Hey Good Lookin'! (And Other Notes On My Hair, This Strange Microcosm of Myself)

I love wearing my hair natural. Yes. I’m writing about my hair. This is a blog about attaining joy and I believe feeling proud of your appearance is an integral part of that.

My last relaxer (aka hair straightening chemical perm) was when I was 16, and I did the big chop cutting off the rest of my relaxed hair at 17.

That was 11 years ago when I was an outspoken (albeit introverted) teenager who spoke out about Euro-centric notions of beauty whenever I got the chance to express an opinion, related to hair or not.

Wearing my hair natural was a political statement more than a personal declaration of owning my beauty, though that was one of the many claims I made. I generally liked my appearance, but I didn’t consider my hair as a part of that. I thought of it as a fact of who I am, and trained myself to be indifferent, thinking that indifference is at least better than the prevalent dislike or seeming hatred for natural black hair that I was becoming so aware of.

And that is the way it has been until fairly recently. I never really thought of my natural hair as beautiful.

And then something changed.

I had been wearing my hair in long double strand twists for over a little over a year, and then I took them out in July.

And that’s when the change started happening.

Now for the first time in my adult life, I truly LOVE my hair. It strikes me as so much more than just a fact of who I am. I am utterly proud of my kinks, knots, and tightly sprung coils. I love the way it retains shape. I love that because of it I feel more deeply connected to nature and my ancestry.  I find it fun, sexy, and even attractive.

Since I went natural, I have worn my hair buzzed close to my head, in double strand twists (with extensions and without), and mostly I have worn a simple afro of varying lengths, but I have not put any sort of chemical straightener in my hair for all 12 years.

And then last week, I purchased a flat iron and straightened my hair. I was going to 2 weddings (see previous post), and wanted to look different. A part of me was also curious about what my hair would look like straight after all this time. 

I was not prepared for what happened.

During the lead up to straightening my hair, my mind flashed to all the years spent being taken to hairdressers by my mother to perm my hair. I hated it. I hated how my hair burned even if I was careful not to scratch it before my appointment. I hated the various styles that the stylist would put in my hair that made me feel as if I was someone else. And most of all, I hated how my hair was always talked about in degrading terms, as if it was only a problem to be solved.

I got my first relaxer around the time I was 6, so by the time I was a teenager, I was anxious and curious to see what my actual hair looked like. And so I did. It was liberating.

And then I started talking and wouldn’t shut up. I couldn’t stop talking about how absurd it was that most of the women I knew didn’t know what their actual hair looked like. I was mortified at the self-hatred we all seemed to possess related to our natural appearance.

But there I was, only understanding a concept cerebrally but not fully possessing the heart of understanding. It looked like I loved my hair, this strange microcosm of myself, (“Hey! I’m natural, right?!”), but really I didn’t. For one thing, I only did the bare minimum to take care of it. One of the main reasons I went natural was because I didn’t want to care for my hair, which is silly because you actually need to take care of your hair even more as a natural, especially in a market place that largely does not understand natural black hair.   

In the days leading up to straightening my hair, I felt myself become like a protective mother of my hair. I decided to only straighten my hair with the flat iron on a relatively low heat so the final product looked more like a blowout than bone straight permed hair. I just couldn’t bear to alter my hair so drastically, even if it was chemical free.

Over these past weeks I have become acquainted with lots of natural hair blogs, among which CurlyNikki is certainly my favorite. She gave me great guidelines for protective therapy (steps to take to protect natural hair from heat damage before straightening) for my hair before I straightened it. Bloggers like CurlyNikki are true sister champions, guiding women through making the transition to natural hair, offering advice for hair care, and even providing a forum for speaking about psychological trauma related to our hair.

It was through reading these blogs that I became inspired to be as fierce about taking care of my hair as I am about taking care of other parts of my being; not just as an act of necessary maintenance, as I usually do, but as an act of love-- more than just a mere fact of my being, more than just an intellectual concept, but as a sexy, interesting, fun, and attractive, part of my appearance.

This morning I moisturized my hair with unrefined shea butter and put it in protective leave in style of “flat” twists. When I started writing this entry, I was in a coffee shop. When I walked into the relatively small coffee shop, I was immediately blown away by the beauty of 2 other natural sisters with leave in do’s. Crowns of braids and bantu knots. I was struck by the beauty of our 3 different hair types. So healthy and natural. I silently toasted us and joyfully began this blog.

What is your journey with self acceptance in regard to your appearance? Is there something about how you look that you secretly hate? Let that go. Find a new way to love every aspect of how you look, whatever that may mean for you.

