I am a woman who does not like tattoos or dyeing my hair. I like being ‘oh naturelle’ I tell everyone. It wasn’t until my forties that I had truly shed my religious addiction to modesty, able to swim nude at Potter’s Falls in Ithaca, NY. It’s been a struggle to free myself from the chains of conformity; one way is to cut my own hair, even after an occasional New Years’ eve professional cut not to my liking.

My hair is mid-back-long and straight, still a light brown due to my mother’s genes, maybe allowing 12 gray hairs to appear by age 80, when she died. For the past twenty years or more, I have cut my hair into steps like stairs, each approximately 1 and ½ inches high. Many compliments have come my way, some from hairdressers.

Now in my seventies, I look at my eldest daughter’s ability to have her hair cut and colored differently when I see her every month or so. Her body displays flowers and vine tattoos, leaving spaces open to her naturally lovely skin. I want to remember her pure naturally soft skin felt in my arms when she was born.

I am looking to cut my hair differently for my 75^th birthday, when I will be parachuting out of a plane, happy to have my extended family of origin watching. Witnessing my unique self, while my tears say, “It is so hard to be yourself!”