that Elle Woods did. That made their hair a talking piece, and a culture shock to others. It made hair a soldier in the movement, bringing about change. In more modern times we are going through a “be true to yourself” movement. Everyone is wearing their hair any way they want to, and all are welcomed to some degree. In an interview for seventeen magazine Yara Shahidi commented on this new movement. “What I’m seeing is basically a movement to be your true self. There are no criteria as to what it takes to be involved, protected and cared for.”

I feel that hair is such a valuable statement piece because it is art. It walks everywhere with you, its obvious and in your face—in some cases literally—and therefore unavoidable. The art in it connects me to others and others experiences. It gives me a taste of their culture and their mindset and a vision of their soul. In Anna Huffington’s book Thrive, She talks about how art can help you have a more fulfilled, thriving life.  

Nature and art are two of then most fertile grounds for experiencing wonder. Essayist and philosopher Alain de Botton … he writes “Art enjoys such financial and cultural prestige that it’s easy to forget the confusion that persists about what it’s really for.” 

… he writes that “Flowers in spring, blue skies, children running on the beach.. these are the visual symbols of hope.” 

While Huffington speaks to how the museum experience is a place where mystery and wonder provide us with self-forgetfulness–I can’t help but think that art can sometimes inspire a drastic change in us. Someone’s style could very rapidly influence my own. Someone’s pointed abstract piece could spark a movement. Someone’s unruly curly hairstyle can inspire another to embrace their own. 

Huffington also mentions the idea that art reaches inside of you and sparks your interest to find out who you truly are. Or “the memory of who we are”—underneath all the bustle distractions and layers that clothes us and embody us on the day to day life. To imagine all of this self-discovery can start with a way of styling one’s hair. 

Art is the intersection of many factors, cultures, and genres. It can touch each person differently and give each a different perspective. The art piece then begins to house many narratives. The story of the artist—how he was inspired, and as he put it together and as he prepared it to share—is embedded in his artwork and reflects his mood, his thoughts, and his feelings. Then when the piece is presented, stories of all the souls who came in contact with it and allow it to influence them in some way are attached with that piece as well. 

My hair as a journey is recording my mood, my thoughts, my feelings as an artist. Then when I go out into the street with my hair, it is seen by others, and sometimes it may influence another to wear their hair differently. It may offend another. It may cause a person to be intrigued about my culture and background, and prompt them to explore their own. In that way my hair gathers narratives. In this digital age, many girls with afros like mine have shared videos and blog posts about their hair journey. These videos are so popular because they inspire, they share a piece of that individual, they tell a story…and as long as we can find the story—we can find the connect to something in us. “stories are a universal language about the purpose of life itself.” 

No, I’m not saying the purpose of life is buried in the hair I have on my head. I am saying that my hair can become a story to myself and others that is a parable to other circumstances in life. I have learned a many things from caring for my hair, health, schoolwork, and pets that I would have learned more difficult ways at another time. 

Now we have a deeper and wider pool of narratives to gather learning from, because of social media and the internet. Many people have friends that are digital—people they never would have even known about without the internet. This makes each narrative more diverse in my opinion. Cultures you never would have been touched with otherwise pops up on your screen to attach itself to your narrative, and your narrative to it. This makes every individual a more diverse tapestry, it creates a global world. While there is division, and people fighting against each other, there is one thing that is inevitable—everything eventually mashing to one fluid culture and narrative. 

As King Solomon of the Bible’s Proverbs and Ecclesiastes wrote, There is nothing new under the sun. Art is an imitation of another’s art, with a new perspective and perhaps influences of another artist. It is the same with any art form. Asking who I am channeling is another way of asking myself how did this person influence me? Why do I feel a connection to them? —and is also a way of asking—Who am I, really? Everyone is influenced by someone and everyone has one or many ways of showing it. My stage is my hair, my clothes, and the way I write. Another individual’s could be their nails, or their shoes or the subjects they talk about. Either way, by living our lives we create narratives for ourselves, and connect with others who see us and choose to be affected by us in some way. This life that was just ours becomes bigger than ourselves. It becomes part of an extensive tapestry. Each one of us becomes a tapestry of many cultures, unique to your experiences—and each one of us learn from another’s narrative another aspect about the immense, immeasurable tapestry that is life.