So this morning, as with all things, there was a sense of ‘I’ve done this before, I know what to expect’ because it’s Tuesday. That doesn’t mean it is better or easier, just not as new.
I’m wearing the same exterior clothes today as I did yesterday. I’ve fashioned a type of uniform for myself to wear to work to limit the clothes I’m wearing to work. Why? To limit exposure and contact tracing for myself. Yesterday when I got home I put my bags (work bag with laptop & notebook, lunch bag, and camera bag) down in the entryway to the house then stripped off my work clothes and left them by the door- to air out and be isolated from the clothes upstairs in the bathroom and in my bedroom.
I then went right to the shower. Made sure to clean my face and behind my ears and my neck- all of the adjustments to my hearing aids, the mask, the face shield, the pro-streamer- lots of touchpoints. I’m careful not to get my hair wet. I’m a black woman who pre-pandemic wore a ‘wash & wear’ hairstyle, emphasizing my thread-like, dense as a sponge and feather-weight curly hair. Since working from home I’ve maintained the co-wash once a week and twist-up routine. Without a professional haircut in months my hair in twists creates a nice weighted ponytail I wear low on the back of my head.
This morning when I went to get out of the car I put on my face shield mask first, then my face shield, and realized the ponytail was too high. I took off the elastic and re-did the ponytail- the gathering of twists- even lower. There is no style here, just maintenance.
The N95 maks my husband bought have two elastic bands that go over and around your head, one resting near the crown and one below the ears. My concern- not getting the elastic caught in my hair. That’s the lesson of “don’t let just anyone put anything in your hair” from first or second grade I think. Mom said don’t take out my braids at school. Mom said don’t let my friends play in my hair. Everyone else in my predominately white school was doing it- playing beauty parlor at lunch. Julie even brought a box of her special barrettes from home and she was bestowing them on the other girls like war medals. I wanted one too. It was a long day with early care, school, and then after school. Mom always put the bobbles on too tight anyway and it made it hard to nap in the classroom. Mom didn’t understand. The bobbles were too tight and I wasn’t going to get a war medal, so I took my braids out and let Julie and the other girls play in my hair. They borrowed multi-color rubber bands from the aftercare teacher and tried to make a pattern- each time they pulled apart carefully parted, moisturized, and separated hair the volume of my hair grew and grew and grew. The aftercare teacher told me I looked like a revolutionary. Being different from theirs, my playmates found my hair more difficult than they imagined and quickly lost interest, with two of four braids remaining intact.
There is no style here, just preservation. I styled the gathering of twists into the lowest possible ponytail full of ringlet ends to untrimmed natural hair, adjusted the elastic on the mask for preservation, then the face shield, and exited the car. I reached into the back seat for the work bag, the lunch bag, the camera bag, checking that I had brought my own hand sanitizer and bleach wipes. My school is providing hand sanitizer sure, but I’ve learned that as me I can’t trust that others will always have my best interests in mind, When and if I fall, it is further than they do, as it too so much more for me to get here. It’s so hard to explain and not if you can manage the complexity of something longer than a 30-second commercial advertisement.