The Beginning of a Journey ...T - 1 day

I've spent the last month in Barbados visiting my parents and basically vacationing. It's been wonderful spending time with them and just being with them again. I also visited my sister at the beginning of this trip. But this post is not about this journey.

During this trip I've seen quite a few beautiful women and one young girl with Sisterlocks. These are very very small dreadlocks. I've had natural hair for years now. Back when my friend Risee and I first went went out and shaved all our chemically-processed hair off, about 13 years ago, it was a big thing. Not just because not many women in Barbados at the time had natural hair. Not just because we were surrounded by other young college students for whom, on the most part, having natural, black hair was considered unacceptable. Not just because we were in a society where having natural hair was not just a hairstyle, but a statement about who you were, what you did and what you stood for, and I wasn't sure if I was ready to be all of that. All of these things were part of what made it a huge step for me, but that wasn't the biggest thing.

When I shaved my head in 1994, I had no recollection of ever seeing my hair natural. I have pictures from when I was 2 and 3, with the soft baby hair of my childhood. In all pictures after that where I have natural hair it was cornrowed. From the age of about 6 or 7 my hair was relaxed.

I remember the looks of disdain I had throughout my childhood, my teenage years and my early 20s, whenever my natural roots started showing. I remember playing with my roots when I shouldn't have been, the night before a touch-up and being fascinated by the nappy curls that I felt there. I remember also the punishment I would get the next day with the chemical burns in the same places I had played with the night before. I remember the burning sensation where it felt like my whole scalp was on fire, and telling the hairdresser and her telling to bear it for one more minute so that my hair would be "bone straight". I remember being told that this was what I wanted, but never being asked. It wasn't what I wanted. But everything told me that what I wanted was wrong. My curiosity about what was happening at my roots was wrong. the curls I felt knotting at the nape of my neck were not interesting, like I thought they were, they were bad, and needed to be combed out by my aunt, as violently as possible, leaving behind a burning pain that almost equalled that of the chemical burns I was sure to receive in my next touch-up.

Years and years of robotic appointments to the hairdresser, chemical burns covered with alcohol-based setting lotion then the recently burned scalp pulled tight into rolled hair, and then put under a burning hot hair dryer, to be told at the end that my hair looked pretty.... As if that's what it took. This had taught me that the hair that I grew naturally was ugly, needed to be burnt into submission, and covered up.

If someone tells you something long enough you believe it. If someone tells you and then follows it up with action, and that action results in pain and suffering on a regular basis, that surely reinforces what they've told you, and no matter what you tell yourself to the contrary, the lesson gets absorbed. I was 20 years old, and making the decision to go natural went against everything that had been burned into my scalp for years and years.

I did it anyway. I remember the feeling of amazement when I felt the texture of my natural hair. I also remember the struggles over the next few years. "What are you going to do with your hair?" ... as though having it natural must surely be a stage between how it was and something else.

I caved about 2 years later. I went and relaxed it again. It felt so disgusting to me, I was so angry at myself! After one touch-up I decided to go natural again. Shaved it all off and started from scratch. That was 1996.

I went back to Bermuda and went into a hairdresser to get my short afro coloured. The hairdresser put a colour and "texturizer" in it without my permission. I was SO angry! I grew out the chemicals again and cut it, and wore my hair in tiny twists for a year. Then, while in university in Montreal, I, for no reason at all, went to the hairdresser and sat for an hour waiting to have my hair relaxed. The hairdresser called me over and I sat in the chair. She opened the tub of relxer and the smell overwhelmed me. A split second before it touched my hair, I shouted "NO!" and told her to stop. Never mind! I left the store running.

In 2002, while living in Israel, I was getting tired of twisting my hair every week, taking it out, washing, combing, blow-drying, retwisting. I was always a DIYer.... I took a short trip to London and came back with relaxed hair. I was miserable. My roommate was a Guyanese hairdresser. A couple of months later she took to my hair with a pair of scissors and I was natural again. This time it would stick. I wrote a letter to myself and a poem told from the point of view of my hair and scalp. I promised myself that before I walked into a hairdresser again, I would read this letter and poem. I haven't set foot in a hairdresser for anything since then.

