Jodi M. Savage is the author of The Death of a Jaybird: Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind (Harper Perennial, 2023). Her essays have appeared in Oprah Daily, The Huffington Post, Catapult, Kweli Journal, the VIDA Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Storyknife Writers Retreat, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, and the Tin House Winter Workshop. Jodi is a Goldwater Fellow and MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at New York University, where she also teaches creative writing.

ESSAY

My Hair Is an Archive of My Grief

By JODI M. SAVAGE

But it’s ridiculous to keep holding on to the past, holding on to hair that no longer wants to be kept.