Friday Feature: Ryane Nicole Granados
- 8 hours ago
- 9 min read
Ryane Nicole Granados has always called Los Angeles her home, and her writing finds its roots in her love of her community. She is inspired to write stories of survival that magnify the
marginalized while also unearthing the splendor of second chances. Named the 2021 California Arts Council Established Writer and Individual Arts Fellow, Ryane currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University, where she also serves as the Associate Director of the Academic Resource Center. Her work has been featured in various publications, including Pangyrus, The Manifest-Station, High Country News, The Atticus Review, and LA Parent Magazine. Her storytelling has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and showcased in KPCC’s live series Unheard LA. As the winner of the 2023 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize, her novella, The Aves, is officially out now.
Flammable
I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do like the feeling of being able to start again. A new calendar year counts by increments of one, similar to the box breathing method my therapist claims will help manage my anxiety. Four structured rhythmic counts, four seasons, four chances to get it right. Inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and holding for four again.
It’s winter and I’m in the holding stage. Holding all the weight from a heavy year. The problem is, I’m not a weightlifter. My strength has always been in my legs. I’m a runner. I used to be exceptionally fast, but these last few years have caught up with me. I can no longer outrun the anxiety, so winter becomes my new favorite season. The season for rest and reflection. The time to pause and hold tight because at midnight, you get to burn it all down.
It’s New Year's Eve day of 2024, and we’ve been gifted the opportunity to escape the city. My Midwest husband is missing black sky and visible stars while my kids are in that vortex of time between Christmas chaos, school hiatus, and a break from youth sports. Like toy spinning tops, they all resemble stored up energy quickly turning into kinetic energy and frying my central nervous system with their rotational motion. The permanence of a mountain feels like a perfect solution to their unchecked boredom. After an impromptu five-hour drive from our modest home in Los Angeles, we arrive at a luxurious family cabin in picturesque Mammoth. Ringing in the new year atop a snow-covered summit has to be a sign that things are finally looking up.
As we inch our oversized truck into the garage, the doors fly open and my mother, the kids, my husband, and our dog all pile out of the car in a frantic race for bathrooms. The house is so large there is literally a bathroom for everyone. I know this because my preschool-aged daughter begins to run around counting them. Our potty training has paid off, and her New Year’s goal is to make sure she uses each bathroom at least once before we leave. As for me, I just want room to breathe, space to spread out, and the warmth of a fire in a place where no one complains about my need for constant heat. It turns out anxious people can feel colder than their calm counterparts. The body’s constant fluctuation between fight or flight diverts blood flow away from the skin.
“I found my favorite bathroom,” yells my daughter. “It’s mine and so is the room with the bunk beds. No boys allowed!” My daughter is a tyrant. I’m both irritated by and proud of this reality.
The kids all fan out into personal spaces and my teenage son mumbles a request for Wi-Fi. I ignore him. He is indignant. There’s a New Year’s party he wants to attend. Instead, he is stuck with us: His anxious mother, his fatigued father, his spirited grandmother, his animated younger brother, and his tyrant little sister. We are the party. I brought black and gold party favors.
There’s a fresh dusting of powder surrounding the entire house. My middle son explains it’s called a snowpack. He’s been researching all things Mammoth the entire drive up. It turns out with each new heap of powder it becomes more and more compact. Was the snowpack an actual depiction of our crappy year? One thing after the next and the next. A pile on of epic proportions.
“I’m hungry,” shouts our snowpack scholar.
“No, I’m hungry,” retorts the tyrant not to be outdone.
Trying to get back in the teenager’s good graces, I tell him he can pick where we eat. I hope there’s delivery, because I have no intention of moving from my window seat.
Slouched in front of the glass-encased fireplace, I’m filled with a consistent but unfamiliar sensation of comfort. It’s a cocoon of heat that envelops me. I let out an embarrassingly loud exhale and slump further into relief.
A smell from my childhood takes shape. A mix of flammable plastic and hair grease. I’m taken back to the days of box braids. After hours of sitting, you knew the torture was complete because the neighborhood braider would pull out a BIC lighter and seal the ends with a wrist flick technique. Box braids. Box breathing. That’s the smell. Smoke melding with synthetic fibers. The nostalgia’s soothing until reality sets in.
First, it’s the hair on my neck, then the sound of crackling pops. Tiny explosions of heat and moisture begin to race from the tips of my braids. My daughter screams as I simultaneously register what’s happening.
The flames, while even behind the glass, created enough heat to set my braids on fire. Wax begins to stick to my sweater and skin. The volume increases on the now chorus of shrieks:
“Mommy’s hair is all burned up!” hollers the tyrant.
“What do you mean burned up?” shouts my mom.
“Burned up!”
“What?”
“Burned up! Burned up! Burned up!”
“What?”
The chant of “what’s” feels like salt in the wound of freshly installed braids now burned to a crisp.
I smack the bottom half of my hair until it feels like layers of broken coal.
One of my sons, I can’t even tell which one at this point, utters an obnoxious, “You’re cooked!”
Tears well up in my eyes. I storm into the primary bathroom and slam the door.
I can overhear my mother telling a detailed account of how Michael Jackson also set his hair on fire. A 1980’s Pepsi commercial. A pyrotechnic malfunction with far greater fanfare than my fiery story.
“So how was your holiday?” A coworker will ask.
“It was fine. We went to Mammoth. The kids built a snowman. Oh, and I set my braids on fire!”
Sitting on the bathroom floor, I sob. Box braids. Box breathing. My internal monologue tries to remind me there’s a distinct difference between a panic attack and a heart attack. I am not dying, but I am incensed.
