When I got back home, it was like nothing changed. First of all I was home. In my grandest dream, I thought I was going to have to send for my husband and cats. We were going to have to set up shop in Salzburg because I was offered work singing somewhere in Europe. As it turned out, sometimes dreams turn into nightmares. The festival was a great disappointment which led to a depressing 16 hour plane ride home to depression. I had one gig to look forward to. In kind, I agreed to cover the Soprano in a Beethoven 9 concert with a local orchestra. I was excited about this initially. When I came home it was all I had. I took the one recording we manage to get from the whole event, and create a video for it to shop around to various Opera companies and orchestras. I figured I put all that work into training my voice at the highest level , somebody should bite. I got nothing. Not even an “come in and let us hear you sing”. When we began rehearsing for the concert, I was confident in how I prepared myself, even though my heart wasn’t fully into it. I walked around the world like I had been battered and bruised by a heart breaking experience. My coach who helped me with my preparation dealt me a harsh blow when she said I should have been cast for the concert but I looked too old compared to the others. It hurt. Myself image was taking a bruising in the weeks after Salzburg. It was as if the world had changed right under my broad nose. Here I am, undeniably black, and I don’t fit in. Being the Christian woman I am I kept pushing. My duty now was to get a day job and continue with voice lessons and auditioning. The day job was proving more and more difficult to come by. After all, Los Angeles is one of the cities with the highest unemployment. I was able to sign up with my 10th temp agency. They were sending me out on assignments here and there. By this time I my hair was beginning to flourish again. I had braided it with some box braids and it looked okay. The hair that I used was so cheap it would unravel and the braids would tangle leaving me with a mess. I took them down and sported my signature twist and tuck. It was a neat hairstyle that I could undo into a nice textured afro! It was my go to “protective style”. Now at this point I was not so hip on the entire Natural hair lingo. I had gone natural in 1991 and all we had was Caesar cut and braids! Those were the terms we used.

As the subsequent days rolled by, I kissed my husband good bye each day and remained home slightly depressed from the lack of work and prospects I would send out two sets of resumes to opera companies and regular companies for receptionist jobs. I got one call to audition for San Francisco opera’s chorus. I get that one every year. They put me on the wait list and leave me hanging for never. Then I got a call from Long Beach Opera asking me to help them out with the School program they put on for the schools. I thought his would be great to do. I was excited to do it even though they were only going to pay me $50 to do it. Then I had a recital for the Music club I belonged to and another Christmas gig paying $200 at my church. So I was set up for the holidays! I began to heal. The temp agency called me as well. They had a job downtown covering for the receptionist who had lost her mother suddenly. I was excited, real work! Since my hair was growing out, I still wanted to look professional and not do too much to my hair. Plus they called me at 9 am I had to do something quick to my hair. So I pulled out one of my pixie wig and wore it to the assignment! This proved to be a smart but incredibly dumb move. Smart because I got tons of compliments on my work, they were impressed at how quickly I caught on to the office culture and how well I worked the front desk. I looked professional and pulled together with my little pixie wig on.

I wore the wig for a couple of weeks and occasionally switched it up with another short wig. I got tons of compliments on it too. One lady screamed out I like your hair! I walked back and said thanks it’s a wig! Winked and kept going. She came to the front desk and marveled at my wig. The next day, she told me she went to her hair appointment bragging about it and how she wanted my hair cut. The beautician talked her off the ledge. There was one girl who would cover my desk for lunch and she would go on various blogs but one she would go on was BGLH or Black Girl Long Hair. I thought that was interesting. I didn’t know what it was about so I told her to write it down for me. I would look at it later. She had long hair but I think it was a weave. However there was another girl who covered for me who had very long hair. She too was black. This was not a weave. It was hers ALL hers. I thought like most people “she must be mixed with something. I never went back to the website. I thought it was a site for girls who were somehow more blessed than us ordinary girls with ordinary black hair. When I got home, I looked at myself in the mirror as I took my wig and make up off. I undid my little twist and tuck buns and began to think, what if I just not wear the wig tomorrow. Just undo my hair, fluff it out and dress really nice and go into work like this? The next morning, I began operation phase out. I put on a very sleek outfit, and fluffed out my twist and tuck and went in to work as is. I got compliments on my thick hair from some the other said the phrase I dread, “You Changed your hair”. How many of you have heard this phrase? I always think when someone says this it’s their way of really saying, “I don’t understand why your hair is like this, but if I don’t say something you will think I hate it, I actually don’t like it but you caught me staring so I have to say …You changed your hair!” insert slight smile. The head of the company even began to look at me differently. I thought to myself “uh oh”!