I now live in Istanbul, Turkey. On a daily basis, people I meet, strangers on the bus, waiters in restaurants... all these people who have never seen a black person up close before, touch my natural hair lovingly and marvel at it and covet it. Why did I have to go halfway around the world and be among strangers to finally come to accept and love and appreciate what my own countrymen and friends and extended family had taught me to hate?

Special note here: My father has always supported natural hair. I remember coming home from the hairdresser in pain with my Shirley Temple curls all over my head and everyone gushing over them, my father never said anything. I think if he had had it his way, chemicals would never have touched my hair. He now has traditional dreadlocks, and my mom has sported a close 'fro for a number of years.

This time back in Barbados, I saw women with all kinds of natural hair. Things are changing. The attitude to natural hair is still there, but things are slowly changing. I no longer was given looks as though I was betraying the big secret of our hair when wearing my hair out or twisted. That was one difference.

I never wanted dreadlocks. I like changing my hair. I like wearing it out and tying it up and I didn't think the look of dreadlocks suited me. I also travel a lot. I know from my friends with dreadlocks that while travelling, you get extra special attention if you have dreadlocks (and I'm not talking about first class!). I didn't want that. When I saw women with Sisterlocks on this trip I knew it was time. I only found out that they were locks 2 days ago!

I got online and started searching. Since I leave tomorrow morning at 6:30 and have very little money remaining from my trip, the option of getting them done here and doing the maintenance training course was totally and completely out of the question.

I read and read and read. As a result of other women's chronicling their journeys, and lovingly answering my questions, and also my looking inward and envisioning how to do it, I have decided that fine locks are what I want. There are still all of the advantages of natural hair and all of the reasons I didn't want them are gone. I don't have the resources to get Sisterlocks and living in Turkey, I definitely don't have the ability to maintain them, and I've come to realise that Sisterlocks is just a name.

I posted a message to the Lock it Up Yahoo group yesterday that sums it up.

Last night I went to bed so excited about the prospect of locking my hair that I didn't sleep. I kept coming into the office and searching the internet trying to figure out how I was going to do it. I saw all sorts of information about special tools and patented methods and specialised training and money money money and was almost discouraged. I finally went to sleep at 6:30 this morning and I woke up KNOWING that as a black person, my hair was born to lock, and I envisioned myself braiding it smaller than I ever have before and then threading the new growth into itself. When I came home this afternoon and found this message and the instructions here, specifically using the bodkin, I knew that that was exactly what I have to do - it was what I had dreamt! I no longer feel the anxiety and nervousness about doing it "right" or a certain way. I'm just going to do it and let my natural hair lead me on this journey.
I'm on holiday in Barbados now and I have a beach date with my cousin tomorrow. She has beautiful waist-length locks, by the way. I've always admired them but knew that I didn't have the commitment that it took to give up the versatility and grow locks. After the beach I'm going to come home and wash and comb my hair for the last time. I think I'm going to part it into sections like I normally do for twists, and then braid the sections during my 28 hours of travel from here to Turkey.
The idea of returning to what has become my new home, fresh from a wonderful month visiting my family, and starting fresh with a new mindset and a new attitude toward my hair is exhilarating.
Thank you all for your advice so far. I'll be needing more very soon I'm sure! I'll be posting details and pics on my blog: http://InsideKrisiasHead.blogspot.com ...very soon.
By the way, if anyone is travelling through Istanbul anytime, you have a sister there! Please visit! :o)
Krisia


I'm going to braid my hair in tiny braids, which I've done before, in slightly bigger than I'm going to do, and I remember the tedious chore of undoing them 3 weeks later, which is why I never did it again. I'm going to get a bodkin - basically a big fat needle used for ribbon. I'm going to grow my own locks, and maintain them myself.

This is a big journey for me. It's a journey forward in my life and back in my history. Back to aeons ago when people did what came naturally. It's time for me.

I'm going to the beach this afternoon. I'm going to come home and wash and comb out my hair for the last time. I'm going part it carefully and twist it for the last time. Tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m. I will depart Barbados and start a 28-hour journey back to Istanbul. During that time I will begin another journey. I will start braiding while I fly, and I will also have 3 days off when I return. I have never looked forward to a journey so much!