A Quiet Confidence.

I have new growth. No, not my hair, although I'm sure that it is growing unseen within my braids.
It's a different kind of new growth, called confidence.

This new found confidence has come quite recently from talking to my sisters Tricia and Sharon and my friends Nicky and Melanie about their hair. It has also come from reading magazines, blogs and  browsing black hair care websites. But mostly I think it has come from observing other black women and how confidently they wear their hair. No one more so than my friend Tricia.


"I have a confidence in life that comes from standing tall on my own two feet." Jane Fonda.


Tall? No she's not tall. Tricia is petite. Tiny even. In a crowd most people easily stand a good head and shoulders above her.
But in confidence, Tricia towers.


I first met Tricia about 4 years ago. There are many things that stand out when you first meet her.
Her mole; cute, her smile; dazzling, her nails; immaculate; her clothes; the latest. But the thing that I first noticed about Tricia was her hair. A short relaxed hairstyle with wispy bangs. I loved it.

 It didn't stay that way for long. Tricia wears her hair to reflect her ever changing styles and mood.  She's confident but in a quiet understated way. I call it a quiet confidence.

Tricia can go from this...

 

to this...

 

 

to this...

 

to this...

 

to this..

 

to this...

 

 

Tricia today. Natural hair, shaved on one side.

to this.

 

And all of these different looks were within the last year.

(Cue "I'm Every Woman by Chaka Khan)

Tricia has learned to work with the hair she has and makes it work for her.

In a variety of different ways.

Now that's confidence.

As for me, I'll continue to watch my friends and learn and grow as I make peace with my hair. I'm keeping the braids for while, they're very easy and pretty much maintenance free which is what I need right now.

All this confidence must be starting to rub off. Look how I walked around all Sunday afternoon

 I most certainly did.

 

 

 

 

 

 Even answered the door like this. I guess that's confidence for you!

All photos of Tricia Wright - "The Captain" (aka Robert Wright) with thanks.

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The Underground Journey to Freedom

Her name is Joyce. She works underground. And last night she helped me to escape. Me, and two other women before me.

I heard about her from another Sista, who much like me probably needed to escape too. Joyce helps  black women to escape.

Joyce is a hairdresser. And when I say she works underground, I mean that she works from the basement in her home, up to 18 hours a day, helping her clients escape from their hair captivity.


Most women, at least on some level, are slaves to their hair. Take a walk through the pharmacies or department stores and you see aisle after aisle of hair care products and appliances. We women have to get up early and work hard to get our hair to "work" for us. And black women are bound even deeper into this slavery. It's not a race thing nor is it a culture thing, it's a texture thing. Simply stated, our hair is just that little bit more unmanageable than the hair of people from other races. Period.

So it was while I was trying to break free from my current hair drama that I went to see Joyce.


Joyce is originally from Ghana, West Africa. She has been doing hair most of her life and it's a skill that she is now passing down to her daughter Lydia and niece Barbara. And while I may have been held in totally captivity by my inability to take care of my hair, she wasn't the least bit intimidated by it. Quite the contrary. Her confidence put me at ease.

Lydia and Barbara immediately began to undo the cornrows that had been the foundations of my weave and then Joyce got to work.

Joyce beginning my transformation.

If I had been a slave to my hair, then Joyce was most certainly the slave master. My hair submitted willingly in her hands. For the next few hours, there I sat while Joyce tugged, teased, tightened and tamed my tired nappy tresses, using nothing but a comb and her fingers.

 

 

Hand to head, head to heart, heart to soul. And slowly I began the journey of from hair captivity to hair freedom.

 

 

 

 

Finished.

I left Joyce's home just after 11pm arriving home shortly before midnight. It was too late to go anywhere or show anyone my braids, but I wanted to tell everyone all about my hair. About Joyce.


But Joyce doesn't need me to say anything. She has no website or business card. No, her work is displayed on the heads of her clients, where,  just like yesterday in the frozen food section of my grocery store, a black Sista tapped me on the shoulder and said "Girl who does your braids?" And I replied "Her name is Joyce..."

 

Braids!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever hair freedom looks like for you, have a Happy Nappy Hair Day.

