Power.
Connection.
Rules.
Identity.
For me, being a redhead meant that I
was given something extra. I was different from others and therefore I had to
live differently. My father was a redhead but it was my mother (a dark haired)
that taught me about being a redhead. I vaguely remember the books that we had
in our house. The important ones had redheads as the main characters. They were
the fun ones, the changers, the people in silent power, and even the secret or
not so secret destroyers of lives. They were those with divinity or tantamount
to daemons. Lots of times they were both. This was often the same in the real
world as well. An Asian woman once asked my parents if they wouldn’t like to have my hair be a different color.
“Like what?” was their question back, “Like black.” was her response. In her
culture red hair meant something bad. Another time my mom and I were in downtown Tucson, at dusk, waiting for
the bus. A man waiting with us looked at the sunset and then the sunrays
shining on my hair. He just glowed and in his limited English pointed to the
sun and then my hair and said “golden—golden”.
The
book I remember best is still one of my favorites today. Miss. Frizzle
from The Magic School Bus showed me
how redheads could be wild and crazy while doing extraordinary things, all the
while look like a regular person to the outside world. Picture books showed me
other redheaded children. When I got older my mother gave me a book of
photographs called Redheads by Joel
Meyerowitz that showed me every kind of redhead in every style and situation.
They were moms and dads, funny looking, professionals, artists, punk and
grunge, sophisticated, and quirky. I learned that I could be many different
things and still be a redhead.
Movies, like books, showed me who
redheads could be. I remember watching Anne
of Green Gables with my parents. I listened to Anne when she would tell
people how to spell her name with an e
because “the e makes Anne look fancy.
I do sometimes like to pretend I’m fancy.” My middle name is Anne and I, like
Anne Shirley, make sure they know that there is an e because that makes it special. When I saw Pippi Longstocking I was sure I had found my equal. She was
powerful but vulnerable, she saw the world how it should be, and she had the
power to enrich or destroy and always saw who people as they truly were without
loosing who she was. She was my quintessential redhead.
As I grew up, carrying Anne and
Pippi along with me I learned more of the rules and laws that would shape my
life as a redhead. I learned that my hair connected me with people like
Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc (who are both depicted as redheads) and so I must
acknowledge that connection with every other redhead on the planet. When I meet
a new person who is a redhead I must wait (three seconds usually) and see if we
will be friend or foe for all redheads when confronted with another redhead can
determine if they will love each other or hate each other. One of my Junior
High teachers was a redhead and on the first day of class we realized that we
were not going to get along so I sat in a corner and she kept her distance. As
a redhead I am given power to affect others. There have been times when I have
used this power to do good and others when I have not. At an early age I
realized that I could affect someone’s life without ever looking like I did
anything. This allowed be to get back at people who were mean to me without
getting caught but I also learned that I had to be careful how I used that power.
I am grown up now. In lots of ways I
do not show the same extremes in being a redhead that I once did, I don’t work
to destroy people and I am calmer and do not blow up like my hair suggests. I
still live different personas of redheads, and feel connected to the redheads
that have gone before me. All of these things have provided me strength and
courage. Above all I remember:
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