I had a mass of thick, tight, kinky curls growing out of my head, and just the thought of my mother pulling that huge, black comb with the wide teeth through my tender tendrils would make me tear up. I couldn’t stand hair day. Sundays would roll around and my mother would assemble her tools, her comb, shampoo, towel, the blow dryer, and that big jar of Afro Sheen hair grease, and I would take off running and screaming as if Freddy Krueger’s razor fingers were coming for my scalp. Every week, it felt as if a serial killer were pushing me down on a plump pile of pillows atop a set of thick, yellow pages phone books, using her knees like a vise to hold me still while she spent hours shanking my head.
“Shut up all that noise, Taraji,” my mother would snap as I shrunk and shrieked under the sharp edge of the comb’s tooth, which she used to part my hair into tiny sections that, over the course of hours, she would braid into a mass of fantastic cornrow creations. Sniffling, I’d wipe the tears streaking down my cheeks and just sit there, praying to sweet baby Jesus in the manger, Jehovah, Buddha, Big Bird, and any other deity I thought could hear my cry to give me the strength to make it through.
Still, I’d always manage, as I choked back my tears, to give some kind of direction on how I wanted my hair styled. As early as the first grade, I commanded some agency over my crown and glory, even if it hurt like hell. “Mommy,” I’d whimper, “can you make the braids swoop up and to the side so I can wear them in a ponytail with the dark blue beads?” Mommy would oblige the request, no doubt in part to quiet me down, but also because she was intent on extending to me the autonomy I craved.
I was the quirky kid—the one who always had that little extra flair about her. I wanted my hair to be styled a little differently from the rest, my clothes from a store off the beaten path, my shoes a little shinier than the Buster Browns everyone else was rocking—part of my eagerness, early on, to stand out from my peers and be my own, unique, individual person. I’m grateful my mother recognized this early on and agreed to entertain that particular desire of mine—no doubt in part because as a single mother, she really didn’t have the time or the inclination to fuss over which way I wore my hair or how many prints and patterns I wore all at one time, though she insisted I be neat, presentable, and respectable. “You’re not gonna be out here embarrassing me,” she always vowed as she smoothed out the wrinkles on my outfits, or chastised me for forgetting to say “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir” when addressed by grown-ups. What’s more, she encouraged my unique style sense and, occasionally, even helped along my peculiar fashion sensibilities. This was true even when I needed new clothes, which we sometimes couldn’t afford to buy. It was nothing for my mother, an amateur seamstress who always went to work with her clothes starched to perfection, to whip up a new outfit for me and let me style it in an interesting, fresh way. Countless times, she’d take me by the hand and lead me to the huge file cabinets in our local department store, where there was a treasure of sewing patterns waiting to be mined. I remember one pattern in particular practically calling my first, middle, and last names from that metal drawer.
“What about this one!” I exclaimed, shoving a small envelope with a picture of the outfit I desired into her hand. It was glorious: a three-piece suit featuring a vest with boxy shoulders and pants with decidedly less flare in the hem than what everyone was wearing, plus a matching skirt that skimmed the knee. It looked nothing like the long, lacey, patchwork dresses I saw girls my age wearing, or the painfully corny pullover sweaters and matching pants that were in style back then—the ones that had pictures of Winnie-the-Pooh and all the other popular cartoon characters of the day splayed across the most putrid colors one could conjure up for children’s wear. No, this pattern that I’d picked was a standout among standouts—a veritable star that I needed to shine brightly in both my closet and in my fourth-grade class.
“You like that?” my mom asked, taking the envelope into her own hand and holding it up to the light. She nodded her approval. “It is pretty. I have some fabric at the house that’s just right for this.” She checked the price and, upon determining the pattern met both her budget and approval, marched it to the register, with me skipping behind her, a big, cheesy grin spread across my face as I plotted when I would show off the outfit at school.
It took my mother only about a week to pull together the three pieces with the material she had tucked in her sewing kit: a bundle of maroon, pink, and white plaid jersey knit that she’d found on sale and tucked away months earlier. Every night after work, she would arrive home from her job, prepare dinner, check over my homework, and then hunch her body over the sewing machine. The whir of the needle clicking against the metal of the Singer made her fingers vibrate as she gently guided the material; I’d lie on the floor on my belly, my hands cupping my face, fascinated by the slow, easy dance she did as her foot pushed down on the pedal and she leaned in to the fabric.
Finally, one Monday, my outfit was ready for its school debut. My cornrows were laid, the beads in them clacking. Mommy could throw down on that sewing machine, please believe that; my ensemble fit perfectly, and I couldn’t wait to show off her work. I looked good.
My mother was in the kitchen, fixing me one of her signature egg sandwiches for breakfast when I rounded the corner out of my room and headed her way. She caught sight of me strutting and beaming out of the corner of her eye, and then turned her full body around to greet me with her warm hug. Her eyebrows, furrowed, betrayed her uneasiness with my style choice. “Taraji, baby, why you got on the vest, the pants, and the skirt?”
Ignoring the concerned look on her face, I twirled around with my arms swinging behind me, proud. “Isn’t it perfect?” I asked, giggling.