brows

When I was about 9 years old my family lived in small town Akron, Ohio for about three years. There weren't many members of my faith in the area. We're LDS (or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, kinda long hence the acronym). Because our congregation was so small we didn't have a chapel of our own. We met in the high school cafeteria. I remember sitting on the metal chairs and my brother asking me to say "sunshine city" five times really fast and not being quite quick enough to get what I was accidentally saying. Perfect church behavior right? Well I also have this memory of sitting in those uncomfortable metal chairs and my mom leaning over to me tell me to "never" pluck my eyebrows because one day they may not grow back and then I'd have to draw them on like "so-in-so" as she pointed out women with no natural brows and penciled in ones.

I admit, I'm no fashionista but I never thought much about my eyebrows. I heeded my mother's wise advice and just forgot they even existed on my face. Then I met the man of my dreams and went on his family reunion without him. His fun, hip, cool, cousin, who was in cosmetology school (I think), attacked me and plucked and trimmed my brows. I was very scared and nervous as I knew I never wanted to draw on my eyebrows. The results weren't bad, in fact when I got back to school my friend complimented me on my new and improved brow shape.

Since then I've tried to keep them trimmed up a bit and find that many nights a week before bed I glance in the mirror to see if there are any strays that need to be taken care of. It's a bit like a treasure hunt and sometimes there's a stubborn one that gives you quite the feeling of success when conquered.

Where am I going with this you may ask? No where, just thinking about pointless things. Maybe it's because I occasionally look at people's eyebrows and think, Iwish I were more wild and free, or man they need to take care of that. I often find our societies ideas of beauty quite comical, like plucking eyebrows. Here's to Frida who didn't give in to societal norms and embraced the unibrow.