On brushing hair
#Versicoloured 3
I bought my first brush when I turned 30, like a rite of passage, a small peach and baby blue Tangle Teezer. I had just left Italy and moved to London, the European hard water was making me go on a journey of finding out what was happening to my scalp. But for years I barely used the little brush, so I gifted it to my mother. I’ve got curly hair, and every time someone complimented my hair I would say, the secret? Don’t brush it.
Then I lost my dad, and grief made me darker and exhausted. I would spend the day doing nothing, and nothing wasn’t enough. In this weird gloomy, context, ideas for a book emerged after a short play I wrote for OSO Arts Centre. Specifically, the first chapter came to me when I was crossing Hammersmith Bridge on a grim November afternoon carrying a bag of tomatoes from LidL. The manuscript grew like a beetroot inside earth: for a while, it was there but not there.
And so, a crazy desire of brushing my hair manifested. I didn’t own a brush once again so I purchased a bluebell-purple wet detangler. In the cold winter mornings I would spread castanha leave-in from Brazil, splash water, and brush the strands of my long curly hair watching the little Buddhist flags hanging in the garden, soaking moisture. I had the impression Ana Morgan from the movie The Calling would appear from the door, and help me untangle my knots.
The more I wrote the fragments of the manuscript, the more I found myself brushing my hair. Everything was being untangled: ideas, fishnets, spider webs, a tangle of necklaces, yarn, words, paper, life, pain, mind. This was literally my natural body instinct to deal with a difficult moment. I had to untie the darkness.
In my manuscript took shape a scene of me brushing the hair of my writer-self, discovering her locked in the basement of the old araucaria-wooden house in my hometown. It made me remember something Clarissa Pinkola Estés says about organising the psyche, which I tried to find in my books, but couldn’t. All I can remember is the metaphor similar to Vasilisa organising seeds for Baba Yaga. There’s this calming, gentle, intimate movement of psychic sweeping in the act of organising, cleaning, untangling, unraveling, so that debris doesn’t accumulate and drown us.
Then I discovered that brushing hair can be actually beneficial. It distributes the scalp’s natural oils from root to tip, helping to prevent breakage and damage. I ended up getting a bristle wood brush made in Kent for this special moment of mine, which as the beetroot grew, and the darkness went away, became less and less common.
When I found the painting by painter Francine Van Hove on Substack notes of fellow writer Alice Betts, I first saw the scene I wrote in my manuscript, and then felt like sharing how our instincts might help our bodies process pieces of our inner and outer realities. As weird as they may seem, like in my case, the gesture of brushing the hair after thirty years of a proud knotted lion’s mane, helped me integrate grief and discover a writer locked in the basement. So it might be a good idea, just for today, to trust your instincts.
Julia.
Untangle your memories. This month at Alma Studio I’m facilitating online and in-person writing sessions following memories as the thread. I use oracle and Tarot cards as imaginative prompts to generate raw material, and always bring a literary inspiration to guide the practice. Spaces are limited to ensure everyone receives my direct, personal attention. Secure your ticket below.