Life is stranger than most fictions. The tough times continue and this has been a hellacious week. Hellacious, not as in ‘wah-wah’ my story was rejected, as in my heart physically hurt, as though the organ needed to be taken out and cradled and stroked. Please, no need to comment or respond, thank you. I will recover.
Curt Dawes in an inmate at Michigan Reformatory. I know little more about Curt except that he has a sister and he reviewed Hard to Say for BULL: Fiction for Thinking Men for a forthcoming issue. This morning, Curt’s sister, N., sent me an advance copy of his review. It’s hard to describe how it feels to know my stories mattered to Curt in Michigan in prison. I’ll make up a word: grathumenc.
I cut off most of my hair, twelve inches of length and a crazy amount in volume, and now have Flash hair. My short-short haircut seems trivial to mention here. Yet it’s where the keyboard has taken me. I don’t know how many times yesterday the hair stylist said I was brave. He seemed shocked that I’d chance a new stylist with a completely new do. We are all brave in our own ways. For me, cutting off my hair felt nothing, felt like a grasp at forcing a new chapter.
I spent so much of this past week wrangling with all the ways I still feel so very afraid. The fall of my shorn hair felt nothing next to that. My head is lighter now that some of the old has fallen away. Scissors, Baby.
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