And if you like to read about hair drama, then you could read this post

 or this post or this post.

I want to break free...

With every experiment there will be successes and failures. I just didn't think I would experience failure so soon. My hairdresser Annette did a great job putting the weave on for me and I thought having a weave would solve all my hair problems, be the answer to my prayers and make me happy. That's what I thought. Obviously I thought wrong.

Everything was fine, at first. Great actually, that is until the fork incident.

After that I decided the weave had to go and began to cut it off.



Going...






 

going...

 

How ironic that today just happens to be Emancipation Day in Ontario. A day to celebrate liberation from slavery. This was a slavery of sorts for me. I'd become bonded and shackled to the weave that was so tightly sewn onto my scalp and I needed to break free, so I began to cut it off. However, as always, I hadn't really thought this through. How was I going to cope with my new found freedom? With no available hairdressers, how could I cope with my own hair? My hair was partially relaxed and partially natural, with no particular shape or style. Well, too late to think about that now, I'd already started.

It took forever to get through the stitching without cutting my own hair too. Then there was also the section at the back that I couldn't reach. I asked my kids to help, but they refused. Great, so now I had 3/4 nappy hair and 1/4 weave. Now what?



With no one to help me take it off properly, I did what I always do in a hair emergency. I calmly tucked my hair inside a bandana and went out. To buy a wig.

The 911 emergency wig!




 

I guess liberation is a process.

Stick a fork in me...I'm done!

I may have mentioned before that I didn't really "think" this project through before I embarked upon my hair journey. Even so I did have a little prior knowledge as to what wearing a weave would entail, so therefore I had some expectations.

You see technically speaking is not my first weave.(Say what?) No it isn't. But that's another story for another blog post that will probably be called "Hair Today Gone Tomorrow
or When "Good Hair" goes Bad". 

Also, about 20 years ago, I had my hair braided.

 

Armed with this limited knowledge I knew a little of what to expect. I knew I was going to experience some scalp tenderness during and after the process. (for those of you who are not in the know, in order to have a weave, you must first have your hair braided. And good braiding hurts like hell can be a little uncomfortable) The discomfort is due to the fact that your hair is pulled so hard, that it almost comes out of the follicle. Almost.


I also knew that for at least a few days I may have a somewhat startled appearance. Again this is due to having your hair pulled tightly into the braids.

 

 My eyes could look a little like this

 

 

My smile, like this

 

 

Because when you have braids,

if your hairdresser has done a really good job

you get a free non-surgical facelift.

Finally I expected that I would experience some itching. The itching is due to the tightness, tenderness, dryness and just not being able to wash your hair as thoroughly as you would like.

Yes I knew it would be itchy..

 

 

...what I didn't expect was just how itchy it would be.

There is a joke within the black community, that if you see a black woman patting her head, it's because she's wearing a weave and doesn't want to scratch her head. (If you scratch, you could disturb the tracks, loosen the braids and the stitching and shorten the life span of your weave)

So go ahead. pat your head Sista.

 

Well I tried patting. And tapping. Then I tried hitting, then thumping. Finally I tried punching my head and almost gave myself a concussion. None of those methods relieved the itch.

 Washing my hair again only helped temporarily
I needed to make physical contact with my scalp.

I began to look for something I could use to scratch my head with.

 

A tail comb worked wonders

. Problem was I could never find it when I most needed it

because I was always leaving it somewhere around the house.

 

Today I needed it badly and it was no where to be found. Figures.

I was in the kitchen baking, when the itch came over me again.

Not just any itch, but the mother of all itches.

It felt like chicken pox and heat rash

all at the same time.

There I was with flour all over my hands, needing instant relief. I couldn't pat my head because  I had flour on my hands and also as I head, it didn't really work.

 I was desperate so what did I do?  I opened the cutlery draw and took out a disposable plastic fork.

Yes a fork. To scratch my head. Ahhh!

 Stick a fork in me - I'm done. Done with this weave.

 

I was told to expect my weave to last 6 - 8 weeks.

I lasted 22 days.

 Not sure what I should have or could have done differently,

but the itching was too much for me.
Done!

  I called the hairdresser to make an appointment to do something, anything with my hair.

but it's Caribana this weekend and she's completely booked.

