Hair Therapy

I am having a full fledge love affair with my Sisterlocks! My locks and I have taken to each other like two lovers meant to spend their lives together. In turn my lock journey has caused me to examine myself anew. It is a liberating and awesome experience; I call it - "hair therapy."

Hair texture and skin hue, two basic human elements, historically used to separate and divide us. In some cases, producing many-a-confused-low-self-esteemed African American. How riduculous to be negatively singled out because of a PERMANENT physical characteristic that God specifically blessed you with! But when the world, the media and even family is constantly sharing their images of beauty, which looks nothing like you, it eventually has a negative affect, whether conscious or subconscious.

Now when I look in the mirror I see a woman in all her natural glory with lovely dark skin, that same big ole smile, and some slammin' Sisterlocks - thanks in part to hair therapy! Please don't take this post as simply a superficial look at physical characteristics. It takes a certain level of maturity and self evaluation to read, study and learn about our natural hair and culture and even more maturity and strength to act upon it. "Hair therapy" isn't solely about the hair. As I've often said, Sisterlocks is much more than a hairstyle, it's a lifestyle. It is freedom from chains unseen, but which remain strongly entrenched in our society.

My "creamy crack" (permed) friends refer to me as a "Neo Soul Sister." My nephew says I have "that Erika Badhu thang going on"...they don't really know what to call it, but they are all witnessing my evolution. Check out these two beautiful Queens my coworker and good friend, Alicia gave me as a Christmas gift. She said she was shopping, saw them and just had to buy them because they reminded her so much of me!

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
I rise
I rise
I rise

from "Still I Rise"
Maya Angelou