Dull Ache

I feel a dull ache whenever I think of all the ideas running through my mind; ideas I just don't have the time to develop into full fledged poems, and short stories and novels. But the thought that they still exist is a comfort in itself.

I recently finished reading a blog about a man's recalled teenage desire to have a particular hairstyle and it was an amusing read. It was. But then I started thinking about current hairstyles among black people. I've seen 2-3 black men with relaxed hair and they did make me look twice. The thought, to my disappointment, crossed my mind that they were somehow "less than" because they had such "feminine"-textured hair. Why shouldn't they choose to have straight hair if they wished? Still, (ignoring Andre 3000's leaps and bounds within his world of "fashion") I wonder if I could find someone attractive with that type of hairstyle? The rest, however, I find have bald heads, dreds, or 'fros. With women, however, the choice is a little more "free". Note the quotation marks. The majority of women I encounter have straight, straightened, or artificially straight hair. Considering our black ancestry, there are very few of us with natural hairstyles. There are those with locs and there are those who do what they please with their natural tight/loose curls.

I grew up having my hair cornrowed--it was washed and immediately braided. If we were back home, we could frequently have the option to have either cornrows or "plant". (Plant is/was similar to the french braid). I preferred cornrows. The minute I sat between my mother's/cousin's/older sister's legs, I would drift off into la la land--aka semi-consciousness. My hair is the type of hair that will break combs if the person trying to get the knots out isn't careful (I've left quite a few snapped-in-two and toothless combs in my wake, ;o) ). The pain was never an issue for me, but once I grew older, I figured out that combing the hair before washing it helped to ease it somewhat. However, as far as I was concerned, pain was part of the process of: taking the old braids out, combing the hair, washing it, then drying it; combing the damp strands, oiling the hair and the scalp. Then started the process of parting the hair (using the comb with the sharpest point to get the straightest parting--oooh!) and combing each section to create my favourite style--cornrows travelling from my hairline to the top of my head and ending in a miniature crown of braids. Depending on who was responsible for my cornrows (my mother in one country, my cousins back home and my older sister here) I could pick from any number of styles around me. These braids were expected to last for at least 2 weeks before we had to take them out. Then the process of undo-to-do would be repeated to end in the new hairstyle of the fortnight.

Growing up, having your hair braided was part of being a girl-child--there was nothing fashionable about it. It just was. Some teenagers (or younger kids if their parents agreed) and women had Jheri Curls and relaxed hair (this was the 80's after all). In our house, one cousin had relaxed hair (her hair was already naturally longer than everyone else's) and the other (with shorter hair) had Jheri Curls. Sometimes, I wanted relaxed hair and other days I dreamed about having JC's. However, because I thought that reading and playing with my sisters & cousins was more important than anything to do with my physical appearance, I was perfectly content to have my mother pick my clothes and to have my hair cornrowed. And if my mother was being especially kind (and she had the time) we could have our hair "threaded".

Nowadays, I look around me and know that most people haven't grown up the way we did. There are many black girls these days who see cornrows as a fashion statement, and not something that is part of their heritage. Granted, as a child there were very few women around me who seriously considered having cornrows--these were for children and women too poor to be able to afford the chemicals to artificially curl or straighten their hair. But this is how we grew up. In most cases, relaxing chemicals did not touch your hair till you were in your teens. Your hair was given the opportunity to grow as you grew. With the rise in influence of Western ideals these days there are little girls as young as five with relaxed hair--why?

The environment we live in does not always (in most cases we are simply not "allowed to be") encourage black people to choose how to physically express themselves. Most black women start relaxing their hair at a young age, and most will continue to do so till they are little old ladies. Fine, but what is lost when we allow ourselves to give up part of our "self" because it does not conform to an accepted physical ideal (i.e. straight hair--the straighter the better, then if you wish to include curls, don't do anything that will make you look too "black"--whatever that is)?

(As an aside, I remember reading an article in Elle(?--or was it Vogue?)written by a 20-something year-old woman about natural hairstyles. I was shocked by the level of ignorance she displayed with regards to caring for natural hair. She had relaxed hers for so long, that it had become the natural state for her and to top it all, she couldn't think of any "famous"/well-known black women with natural hair--Jill Scott, Angie Stone, Erykah Badu, Alice Walker? Actually, the thing that shocked me most was the fact that one of these magazines had invited a black woman to write about black hair at all--spitefully, it crossed my mind that this would probably be a "blue moon" occurrence. And as far as I can tell, it has been.)

Most of the teenage girls I see have straight hair--it is either relaxed or has a weave attached (or they have braided extensions). This is the norm. And that is a shame. Alicia Keys' entrance into the world of music was a breath of fresh air--image-wise. Girls started experimenting with different styles that were not limited to something which could only be created with straight hair. Yet, even this was a blip on the radar and, in most cases, we are now back to business as usual.

I have locs, but for a relatively short period regularly relaxed my hair and understand the pressure that forces girls and women (and in many cases men) to conform to ideals that will not allow us to just "be" . Yet, it is still a shame to see the heads of so many children and young adults subjected to harsh chemicals at a time when their bodies have yet to complete their development. Depending on age and means, someone is buying the chemicals for them--wouldn't it be better to give them the time needed to let their hair grow so that it is strong enough to withstand the effects of harsh chemicals? At some point, a child as young as five has to be encouraged to believe that as they are, they are beautiful. If at a later point they choose to relax the hair, Jheri Curl it (ha!ha!--just kidding), use braided extensions, weave it, etc. then they can make that decision from a position of strength and not from years of conformity (and "hair-abuse"--my hair has never been as strong, as thick and as black as it once was. What is the effect of long-term use of chemical relaxers on our hair and our bodies?).

The above may seem like an unrealistic ideal and a desire to restrict the choices open to young and older women with regards to their hair styles. But, recalling the quotation marks around the word free, how free are we--young and old--when the norm is to artificially create what we do not have in our natural state?

(c)