Hair

“Hey, God,” I said. “If you waited tables at a pub, and you’d been hired for your beautiful breasts outlined by your tight tank tops, would you shave under your arms or let the delicate curls of dark hair define that space?”

God raised an eyebrow and shifted his weight. He was posing nude for a crazed-looking Italian painter. “Depends,” he said.

“On what?” I said.

“If you were a burly guy would you grow a long beard?” God asked.

I recoiled. I don’t like long beards. “Why is body hair…I mean, why did you even…why do we grow it? Shape it? Color it? Add more? Why do we shave it off?” I wasn’t sure what I was asking exactly. Back when I was a hippie chick, I didn’t shave anywhere. This bothered my family tremendously. I’d jokingly blame God, saying that’s the way we were created. My sister would counter with “And that’s why God gave us razors.”

“Things evolve,” God said. “Your fur used to have a different purpose, but now, with all that creative energy and your nascent consciousness, you play with it. I get a kick out of the wild ways you decorate yourselves.”

I thought about my chemo-baldness and how it felt to have my hair come back. I thought about Afros, Mohawks, gray hair, purple hair, plucking, waxing, chemicals, wigs. Lately, I’ve been favoring blue.

The painter handed God a silk robe and signaled it was time for a break. God sipped his tea and stretched. “Hair is a way you express yourselves. Like art. Like words,” he said. “I haven’t run the stats lately, but I imagine most first-worlders spend more money on their hair than they do on the poor.”

This made me want to gnash my slightly yellowing teeth. God grinned and said “Boom.”

I went outside to pull some weeds, muttering. Like it’s easy to know what to do for the poor? Like it’s easy to find a balance? Go gray? Go bald? Like we can handle the shame society inflicts if we fail to contort our exteriors to look as young, faultless, and beautiful as possible?

After a while God came out and started helping with the weeds. He looked preposterous in his shiny robe, kneeling in the bright sun. I got him a straw hat and said “Do you want some sunblock?”

“You know,” God said, ignoring my question. “I fancy myself up all the time. Blankets of stars, blooming jasmine, burning bushes, spectacular storms that accentuate my cheekbones.” He glanced back at the painter, who was standing in the doorway. “I’m even thinking of cataract surgery so I can see myself more clearly.”

“That’s brave,” I said. “I’m not sure I want to see myself more clearly.”

“Takes practice,” God said. “It helps if you remember who you are.” He patted my shoulder, waved to the painter, and joined a flock of starlings circling overhead. I sat, bleach-blond among the withering weeds, trying hard to remember who I am.