She knew at that moment what she would do. Claire packed her joggers and loose t-shirts into the small, wooden box her grandmother's paintings had once been in. She looked in the mirror, brushing her golden brown, curly, afro mass from her face.
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She was not always like this. She had been a sweet, little, beautiful, teenager with tea-colored skin, brown eyes, and auburn hair. Her hair had never been allowed to grow all wild, hanging around in a mass of curls around her head and face, no. Her mother had it thoroughly brushed so that it framed her face neatly in a shoulder-length cloud. But that was the first problem.
“I don't want to wear my hair like that anymore”.
This was four years ago, at their peaceful home in East Atlanta village. Claire had returned from school with her hair dyed completely black and stretched out to hang limply on either side of her face.
“What is the meaning of this Mary-Claire?”
That was the first big argument she had with her mother concerning her looks. Two weeks later, she got a tattoo on the right side of her neck and a day after that, she got two piercings on each ear and her nose. When her stretched hair began to come out in an afro again, she had her entire hair cropped short and given a purple tint.
Her mother was going berserk.
She didn't realize how much impact it made on her mother who stood in church every Sunday, leading the choristers and the entire assembly in worship, until her mom came home one day sobbing quietly and didn't attend church for three weeks. In fact, she stopped going to their parish altogether.
When Claire herself had attended once, she had received so many stares and distance that she left the service before the choir came up to minister.
It didn't end at the church, in fact, it seemed like it began there. Claire could no longer volunteer at the library twice a week like she used to, the library manager Mrs. Douglas had asked her to take a “Reflective break” and return when she felt better. She never understood what that meant.
There were no more cookies and lemonade on Sunday evenings to share with kids in the neighborhood either, because the last time her mom made them, Claire had to sit at the table till they ate the last cookie.
Claire had wondered why her life was seemingly different. Her friends, Charlie, Wayne, and Deborah got their tattoos on the same day she did. Wayne had more piercings than all of them and his folks were cool with it. Deborah too had cropped her sleek, black bob and dyed it fire red.
When she clocked 20 about four months later, she moved in with Derek, a guy she had been seeing in the past month. Derek adored her; she awoke every morning to the smell of tea and omelets just like she loved them and pushed her to finish one painting every week.
It didn't last long because one day, she returned from one of the galleries to see her mom on her porch, Deborah quivering behind her in fear.
“I am an artist mom! My art makes me liberal but you and those religious freaks back at home cannot deal with it!”
“Mary-Claire, this is not the way you were raised. Even your grandmother was an artist. She never lost herself to art!”
“I'm finding myself, you're the one hellbent on losing me!”
The surprise visits didn't stop. Once, her mom met Derek and gave him such a hard glare, he turned beet red on the spot.
At this time, she resolved to leave her mom for good, especially since she had a serious argument with Derek after finding out there were two other girls besides her.
She left for Florence, the city of art, hoping to start a life there but life started with her instead when she could barely make a living.
She realized how foolish she had been when she saw Deborah on social media looking all put together, with straight hair, no piercings, and a high-necked blouse to cover her tattoo.
“Hey, what happened to your artistic look?” She had asked.
“We grow up eventually Claire” came the response.
So now she resolved to be content with her life. None of her friends had left their parents, none of them pursued arts like she did, except for Charlie.
As she stuffed all the items into the box to be disposed of, she planned an apology in her heart for her mom. She hoped the portrait she had made was going to be enough because she was going back home.
That was her New Year's resolution.