Black Is the Body Read online

  Loree’s is the kind of home I imagined when I first pictured a life in Vermont, even though I knew I had neither the skill nor the drive to pull off that particular kind of Vermont life. The fact that Loree has made this home, its character and spirit, would inspire envy if Loree weren’t the kind of person who finds envy tedious.

  I admire Loree for the home she has made and for the mother that she is. Her children are grown, but they bear the mark of their mother’s ingenuity and insights into the work of making one’s way in the world.

  I sent my children to southern Vermont in the summers not only to laze in inner tubes in lakes but also to benefit from the example of Loree and all that she knows. But there are things she doesn’t know, like what it feels like to be the lone brown body among white ones, the small incidents of ignorance that can turn into scars that last a lifetime.

  Once, as I was packing the girls up for Camp Loree, I realize that Loree might not know that my daughters need sunscreen; so many white people believe that the melanin in dark skin provides natural protection against sunburn.

  I write Loree about the sunscreen. And then I write her about the experience of being black in a white place, what my children might experience, at the same time knowing that their childhood experiences are already so different from my own. Still, I ask her to be aware, always, of the fact that my daughters are vulnerable, brown bodies moving among people who rarely see dark skin.

  I send the note and then worry for a bit. I consider what it would be like to receive such a message. Will Loree feel second-guessed, lectured at, or condescended to? Instead I am happy and relieved to discover that she is grateful for the information. And then she tells me that I am her only black friend.

  Black Friend

  Estelle is not my only black friend, but there was a long, lonely time during which I did not have many, and I was as conscious and careful when it came to the blackness of those few friends, perhaps, as Loree is when it comes to me. I expected to make black friends at college. I made a few, but I encountered divides of class, region, and temperament that proved as difficult to overcome as any racial barrier. I was finally in classes with people who looked like me, but they were nothing like me. They had gone to elite prep schools, belonged to exclusive clubs, and summered in places like the Berkshires, which may as well have been a foreign country to me back then. Ironically, it is only here in Vermont that I have a cohort of black friends in whose company I do not feel self-conscious. It is because and not in spite of the fact that we are among the few black people in this predominantly white place that we met and became close. Estelle and I made time to build a friendship in no small part because of race; we were drawn to each other for reasons both obvious and ineffable, it’s true, but it is also true that we each wanted another black friend.

  When I describe Camp Loree to Estelle, explain what it means to me and what I hope it will mean to my daughters, she nods. In many ways, what Loree offers my children is what Karen offers Len, which is a relationship with nature, something that I, a child of the suburbs, and Estelle, a child of the city, don’t come by naturally. It is because of the essential values ingrained in the fabric and mundane details of the life she lives—this is why Estelle chose Karen for a godparent.

  For two years, every time I saw Estelle I recalled Karen’s grocery store revelation. One day, temptation took over, and I told her what Karen said about her son’s skin. It was selfish, I knew, but my motive was not to create bad feelings between Estelle and Karen. Instead I wanted to understand what Estelle thought about the nature of love.

  What I discovered, what I should have known, is that I didn’t—couldn’t—tell Estelle anything about Karen that she didn’t already know. Still, I wanted to know why Karen merited such a sacred place in her life, particularly because Estelle once told me that she often finds herself wary of forming bonds with white people. So, why Karen? I asked her. She loves my child, she told me. She would do anything for him. She’s family.

  Is family what we call friends whom we love beyond measure? Or is it just what we call people we have decided, for whatever reason, that we’re stuck with?

  The Look

  After one particular week of Camp Loree, John and I met Loree, her husband, and our daughters at an artisanal pizza restaurant halfway between Manchester and Burlington. We had a pleasant lunch and then got up to leave. On the way out, Loree glanced at a woman at a table near us. Her doll eyes darkened. She walked forward but kept her head turned in the woman’s direction.

  “Did you see that?” Loree asked me. “Did you see how she was looking at the girls?”

  I turned to look at the woman. She didn’t look particularly friendly or unfriendly. She talked to the man sitting across from her as she ate a salad. She had thinning blond hair and wore a fine gold bracelet on her wrist.

  I knew where this was going, having been there before with other white friends, the ones who see racism everywhere, hiding like a burglar behind potted plants in restaurants when I’m just trying to eat lunch in peace.

  When we reached the car, we were still talking about the woman in the restaurant. Loree was convinced that she had a disapproving look in her eyes as they took in my brown daughters. I was convinced that Loree was wrong. I wanted Loree to be wrong. I didn’t want the afternoon to be spoiled by a reminder of the ugliness in the world.

  I understood that what Loree meant to do was show me that we were in this ugly world together. But the effect was to remind me of the vulnerability that stalks me, my helplessness to protect my children from the little nicks that may gather into scars like the ones I carry.

