In an extended and well-developed metaphor, Blaeser compares the rituals to a loop. In the first paragraph, it is the loops of curly hair that can't ever be brushed and tamed. Any attempt at doing that will cause pain, and fingers can't go through them without getting stuck. She then proceeds to explain that "family, place, and community" are the loop of our identity. We can't get hold of it, we can't unravel it, but we will always be compelled to return to it. They constitute our private "rituals of memory". Those rituals are connected, repeated, and intertwined just like braids of curly hair. If we were to cut them, we would destroy our own identity.
