When I had long hair, it always took curls well, but it never kept curls well. It would be beautiful for an hour or until I tried to do anything with it, and then the curls would all fall out.
My mom had an interesting phrase she liked to use when she’d catch me primping for dates. She’d say, “Debbie, stop brushing your hair. You’re birdcaging it.”
Her words come back to me now when I work too long at tweaking my posts.
I can say, “I tried to make it fit into a little box and be perfection, but in so doing, I tamed the heart of it, the wildness, the very thing that was beautiful about it to begin with.”
Or, I can simply say I birdcaged it. Either way, it means the same thing.