  Later, Loree and I would discuss that moment, the underlying conflict between our interpretations of the woman’s look. Loree reminded me that a few years earlier, I had told her a story about experiencing racial hatred directed at me and my daughters. It happened on Martha’s Vineyard while we were swimming in a hotel pool. That hatred was conveyed through a long, unblinking stare that made me tremble with fear. As a result of that story, Loree had developed a sensitivity to looks. It was what I had asked her to do.

  I am intrigued when Loree tells me that I am her only black friend. What’s that like? I ask her. What is the hardest part of having an only black friend?

  “The hardest part for me now is me,” she says. She worries that her experience of growing up white in a racist world might prevent her from ever being able to see beyond race when it comes to our friendship. She worries that her own self-consciousness might compromise the integrity of our bond.

  Maybe the hardest part of having an only black friend is Loree herself and her self-consciousness when it comes to the racial difference between us. But Loree has another problem, and the problem is the particular black friend she has chosen, or that has been chosen for her.

  Because this particular black friend thinks about race all of the time sometimes, but just as often not at all. I want to talk about it, and I don’t. I want my white friend to be aware of racism, and at the same time I don’t want to be reminded of racism. I laugh at gaffes about dark rings in bathtubs, yet I shudder with anger and sorrow when I think of all the dangers, large and small, implicit and explicit, from which I will not be able to protect my daughters. These contradictions may be a function of the condition of blackness, or they may be evidence of the quirks in my personality—it’s hard to say. It must be tricky terrain, the experience of being a white friend with an only black friend, and there is no road map.

  But there is one certainty: we are, sometimes joyfully, sometimes frustratingly, stuck with each other, white friend and black friend. Let’s call it love.

  Her Glory

  Isabella asks me if she can get her hair straightened, or flattened, as she calls it. When curiosity outdistances my good judgment, I comply. In order to maximize the potential for drama inherent in the occasion, we schedule the flattening a
few days before her birthday. Giulia agrees to accompany Isabella for moral support, and also because Tamara, her hairdresser, always has Popsicles in her freezer. Three hours after I drop the girls off, I receive a summons to retrieve them.

  The warm, thick smells of coconut and shea butter greet me as I enter the apartment. Giulia and Tamara’s son lean into each other on a black leather couch, transfixed by the television. Isabella sits on a stool with her back to me while Tamara stands in front of her, tidying the hair on either side of Isabella’s face.

  I walk slowly around my daughter’s head. Crystal Gayle and Cousin It from The Addams Family come to mind. Isabella’s hair is long and smooth and shines a glossy blue-black, like Veronica’s hair in the Archie comics. My little girl is gone. In her place has emerged the head of celebrities and freaks and cartoon characters.

  Tamara keeps a small black comb tucked into her crossed arms and watches me circle the stranger on the stool. Isabella ignores me as I examine her head from every angle. Along with the other kids, she is absorbed in The Cosby Show, an episode in which Cliff puts together a funeral for Rudy’s dead goldfish.

  Isabella’s hair isn’t a goldfish. It is a glass catfish, an Aulonocara Firefish, a Sunshine Peacock. Like any exotic pet, it will need careful tending. Specifically, Tamara tells me, it will have to be wrapped into a beehive, which should then be covered by a silk scarf before bed. She demonstrates the steps a few times and then hands me the pet. She tries to coach me through it, but I can’t maintain control over the straight, slippery mass. “That’s not bad,” Tamara reassures me as I transform her sweeping crown of a beehive into a loosely bound radish. “Just do the best you can,” she says.

  It starts to rain. Giulia and I lift my jacket like a canopy and run alongside Isabella to the car. Once we are safely inside, the three of us examine our new pet, relieved to see that it is still snugly and silkily affixed to Isabella’s head. We congratulate one another on a job well done. But then I remember that it is supposed to rain the next day, too, which will be accompanied by humidity, which will lead to sweating. I have fulfilled Isabella’s greatest wish, but it comes with the attendant costs of girlhood—black girlhood, to be precise. If we keep it flattened, she will come to worry over weather reports and view the elements as enemies. What a mistake, I think, as I glance at her extraordinary head in the rearview mirror.

  * * *

  —

  My daughters were nearly bald when I first met them. In Northern Ethiopia it is customary to keep the heads of girl babies shorn during the first year of their lives in the hopes that regular clippings will ensure long hair in the future. My husband and I loved our daughters’ bald heads, especially the way they made their eyes seem even bigger than they actually were. For the first two years of their lives I kept their hair cut close to their scalps. Around that time, however, a nagging thought began to take root, a sentiment I had grown up hearing all my life: girls should have long hair. I started to sense judgment beneath the questions of people who asked why I kept the girls’ hair so short. As dazzling as I found my bald-headed babies, and as much as I resented the straitjacket of conventional beauty standards, particularly when it comes to black girls, the thought, once rooted, bloomed quickly.

