Essay About Family: Hot Mamas

I remember playing with my great grandmother’s hair combs when I was four years old, surrounded by awkward eyes and clenched, scared, disappointed smiles. I remember my shame at the age of 6 when my mother walked into the dim, dense closet where I’d been trying on her clothes in careless secrecy. Her panty hose were halfway down my scrawny bald legs; her eyes were wet and wide. I remember choreographing and executing figure skating routines during recess in the fifth grade. I remember my father’s disgust at dinner one evening when he saw my short thick hair wrapped chaotically into a tight ponytail on the top of my head. I remember the insatiable desire I had at the age of 7 to play with my friends’ Barbie dolls, the immense pleasure I derived from styling synthetic yellow hair and coordinating ridiculously bright outfits. I remember all of my unusual fixations—make up, gymnastics, eyelashes, braids, jump rope, high heels, dancing, breasts. Most of my childhood memories, as innocent as they should have been, were eclipsed by disapproval. Although I hadn’t chosen how to feel or what to like, I was still obligated to feel shameful about being myself.

Emotions are natural and unintentional, yet my blatant and unsettling weirdness brought extreme discouragement from everyone around me. My feminine tendencies were for the most part rooted in maternal reverence, my mother the embodiment of a soothing womanly ideal. Moments in which I was able to experience the pureness of her womanhood were always tainted (in their ends) by guilt and shame. A humiliated cringe followed any sense of revelation or feminine appreciation, no matter how beautiful or instinctive: I was not supposed to be who I was. The recollection of my feminine inclinat...

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...elves: “it’s/so damn sweet when Anybody—/yes;no/matter who,come/total(preferably/blonde/of course)/or on the other/well/your oldest/pal/for instance(or/;why/even/i/suppose/one/‘s wife)/—does doesn’t unsays says looks smiles/or simply Is/what makes/you feel you/aren’t/6 or 6/teen or sixty/000,000/anybodyelses—/but for once/(imag/-ine)/You.” According to cummings, mutual understanding occurs when a person “does doesn’t unsays says looks smiles/or simply Is” and it is because of such unactions, or lack of intention, we appreciate and accept ourselves and others. Existing as the unconscious, unintentional, unacting individual can create painful repercussions because such practices are rarely understood or respected by the mostpeopleness of our society. Nevertheless, when originality is accepted, caressed, and enabled by other unthinking receptive unjudgers, we can soar.