So  I've come to another fork in the road.
Or a fork in the head as the case might be.

Decisions, decisions.

Anyhow must stop blogging, I have an appointment with a magnifying mirror and a pair of scissors.

   ♫ "Nappy Days are here again!" ♫

 

 

 

Seatbelt Safety.

Although seatbelts can save lives, they can also kill.

Kill a weave that is...in seconds!

 

Just a light touch of the brake pedal and a slight jolt of the head and your weave is history.

So, if you want to save yourself a trip to the emergency (hair salon) to get stitches in the back of your head, then make sure....

          that you do this...

 

                                              

 

not this...

 

 

 

or you may end up with this...

 

Help...I need stitches!

 

 

 

 Don't forget to practice this little bit of seatbelt safety Sista's, so that you

and your weave can arrive at your destination in one piece.

Buckle up. Drive safe. And have a Happy Nappy Hair Day.

 

 

The Decision.

Quite simply it began with a decision....

"I made decisions that I regret and I took them as learning experiences...I'm human, not perfect, like anybody else"  Queen Latifah

 

Two weeks ago I made a decision. It was a simple personal decision that affected me and me alone. However, my personal decision couldn't be a private one.
 

I didn't know then that I would sometimes have to go to great lengths, literally, to explain, defend and justify my decision. I also didn't know then that my decision would become an experiment of sorts that I would start blogging about. You see, this decision had changed two things: how other people see me and, more importantly, how I see myself.

 

The decision? To weave my hair.

 

The decision didn't just affect my physical appearance, it affected my behavior too. After just 4 hours in the hairstylists chair, I did something completely out of character. I went home and did this.

 

Selfie. A first for me.

I posted the pictures on Instagram and Facebook. And people liked them. A lot.

But prior to my decision I wasn't feeling cute or confident. Quite the contrary. And this feeling had been going on for some time. When I finally analyzed it my decision came down to three facts and three numbers.

 

The Three Facts:

1. I am a Black Woman.

2. I have "Nappy" hair.

3. I've never really liked my  hair.

"Afro-textured hair (nappy) is a term used to refer to Black African hair that has not been altered
by hot combs, hot irons or chemicals (perming, relaxing and straightening)" Wikipedia.

The Three Numbers:

1. #12

2. #15

3. #47

The facts are self explanatory. The numbers refer to days and years.

 

12, comes from  the number of "good hair" days that I had every year with my previous hairstyle. I had been relaxing (chemically straightening) my hair for around 18 years. The good hair days were pretty great actually and just happened to coincide with my monthly visit to see my hairstylist. My hair would look wonderful on that one day a month after it was relaxed and cut. However, that would be it. Just one day. At night once I went to bed, no matter how I followed my stylist's hair care regime, my "do" was done! 

 

15, comes from the number of years that I've been out of full time work. Since my first son was born, I have done casual work, occasional work, seasonal work, temporary work, part time and volunteer work. I've set my own hours and danced to the beat of my own drum. However, even on low stress days, there was always a  daily dose of hair drama. And sometimes on a really bad hair day -  I just stayed home.

Now, with a new full time job about to start I have to go to work. Every. Single. Day. Even on bad hair days. I will have to figure out a new routine that will work for me and my family. I will need to make adjustments so that my mornings and my life become smooth and manageable. Smooth and manageable. Just like my hair...is NOT.

 

And the number 47? well, that is my age, and for as long as I can remember, I've never really liked my hair.

 

So I had to make a change, and with the change came the decision.

 

I cannot change the facts. Nor would I want to. Except for number 3, that is.

The numbers?...well that's a different story. That I could change. I'm not that good at math, but even with my poor mathematical skills I could still see that 12 out of 365 days is a little bit unbalanced. So I decided  to find a way to have more good hair days in a year and be happier with the course strands that grow from the hair follicles on the top of my head.

So here it is -  my hair journey and journal. I'm taking the next year to discover how to be happier with my hair. I'm going to try not to use any chemicals and let my nappy hair grow while trying out other black hair styles such as braids, twists, wigs and weaves. It's a little bit like Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project" ...but for hair. I'm calling it "The Happy Nappy Hair Project"

Hair we go...