My husband taps on the door and asks, “How bad is it?”
I cry even harder.
“I can help you take them down,” he mutters.
The last time my husband unbraided my hair I wasn’t on the precipice of perimenopause. Instead, I was in premature labor, giving birth to our now 11-year-old son. In hysterics, I decided I could no longer tolerate eight-minute-long “titanic contractions” and braids attached to my scalp. While regaling the nurses with anecdotes of how he took paramedic classes in college, he used surgical-grade scissors to clip and unravel my braids.
I look up at the bathroom door and let out a distressed “I just need five minutes.”
Then I type an SOS text to my girlfriends that I set my hair on fire. I provide pics. I beg them to tell me it's not that bad. I warn them not to say the phrase “What?”
With breakneck intensity, a barrage of firework memes appears on my phone, followed by declarations of “Damn!” and “Now you’re really hot!”
I throw my hair up in a bun and go sledding with my kids.
Back home, a week later, the Santa Monica Mountains are engulfed in flames. I finally begin to unbraid my hair while watching a steady stream of news stories detailing fires in Palisades and Altadena. The devastation is historic. Over 50,000 acres are destroyed. California is known for its Santa Ana winds, but this time it is hurricane-force spirals stoking flames and spreading destruction.
A soot-like ash coats my fingertips. This adds to my struggle of separating the strands of acrylic extensions from my own natural hair. Box braids. Box breathing. Old baggage and anxiety disentangle as tales of unimaginable loss overtake Los Angeles.
A high school burns down. They are the rivals of my son’s school. Senior year milestones are scorched. A stone-faced newscaster announces that the death toll has increased.
Two things that bring cities together are sports teams and tragedy. With the earth eroding under our feet and embers falling from the sky like snowflakes, donation drives and fire recovery efforts transform remaining schools into shelters and safe havens. Rivalry is replaced with utility. It all puts my combustible plaits into perspective.
The bank says we have forty-five days to pay the remaining balance on the taxes on our home. My mail carrier looks sad when he hands me the certified letter. I’m sure my therapist would say he’s an empath. Visibly excited with a toothy grin when he gets to stuff our box with birthday or holiday greetings. Pensive and despondent as he points with his pen to the multiple lines where I need to sign my receipt of threatening bank notices. I want to comfort him and tell him it will be okay. My therapist would call this hyper empathy leading to my emotional burnout. That’s the thing about the American Dream. It’s an absorption of other people’s pain and hopes and desires. It’s all good in theory: marriage, house, kids, dog. What’s that they say about death and taxes and life’s inevitabilities? Again, it’s all good until you’ve been hanging on like a circus acrobat from one disaster to the next.
Just hanging on a little while longer now. It’s springtime. New opportunities are on the horizon. We managed to save the house. The roof leaks in one of the back rooms, but it’s okay because it never rains in Southern California. It hasn’t rained in Los Angeles since last spring. The prolonged drought created the perfect fuel for fire. But the remarkable thing about spring is that wildflowers still manage to grow. Even in burned soil, they sprout and lead to vibrant displays of orange, yellow, and red blooms. For more California adornment, rumors report that Green Day will be performing at Coachella. I can once again accept my fate as an “American Idiot” and a “Basket Case.”
The tyrant is in tears because a little girl in her class wears her hair in French braids. The tyrant wants a French braid, too, but I don’t know how. I look it up on YouTube. I’m still confused. The video instructs: start with three sections at the crown like a regular braid, but then add in smaller pieces from the side to make a French braid. It sounds simple enough. It’s the moving all the hairs over to one hand during the cross-over portion that I'm failing at. The tyrant begins to cry again. I’m taken back to the bathroom floor of Mammoth. A Black girl and her braids. Tears of joy and sometimes tears of sorrow.
I’m determined to get this right, for her, for me. Using my pinky as a base, I begin to develop an overhand rhythm that allows me to weave in the extra strands. Like the rope turner in a game of double dutch, I keep telling myself, just don’t lose grip. In the end, the braid is mediocre at best. Secure in some areas and loose in others, but to my surprise, the tyrant is all smiles.
Another winter break comes around again. The kids are in the season of bookends. The tyrant has started TK, the snowpack scholar turned soccer player is in 6th grade, and the teenager is applying to college. There are so many beginnings and so many endings. Now I feel like the toy that’s spinning.
On Christmas Eve, I hand my husband one final box. There are specific packing instructions. Fragile. Keep upright. Avoid stacking. It's a toy kitchenette for the tyrant. She wanted it because the stove makes the sound of real fire. The packing instructions feel more like affirmations for life. We are fragile, but we fight to remain upright. The stockpile of 2025 tested all of our endurance.
On New Year's Eve, California receives torrential rain. Up and down the coastal state, the once dry land is covered in water. This year, we don’t have to wait until spring for rainfall. It’s as if the land remembers that just a year before our cities were consumed by a destructive blaze. Despite the weather, the teenager wants to go be with friends. Unlike last year, I concede. I then spend the rest of the evening listening to the pounding drops. Wrapped in a heated blanket, I wait for his key to turn the lock. I periodically peek at the ripples in the ceiling of our backroom. I know the watermarks are warning signs. I know this means we will likely need a new roof. I also know that even as moisture causes the texture to separate from the sheetrock, we’ve already proven we can survive a lot. Still no New Year's resolutions for me, but I’ll accept the slightest resemblance to a little tyrant’s French braid: steady at times and wobbly at others, but not letting go until I finally get to the very end.
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Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.