I had spent two months working there when the powers that be decided to promote the old receptionist and hire me on as the new receptionist. I was through the roof! I thought “My hair won”! And I got a job! This is great! Prior to taking on this job, I had informed my temp agency of the days I would need off for my various side gigs and to fly up to San Francisco for my audition. They were in total agreement with this and would work around my schedule. The first week I worked on my own as the temp to perm receptionist, I informed the H.R. assistant of the days I would need off. He immediately rushed to my desk and said he knew nothing of this. A slight warm feeling came over me, then immediately my blood turned cold. This was not good. I went to lunch and called my temp agent and told her what had happened. When I came back from lunch, the other receptionist told me that another rep from my agency came to see me. I was thinking all of this was bad, bad, bad! I immediately, started canceling my gigs; I needed this job, and was prepared to sacrifice my reputation as a musician for a day job. The following week I was on pins and needles. Christmas was coming upon us and I was doing anything and everything they had asked of me to keep this job. Then something happened, I answered a call about the Receptionist position that was available. I went cold. I called my temp agent and she broke the news to me, they are rescinding the job offer, they are looking for another receptionist. I was to stay there until they found someone else. Well as luck would have it, that weekend I got food poisoning. I didn’t make it to Monday and they told me not to come back at all. The next thing I did was try to get my gigs back. I got the one!

I’m not an expert. I have never considered myself an expert at anything. However, I am a great learner. Maybe I am an expert at learning. Recently, I had a life lesson thrown me into a stupor. I will spare the details for a later post. I spent many days depressed and sad. I needed to figure out how to get out of my depression without turning to medical options. This is where the learning comes in. Learning something new is a great way to focus the mind on something other than sadness and regret. I choose to pull my efforts into the Ukulele! Then I choose the Violin. Most importantly, I choose my hair! It all started with a dye job gone wrong!

Experts say never make any decision under emotional stress. Well they are right! In 2012, I was at the end of my first job after a long unemployment stint. I was working in Hollywood for a production company. I was under a lot of stress. This job was not what I had expected. They were perks; I got to see some very interesting people, tons of celebrities, free lunch, and after a Nike Shoot I got free gear! Nice right? Well it came at a cost. I was determined to conquer the diva attitudes and constant rule changing to master the front desk of this demanding position. Well At the end of my third month, I had a confident feeling this was going to work, I was fired. Now my home life was on a precarious line of destruction as well. Being a newlywed in this economy is very difficult. I didn’t think we were going to make it. So losing my job, and almost losing my marriage made we want to control something in my life. Unfortunately, I always seek control through my hair. Since I couldn’t stand the sight of my husband at this time, I decided to stay at my mom’s house to clear my head and plan a strategy. My birthday was coming up and it was a big one. I was turning 39. I was growing out a cut into a nice sized fro. I had installed box braid the week before I was let go. So my hair was about nose length in the front and inches away from shoulder length on the sides and back. Yet, I wanted a style that would reflect my new status of impending Woman hood. After all I felt a woman of 39 should have a haircut that reflected this. Plus I just didn’t want to sit and braid it again. So, I went into my mother’s bathroom and with a pair of dull scissors I chopped my 6 inches down to 1 inch. By the time I finished I regretted the hasty decision immediately.

My husband called me the following week and said that he had made an appointment with a marriage counselor to disgust our marriage. We had a ton of issues connected to our past. We decided that instead of throwing everything away we needed to work on ourselves so we can come together. I felt better, unemployed but better. I looked at my new cut and decided that I needed to do something to soften it up. I have always wanted red hair! Red Hair on black people is so unusual and beautiful. I decided to take the plunge and dye my inch long hair red. Went to the beauty supply store and go some Clairol Textures and Tones and 30 minutes later, I was a red head! I loved it. I was coppery and beautiful! I decided to do new headshots and everything! Going short and red made me feel confidant and avant garde! I walked around and embraced the stares! However my Choir director for a group I sang with did not like it. He is very old school and equates Long hair with Beauty. He said I looked mannish! I was insulted, but chalked it up to his antiquated ways! I was not wigging my head for his show! My usual plan when I cut and colour my hair has always been this; Wash, condition, style with gel. As my hair grows out I trim off the colour to my natural colour. Occasionally, I will deep condition my hair. This has worked for me in the past. My hair grew out and all was fine. This time, something terrible happened. My hair was not growing, it was breaking! Breaking terribly! I began seeing split ends so bad that it looks as if I had a head full of tree branches! I was devastated! Later that year, I was cast in the chorus of an opera in Santa Barbara. The costume department wanted me to wear a straw hat on top of my natural hair. What I knew from my mother is, never wear a hat that would rip your hair out of your scalp. I decided to wear a wig plus the hat instead. This helped my hair to rest during the production. By the end of the run, I had a good inch of new growth on top of the two inches. I had stopped wearing gel, and applied Shea Moisture cream instead. This helped a little, but the texture of my hair was so rough and brittle. I thought if I get four inches, I could put braids in and let it rest even more. This didn’t work; I had no other choice but to do another big chop. Lesson Learned? Stay away from major styling decisions under emotional stress! Don’t cut your hair with dull scissors!