I was never very fond of pears. They’re agreeable but I could never just sit down, legs crossed, head tilted, eyes closed in satisfaction and eat; and eat and eat. I like apples far more. They’re tasty. They’re tangy. They’re righteous. But God had given me a pear tree. Unfortunately, I was never very big on praying, but when I did call on to God to ask for the help I knew only He could give, I would ask for one simple thing: to give me the prettiest, loveliest apple tree he could muster. He never did.

When I grew tired of the nappy days, the tangled mornings, and the coiled nights, I ran from the pear tree that God himself had planted for me. I had despised the moments my mother spent tugging and braiding the strands of wool on my head, so I strolled down Florence Street for my very first professional hair appointment. I went to chase a new appearance for myself. I saw nothing but visions of apple trees as I walked through the doors of Phase II Beauty Salon. Each apple of each tree promised nothing less than gold.The guarantee to be pretty and to make my hair just as manageable and straight and flowing as my classmates’ was unbearably exciting. Thus, I mutilated my roots and rectified my curls.

I bounced in that day to the smell of hair products and heated follicles. I looked about. Three black women, no younger than fifty, sat in a row with dyers over their heads like a cloudy day. Waves rose on their foreheads as they each read a magazine, Essence or Jet, sometimes Black Hair, and occasionally looked up to the movie playing at the front. I glanced further back. I could see a barber sneaking in close to the back of a young man’s head as he tried to position the blade. He delightfully touched the fade in process and used a brush to smooth it down.

The next three booths consisted of a man, with gold and studs protruding out of his ear, a younger woman and an older woman, Icey Smith. To Hindus she was Maya, to Romans she was Apate, but to me she was the Aphrodite I craved; a Goddess of beauty. She was going to take the time to demolish my unwanted blackness forced on me by birth.

I plopped down in an empty chair, an item of the “waiting area”, and surveyed the room on last time. Each face had a look. Content? Longing? No. Anxiety. Exhaustion. Regret. Why is Regret here? What does it want? I couldn’t answer my question because my thoughts were stopped by the sudden, exasperated call of Icey, who motions me to accommodate the chair in front of her booth.
I used to think that this next scene was a part of the obstacle to get that apple tree.

Icey plucked the barretts off the tips of my chucky soft, twisted pigtails, unraveling them. After pulling the eight hair ties that held each pigtail, she rummaged her fingers through my hair and yanked a wide-tooth comb through the waves with no hesitation at the tangled clumps. Whoa! What was that! I couldn’t help but think about how much more gentle and caring my mother was with my head when she hit a nap. I gave my mother up for this? …...NO! I can’t think like that. The chance of a lifetime is on the line. The change I’d wanted was there behind me. I had to suck up all the agony and brace the the fact that beauty came with pain.

I was thinking too much. I didn’t notice Icey shift over to the cabinet, grab a tub of product, waltz over to retrieve some utensils, come back, and tell me to “sit up.” I realized that she slipped on latex gloves and had a dye applicator in hand. She had even coated the applicator with a white, pasty, substance. This must be it! The relaxer! The solution!

I vibrantly swiveled around so the back of my head faced her. I waited anxiously. The first touch came as a shock to me. She merely used a comb to part my hair but I was expecting some wondrous sensation of the new experience so the excitement covered me. After that, I felt the cold, refined paste smear on my waves like a coat of paint on the faded walls of an old house. There was a quick motion of Icey’s wrist as she brushed down the line she made, making sure to cover the roots and never the tips. My guru repeated this process over, and over, and over until every inch of my round head was covered with snowy plaster. She completed the act by seizing the smallest comb she had and distributed the paste from my roots down to the ends. Then I sat.

The whole situation had me eager. I sat in sweet satisfaction and the relaxer wasn’t even rinsed from my hair. Yet, there I was at a hair salon during the works of a historical event. Those three or so hours at Phase II is still a milestone in my life. Maybe I was a fortune teller because I sat in that chair in front of Icey’s booth knowing that I was changing my life. Knowing this only heightened my excitement all the more.
Even in the midst of all this elation, I couldn’t help but the notice the dark tingles and sensations. It was tolerable though. Until I felt a desire to scratch my head in a specific spot.

It MUST be itching because my hair was dirty, I said to myself.

As a norm for hair relaxation, I had to leave the the dirt, the grease, the flakes, and unknown particles dormant for days prior to the appointment.

Who could help themselves? I ,for one, could not, so I lifted that small brown wrist of mine and motioned it back and forth and felt the pure relief of itching the scratch. No one told me this was a mistake. No one told me I couldn’t scratch my head, they didn’t even tell me why I had to leave my hair soiled for days. No one told me it would worsen the burning I was already feeling on my head. I wished someone had; it felt like flames, and claws, and acid were searing into my scalp. The feeling began to spread over my scalp like a drop a blood sweeping over a puddle of water. I began to panic.

