self/image

I don’t cook. I know how, but I find it irritating and time-consuming and when you’re single, it’s just too much work to endlessly plan and shop and prepare your own meals. When I DO decide to cook, I have to fill my pantry with all the basic things one needs to make a meal—last month I made goulash (which is basically jazzed up Hamburger Helper) and spent $30 on ingredients that will now sit in my cupboard gathering dust. It would have been more cost effective to just buy takeout! Getting ready for last week’s salon felt a lot like cooking. I don’t own much makeup so I made do with what was already in my medicine cabinet and got a recommendation on Facebook for blush. Of course, I don’t know how to apply blush and the sales assistant at Sephora wasn’t interested in sharing her techniques with someone who clearly couldn’t be bothered to “put on her face” each and every day. Wearing makeup is agonizing—and expensive—when you don’t do it very often. After my good friend Stefanie came over to roll my bobbed hair into a 1940s Victory Roll, she helped me apply black “Sharpie” eyeliner (purchased at 8am that morning at Rite-Aid) and then gently scolded me as I sparingly applied mascara (“Is there any ON the brush, Zetta?”) and urged me not to rub off all the blush I had dabbed on my cheeks. With Stef’s help, I finally made it out the door and caught the train over to the Center. I put on my heels, which started to hurt my feet after half an hour, and wobbled back and forth along the grass path that leads out to the historic house. I still don’t feel totally satisfied with the salon, but seeing Valerie Caesar’s amazing photographs this weekend (top left and right) helped me to realize that I did achieve at least one goal: we left a record and, therefore, made history. People think I’m a perfectionist and that’s not the image I’m trying to project—and that’s definitely not how I see myself. I actually wish women were given more opportunities to just be ourselves—no makeup, no Spanx, no killer heels. When I moved to NYC in 1994 I found a place within a circle of women who were totally natural—no one permed their hair (so I stopped) and no one wore makeup everyday (so I gradually gave that up, too). We were working with kids and it felt important to be our authentic selves when we were with them—isn’t that what it means to be a good role model? Not to be perfect, but to be true to yourself. To talk honestly about your strengths but also your limitations. To be imperfect but still be THERE. I don’t have a problem with women who wear makeup or Spanx or killer heels. But my eye is always drawn to the women who defy convention and present themselves in ways that are deemed “unfeminine.” Those queer women make space for women like me who aren’t invested in upholding traditional beauty standards. It was fun to get dressed up for half a day but I am SO glad I don’t feel the need to do this every day. I’m grateful for friends who accept me as I am and point out my strengths when I can only see my limitations. And I think it matters when I walk into a school with just a little lip gloss and cropped hair. I’m very aware of the way Black and Latino girls read me, how they wait until the end of my presentation to come up and tell me that they like my eyes or my hair—no mention of my books, which are deliberately about girls who look like them. I’m about to film a video for some high school students in MA who are making a movie about colorism, and I have a LOT to say on the subject. Because it’s complicated…