Believe me, you are a part of the world’s endless beauty. And on this clear summer day, with the wind whispering the secrets of autumn, I can see your beauty all the way from over here.

 Shortly after I took out my twists:

 

And this is me today smiling at you:

 

Brush Them Haters Off! Go On! Brush 'Em Off!

I had been enduring weeks of negative self-talk. You know that booming voice that goes off in your head sometimes that insists and demands that you don’t deserve any of the wonderful things that are happening in your life (or that you want to happen in your life, for that matter). For me this voice has a tendency to creep up right when things are going beautifully.

I’d been ecstatic over the amazing developments in my personal and professional life. 2 films screening, one of which is making festival rounds, completing my first play (as a writer), enjoying the process of being in a play (as an actor), domestic bliss with my partner, fun times with friends... My life couldn’t seem more perfect.

And then lo and behold, I began to look at myself with the eyes of the cruelest critic…the kind who would put Ben Brantley to shame and make him seem as tender and sympathetic as a teddy bear. The voice that points out every failure, every embarrassing moment, every seemingly insurmountable struggle that I have ever faced, and says,

“You don’t deserve this happiness.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Don’t forget you’re…” 

And then the voice wouldn’t quit for days. It dragged me around. We fought.  And then I slowly began to allow it to have its rants without engaging with it in mental battles. It would rant and I would silently glare at it, as gently as a loving parent allowing a child to talk or cry itself silent. And gradually it shut the hell up. VICTORY!!!!!  Sweet sweet victory.

I wonder how many of you read the title of the blog entry and assumed that I was talking about other people hating on you. Sometimes we don’t realize that the biggest hater is our self. For all the loving self -talk, the critic never seems to completely die. It pops up right when everything is splendid, right when you think you can relax a bit and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The critic isn’t all bad. Every part of the psyche is there for a purpose. The critic is there to make sure that you stay on your “game,” to make sure no amount of success makes you stop striving. Most importantly, it keeps you cautious. But we also know that the critic can be excessively negative and sound eerily like a parent, or some other authority figure that you were afraid you could never please as a child. That’s where the critic oversteps its bounds: when it no longer serves you, but seeks to keep you small and afraid. 

Not only does it keep you small and afraid, it utterly sabotages, and steals, your joy.

In a few days 2 women who have inspired me and blessed me with their friendship will be getting married to the men of their dreams. It is beyond belief that they happen to both be getting married on the same day, that I was invited to both, and that I am fortunate enough to be able to attend both ceremonies. This Saturday, I will attend 2 weddings and the man who I will be happily marrying in the presence of our friends and family in 2015 will accompany me.  

This is the time of our lives.

In the coming years, I will witness my friends get married, have success in their careers, find love, have children, deepen their hearts, and be all around amazing. These things will most likely happen for me as well. This is the joy that can’t be missed. I want my eyes and heart wide open for this. I want front row seats.

Now, as we know, sometimes as happiness and success come about, there also arrives our friendly critic, full of fear, full of panic, wondering if it really is possible for all of this to be so good. There must be a catch somewhere, right? You can’t possibly deserve all this goodness. 

Wrong. Dead wrong. Brush that hater off. Tell it to get lost. You don’t have time. I know saying these things is one thing, but how does one successfully quiet this voice of negativity?

I just discovered a few ways that work for me. Maybe they will work for you too?

1.     Do not engage in mental tug of war with the negative voice. Somehow arguing with it validates it. Just have the courage to do what I like to call the “stare down.” Stare it down. Develop an inner gaze that watches it peacefully and silently. Soon it will know who is bigger and dissolve.

2.     Want something bad enough and pursue it with so much heart, passion, and drive that you simply don’t have time to listen to negativity. Every time I do something physically demanding I hear a small voice of negativity somewhere. But my eyes are so glued on what I want and I have so much passion that I barely hear it.

3.     Do something simple that makes you feel fabulous. Yesterday I made a homemade deep conditioner for my hair and just pampered myself. My hair was amazingly soft and I felt like a queen. (Ask me for the recipe! It’s great!) I had swathed myself in so much love that, even if there was any negativity around, I was too busy feeling good to care.

Doesn’t all of that sound simple and obvious? It is. But it takes time and—I think—maturity. So next time some negative inner critic comes knocking at your psyche’s door, running its mouth, talking your ear off, stealing your joy, try one (or all) of the above. The time is now. Brush off the haters and enjoy the ride.