  * * *

  —

  Isabella did not object when I embarked upon the project of growing her hair. Now, after ten years, her hair has been my longest-lasting hobby since I gave up collecting stamps in high school. Her hair is my garden, and I have pruned and weeded her head as ardently as my mother used to tend to her flowers and plants. It’s gone through many phases. The first, a short, fluffy Afro, became untenable as tangles began to develop just as quickly as her hair grew. I thought short braids would keep her hair neat and orderly, but even after several YouTube tutorials, I could only manage to produce lumpy, uneven knots. I found a young woman with swift, nimble fingers who told me that extensions would help Isabella’s hair grow faster. Even though I suspected this was only a myth, I consented; I figured she knew what she was doing.

  The extension phase didn’t last long. The time and expense became a nuisance, and I was eager to take over the principal role in the saga of Isabella’s hair care. After a brief stint as a feathery ball on top of her head, her hair became long enough for box braids, which require the hair first to be divided into box-like sections and braided. The box braid stage was my favorite. I got so skilled at parting that her entire head resembled a map of small Midwestern states. As I combed her hair, I studied its range of textures; some strands felt like tumbleweeds and others like corn silk. I came to know the landscape of her scalp—with its mysterious valleys, bumps, and dents—more intimately than I know my own.

  After a long week of teaching, the braiding was private and meditative. Once we had negotiated the time (midafternoon was ideal), place (the living room), and the appropriate distraction (television), I enjoyed gathering the instruments and potions necessary to bring her tired, fraying braids back to life. I took as much pride in watching my own braiding skills develop as I did in my daughter’s growing mane. Unlike teaching, braiding was labor that had tangible results, and labor it was. I complained proudly about the way my back ached after hours of bending over Isabella’s head. When I referred to them as “our” braids, she didn’t correct me.

  The rhythm of braiding was calming—until it wasn’t. No matter how gently I tried to perform the task, there was always, eventually, screaming. After the screaming, there was whining, because no matter how early I started, I found myself constantly racing against bedtime. If we were lucky, the Discovery Channel delivered her favorite narcotic, Animal Planet. Isabella would sit with her hands folded in her lap, absorbed in displays of humans being mauled by alligators.

  These are among my happiest memories: the small, still, folded brown hands; the immeasurable feeling of triumph after calming dry, angry knots into shiny, peace-loving strands while the accompanying music to the Maneaters documentary series played in the background. I cherished the alone time with Isabella, who at that point in her life considered it her job to keep track of my growing list of maternal failings. But she always approved of my braiding. I would wait excitedly for her regal nod after she studied her fresh braids in the mirror from every possible angle. Eventually, we switched from box braids to cornrows. It was then that Tamara entered our lives. I said I was relieved to have my afternoons back, but privately, I grieved. My hands felt useless, the evenings barren. I busied myself with laundry while I replayed my Greatest Untangling Hits in my mind, like the knot that brought tears to my eyes before I conquered it after an hour of microsurgical separation.

  The road to perfect cornrows was painful; Isabella called them “hurting braids.” They involved more tugging and tightening than box braids.

  “Don’t cry,” Tamara would command as she pulled her comb through Isabella’s hair and braided away. Having worked on the heads of many children, Tamara was unmoved by Isabella’s discomfort. But I had to turn away when I saw my daughter scrunch her tiny features and make miniature fists, determined not to cry, even while fat tears rolled down her cheeks anyway. But as hard as it was to watch, I never once told Tamara to stop.

  I attended only the first session of the hurting braids. With every tug of Tamara’s comb, Isabella took my hand and squeezed my fingers until I imagined I could hear bones cracking. I embraced the pain; I deserved it. After tiring of the silent drama going on between Isabella and me, Tamara forbade me to hang around during appointments.

  The only time John accompanied Isabella to Tamara’s, Isabella insisted that he stay with her. She had her father, a former hockey player, arrange his big body on the floor at her feet and hold her tiny hand for three hours while Tamara wrestled with her hair. John came home shaken. “Does the Geneva Convention know about this?” he asked.

  * * *

  —

  Giulia witnessed enough of her sister’s
braiding sessions to conclude that long hair wasn’t worth the pain. She didn’t falter in her conviction, even when she was mistaken for a boy; even when, after a particularly sweaty afternoon on the playground, the class troublemaker said that her hair made her look like Albert Einstein. “Einstein is a genius,” she told me. “So the joke’s on him.”

  My father was not impressed by Giulia’s fortitude. He grumbled about her hair during our trips to Nashville. “Braids or something,” he pleaded with me during one visit, nodding his head in the direction of Giulia, who perched on her knees and colored on a piece of paper next to him. The longer Giulia’s hair stayed short, the more my father worried. “What’s happening with Giulia’s hair?” he said once on the phone in response to “Hi, Dad.” Suddenly, I was sixteen years old again, pained at having been the cause of his displeasure, and furious at myself for caring.

  “Giulia likes her hair short,” I told him, my heart racing.

  “She’s a little girl,” he snapped. “She doesn’t know what she wants.” He offered to pay so that I could take her to a proper beauty salon.