This is one of my favorite photos of me with my granddaughter, taken almost five years ago at our home in Louisiana. As I recall, we were out in the late afternoon hoping to see some deer on the levee, and I was enjoying hugging close the lovely sweetness of my daughter's daughter.

I've always avoided cameras and generally do not enjoy seeing myself in a photo----for many reasons. Primarily, though, I don't like the feeling of being pinned down by a photo, which in part is a feeling of being judged.

At my dentist's office yesterday, her looking at my tiny braid and saying to me, "My, your hair is so thin!" had a similar effect on me, causing me to squirm a bit and then to automatically denigrate my poor hair even further (as if I'd somehow done something wrong). When I closed the subject with a sincere statement of not really caring much and then opening my mouth for her to begin her work, I considered what else bothers me about such statements. The implication is that I do not meet some standard of "perfect hair," one promoted by corporate media in order to sell products that purport to give one such hair. This sort of standard promotes conformity, not acceptance and love of our uniqueness, which is what I choose to align myself with.

Recognizing our commonalities while appreciating our uniqueness requires continual balancing.