“Ms. Icey!” I croaked through short breaths and seat switching.

Oh my God, oh my god! I turned over in my head repeatedly as my entire scalp began to need an itch, but in that matter of seconds I conditioned myself not to do so.

“Yes, baby?” The words escaped her mouth like a person falling out of bed.

“It burns. I mean like really, really burns,”

She smiled at my ignorance, “That’s just the chemicals baby. We goin’ a be rinsin’ it out in a bit, just sit still and hold tight.”

Chemicals. Chemicals! What exactly was I putting in my hair? Why am I- There I was generating this apprehension again. Realizing this, I tried to deny the scorching feeling. Think of the apple tree.

I closed my eyes and attempted to envision it. I wanted it to have long, alluring limbs; the branches so visible I could count how many apples were on each of them. A tree with leaves so green, it made a gardener's grass look yellow; a trunk, strong and slender that curved slightly as if someone was nudging their hip out. Although some were not mature yet, their future looked promising as I compared them to the scarlet, round, marvelous apples next them. Yes. That was the picture I wanted to see as I shut my eyes off to the world around me. In great anticipation I did so. I even smiled. But as I laid my eyelids down, all I saw was the pear tree.

The despicable pear tree that has had its way of emerging in my being since I was an adolescent. With its dull and faded mustard pigment; its weird and irregular shape; its wild and untamed leaves that appeared brittle and deformed; the branches sagged as though they carried eight tons of weight. Why was I forced to see this disgrace of a tree? It always wedged itself in my thoughts when I longed for apples the most. It knows I am humiliated, angered, disappointed. Yet it still hovers above my head like a cloudy day.

I frantically opened my eyes since my attempt to console myself had failed. By now Ms. Icey had made her way back to me. She told me get out of the chair and walk to sink. I did so and sat down. I tilted my head back. The water began to pour onto my scalp and rinse away the chemicals. Icey worked her fingers through my hair and around my scalp. Five minutes into rinsing, although it seemed more like a slow, monotonous hour, the relaxer was drained from my hair. I remember feeling Icey squeezing water out of what was no longer strands of wool, but strings of thread.

I was then motioned back in Icey’s booth seat where she straightened it. It fell down the sides of my face and it moved so freely. She spun the swivel chair around. I looked at myself in the mirror; the first time since the morning when I raved on about desecrating my nappy hair. I looked to the left. I profiled it from the right and I gave myself a slight smile.

Now I can say it, even though I wouldn’t have necessarily put it in these words at the time: I wanted to be white. To put it lightly, I wanted fair skin and manageable hair. I wanted to be pretty, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to undergo this great transformation that would solve my troubles of feeling like another girl with nappy hair and therefore insignificant. That was how I saw myself. I honestly recall slouching to my knees and calling toward the heavens, begging them to bless me with light skin instead of the deep caramel color I was condemned to. That aspiration could only happen if I went the direction where the apples grew.

If you look into our society fair skin and straight hair is objectified as perfect. I was born with a pear tree though. It wasn’t until I was well into my sophomore year of high school I began to grow tired of the loose mornings, straight afternoons, and the painful weekends. I glanced in the mirror and wished I had more versatility than just the plain straightness it attained. I couldn’t wear a curly updo, or a wavy-fro, nothing.

I was disappointed. It was not me. I was sick. What did I do to myself? The moment I achieved this epiphany, all the apples and apple trees around me began to rot. The leaves digressed to flakes of brown and yellow. The trunks looked weak as if I could push them over, which would have been pointless because they all began tumbling down anyway. Were there always worms in these apples? As they all fell, I expected my staunch pear tree to slip to the floor right behind them. Yet it didn’t. It stood there as welcoming as it always had been. Exquisite; as it had always been.

It had a dynamic sort of beauty that I never noticed before. I felt completely foolish for running away from it for so many years. So finally I took a step towards it and confronted it. I plucked the jagged looking object from the tree and grimaced a bit at its unevenness. I remembered the gratitude I needed to show and decided I at least need to try this pear. And so, I parted my lips, placed them over the smooth skin, and seeped my teeth in deep.

I could learn to love this I said half-heartedly.

I chewed a bit and shallowed.

I think I can really learn to love it.

I travel to the moment I was faced with my reflection in that mirror. I smiled at a person that had taken over me. I adored apples at that moment. They provided this illusion of light skin, flawlessness, and love that swirled around my head like a cloud of smoke.

With my head clear I eat pears willingly now with my afros, curls, braids and twists.