Nasal Refusals

Three stories of nonconformity, of the nasal variety

Every piece I write for Folkweaver in some way examines reconnection to either ourselves, each other, or our planet. Today’s piece—written in three vignettes—is about reconnecting to myself through practice of decolonizing my relationship to my body. In this case, through big and small refusals of the nasal variety. These pieces are raw and vulnerable excerpts from a memoir proposal I’m working on called Left Handed about the practice of nonconformity as an immigrant, neuroqueer mother.

TW: pregnancy loss.

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My First Nasal Refusal

I have a non-conformist nose. It’s an Arab nose—bulbous, and slightly crooked to my right side, pronounced and unapologetic as it sits on my face.

I didn’t know my nose was crooked until I was at a doctor’s office in Madison, Wisconsin in my mid-twenties. My partner and I had just packed up our New York brownstone, put our life in a storage unit in Flatbush, and moved back into my childhood house in Madison with my brother and our elderly childhood cat.

I was getting sinus infections about once a month living in New York for the past two years, and I finally realized that was no way to live. In between jobs and with insurance in hand (thanks Obamacare!) I decided it was probably time to investigate whatever was making me perpetually sick.

So, I booked an ENT appointment, where I learned that one of my nasal passages was completely obstructed. I could get a surgery called a septoplasty to let me breath out of both nostrils and prevent recurring infections.

“Did you break your nose?” The white nurse asked me bluntly, examining my face with hawk-like eyes. “You must have broken your nose.”

Nope. I did not break my nose. I said so.

“It’s crooked.” She said, matter-of-factly.

Oh. Oh! Oh.

My mom talked about noses a lot. Who had a big nose. Who had a small (read white) nose. How her nose was too big. How mine was, also, too big. And now I learned my nose was not just big, but it was also, blasphemously, crooked.

I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to correct it. My nose, I mean. Its crookedness. “Do people correct that—?” I asked. “—I mean, with this surgery?”