My hair memoir, Head on Fire, is here!

When I was diagnosed with central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA), I was desperate to connect with someone else who was experiencing hair loss and pain to the same degree as me. My stylist connected me with a client of hers, and I learned about her symptoms and treatments, but it was a one-and-done conversation. She was generous with me on that call, but it was clear there would be no follow-up.

I needed more.

I was desperate to hear someone talk through their experience before, during, and after diagnosis.

• How were you caring for their hair before diagnosis?
• How did you feel about their hair then and now?
• What do you think caused the disorder?
• Did your doctor take the pain seriously?
• What helped ease the pain and what made it worse?
• Did you grow back the hair you lost?

I had a million more questions.

I needed to understand another patient's full story so I could make sense of my own...because processing the experience was difficult, and I didn't know how to calm my nervous system.

I was in therapy at the time, and sometimes we'd talk about my fears, but I would have needed a daily session to get me to a place of acceptance and peace.

So I did the next best thing I could think of: I used a writing exercise my therapist gave me (originally to process the loss of a friend) to process the loss of my hair—albeit a very different form of grief.

First, I wrote words. Words to describe my relationship with my hair from when I was a young child through middle age. Then I wrote words related to the emotions I cycled through after being diagnosed with CCCA.

Second, I wrote paragraphs. One paragraph about each word, though one turned into two, which eventually turned into pages.

The gift of this exercise was the full processing of my emotions and experiences, from which genuine breakthroughs and revelations emerged. I wrote words and paragraphs about those, too.

By the time I finished the exercise, an entire year had passed, and I'd written over 100 pages.

Given my desperation to hear someone else's story, it's not a surprise that shortly after finishing my writing exercise, Toni Morrison's quote kept ringing in my head:

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." 

She always had a way of speaking plainly and making it seem as though I was the person she was speaking to.

So I listened.

After another year of polishing with an editor, then a year of researching options for publishing, Head on Fire is here.

If you are a Black woman experiencing CCCA, may my story help you make sense of your own.

And if you come to this book because you are loved by me and I by you, may this give you a window into my secret life—not just my experience of hair loss, but the pervasive systemic racism and anti-Blackness that is the cause of so much trauma unseen.

With love,

Maya

P.S. If you’re curious why I’m publishing under a pen name, ask the next time you see me.