ltwr 120: personal narrative

The Rapier of the Lock

I remember sitting on the cold white plastic of the bathroom sink, my short legs dangling from the edge and swinging impatiently. Across from the basin on my right, there was a mirrored cupboard from which my mom would take out an ever-elusive yellow pouch. It must have been kept on the very top shelf, or else somewhere very secret, because I remember opening this cupboard a number of times in search of it only to find that it was nowhere to be seen. Yet whenever my mom opened this, her 5’2’’ frame entirely covering the mysterious process involved in its retrieval, there it was in her hand, just like that.

Inside this yellow pouch was the most wonderful pair of scissors. It was gleaming and silver, with long pointy blades. It was wonderful because it was nearly like the one my school teacher had – the enviable, sharp, black-handled scissors she used for crafts, cutting her construction paper with ease while we attempted to figure out how to do so using the blunted, rounded rubber pairs we were given. Except this was even better. One of the circular holes, the one for the thumb, had a little curved rod coming out from it so that it resembled the letter Q. It was always kept spotlessly clean, so that the incandescent bathroom lights gave off a white, sinister, magnificent glow on its dangerously sharp blades. And they were sharp, even sharper than my teacher’s black-handled scissors. These were special scissors. They were scissors for cutting hair.

Maybe it was the fashion for five-year-olds then, or maybe it was convenient, or maybe –emphasis on maybe – I just liked it, but in those days I always sported a bowl cut, not only the straight-across bangs on my forehead but the real deal (had I not been in dresses and stockings most of the time, I would have very likely been mistaken for a boy). Whenever my slightly crooked bangs started to interfere with my blinking, my mom would sit me on the bathroom sink and take the scissors out. Then she would cut my hair.

First she would use her fingers as imaginary scissors, leaning back and sticking out her bottom lip a little as she gauged how much needed to be cut. Then, holding those fingers in place, she’d get the real thing and press it against my forehead. The metal cold of the stainless steel blade triggered tingling sensations as it moved slowly across my forehead. Snip. Snip. As I saw small locks of brown hair fall promptly into the sink, I wished with all my heart for those scissors. I was determined to cut hair when I grew up, to be a salon-woman.

It was during this fascination with scissors and cutting things that I was practicing to be a flower girl. My first grade Sunday School teacher had a younger sister who was getting married, and had asked me to have the honor of walking down the aisle before her. Needless to say, I was thrilled. I was sure it was every girl’s dream to become a flower girl – at least, it was mine – and wear a pretty dress and throw pretty petals on the pretty ground and try not to let out a coy smile as everyone you pass by “oohs” and “aahs” about how pretty you are. Even when I hated being constricted in itchy stockings and fancy dress shoes, curses of my gender, I was looking forward to this day that everyone would have to agree I was adorable.

Because of this important task I had to undertake, my mom had been foregoing my regular haircuts for the sake of letting it grow as long as possible. A flower girl just couldn’t have a bowl cut. And so for the first time, I experienced hair that went beyond the nape of my neck and, nearing the wedding, it had just about passed the grazing of my shoulders.

I was playing in my sister’s room– what exactly I was doing I forget, but I used to slip in there often mostly for the exhilaration that I was somewhere I ought not to be – and had somehow discovered a pair of small, purple-handled scissors on her desk (I am sure now that I must have found them in her room because at the present I can’t believe that my mom would have been so careless as to ever leave a pair in mine). I had been playing with it, and inevitably reminded of my wish to be a hairdresser.

I held the scissors in my hand, imagining how much more satisfying it must be to cut locks of hair than pieces of white paper in two. Then something dawned on me, an illuminating epiphany – why couldn’t I? I had the scissors in my hand. I wasn’t sure how many times sharper the shears in the yellow pouch were than these, but I was sure they were good enough. Surely sharp enough to cut through the thin strands of hair that I had. Exhilarated and anxious to test them out, I held the scissors to one strand of hair and cut it. As I saw that part of the strand under the scissor disappear promptly, my eyes widened as I came to understand the extent of the power I held in my little hand. I could cut hair!

So I was there, standing in the cognac wood-floored hallway in front of my room, and this time I grabbed a whole fistful of hair and ran my magic blades through it. Snip. Snip. Snip. It was just as rewarding as I thought it would be, and as I watched the locks of brown drift in slow motion to the ground I was ecstatic with myself for making this discovery. It was only when there were four, five curls of hair on the ground and my hair now quite above my small shoulders that I started to realize what I had done. As I looked upon the small brown pile my eyes widened, but in fear this time, and while I wasn’t exactly sure what I was afraid of, I knew I should be afraid of something.

I remember running into my room, shutting the door quietly behind me, and pressing my ear to the crack with my heart beating. I remember hearing the approaching footsteps of my mom and hearing them stop in the middle of the hallway, pause for a few seconds, and then let out the most terrifying gasp – and then the yelling, “KYUNGHAAA!”

I remember that one day she told me I was no longer to be a flower girl. I never even thought about asking her why; I was so sure this was a consequence of my spontaneous trim. Every Sunday I felt guilty as I faced my teacher. I wanted to apologize to her for cutting my hair, but I felt deeply betrayed by her. What was so wrong about a flower girl with short hair?

A few weeks after the wedding was over, I was sitting in the church van next to my mom. As we entered the parking lot, my mom pointed out to me through the window a girl who looked about my age. “That’s the girl who was Mrs. Kim’s sister’s flower girl,” my mom said. With this newfound knowledge I pressed my face to the glass, scrutinizing her with envious eyes. She walked hand-in-hand with her mother, and had a pristine white bow in her hair. Her hair, her long, black, feminine, flowing hair. And I hated her for it.

Her name was Catherine Oh* and, although my mom told me many years later that the day of the wedding happened to fall on the funeral of my grandmother’s untimely death, I knew her for most of my life as the girl who took my place as flower girl.

*name has been changed