This weekend I traveled to Jackson, MS to visit my family. My sister has been getting her hair cut by my brother's barber. I have been hesitant to do so. I realized that my hesitation came from fear of having to lose any strand of hair on my head. Lord knows I am trying to keep it all. I can joke about it now because I know how silly I have been. She made an appointment for me and thus begins my story.
Friday morning as I was looking in the mirror with my sister sitting on the bed behind me I asked her, "Do you think I really need a hair cut?" She said, "Don't go if you don't want, but I like my hair to be even all around and you seem to like yours to have a fly away look." Humph, maybe I do. She could see the wheels turning in my head. So she said, "Go get your hair trimmed and just make sure you are specific with what you want. Tell him you want a line and to shape it up. He will do exactly what you want." I decided if nothing else I did need a line. Then I asked, "How much does he charge?" She said, "I usually just give him a twenty, so I think it's around fifteen or twelve dollars." I frowned a bit and she was like,"Tanisha, that's way cheaper than what we were paying when we had relaxers plus I've never had to wait; you will be in and out in thirty minutes." She had a point. Nothing left to say, I told her I'd be back and for she and the girls to be ready to go when I returned.
The shop was around the corner, so I didn't have much time to think thankfully. I opened the door to the shop and the barber peeped his head through the window to let me know he'd be with me shortly. I was a few minutes early, so it wasn't a problem. As I sat there for few minutes, in comes a young man running late for his appointment. He doesn't look my way at first, but then he turns around and does a double take. "Nanny!" It was a friend of mine from college. I hadn't seen him in years. The fact that he calls me Nanny is a story for another day. We embraced one another and then he looked me up and down and proclaimed, "Girl, you look good!" This was definitely music to my ears. We sat and chatted for a few minutes until the barber and the young man whose hair he was cutting walked around the corner. "Tanisha?" I looked and it was an old high school friend who was getting up from the barber's chair. "What's up girl?" I can't tell you how long it had been since I'd seen him either. His first words were "You, too! Everyone is going natural." His mother, sister, and girlfriend were either sporting TWAs or braids on their journey back to natural hair. He asked my reason for doing the same and I explained about thinning hair in addition to being tired of being a slave to the hair salon he said these were some of the same sentiments he'd heard from the women in his life. He went on to say that it looked good on me, but he was also quick to say that isn't the case for all black women in his estimation. Men, I tell ya. Brutal honesty. We had a good laugh as he stood and talked to me as the barber was working his magic. We talked and caught up on how everyone was doing.
Once he left, the barber I had a little small talk and he too remarked that he liked my TWA. Coming from a man in his profession, I felt my head swell just a little :-). He finished my hair, handed me the mirror, and voila! I was transformed. It's amazing how much better my hair looked with a professional trim. This was just what the doctor ordered.
Over the course of the day, my sister and I encountered countless women that stopped to tell us how we were working our TWAs. When the two of us (my sister and I) are out and about together we do garner the attention of others but usually because of our height, this time all the focus was on our hair. All positive. All love. All good. You hear and see such negativity about black women through the media that it was wonderful to experience first hand how supportive we can be. The icing on the cake was today after church service.
I am new to the congregation, so every Sunday I try to sit a place different in the sanctuary each Sunday and get to know more members. As I sat down on the pew between two older ladies, one of them leaned over and told me that I was wearing my dress. I thanked her and this validated my mantra of simple is best. The dress I wore to church was an A-line khaki dress. No frills. I adorned it with pearls earrings, nothing else. At the end of service, another lady on the opposite end of my pew flagged me down to tell me that she loved my style. She told he how beautiful she thought I was and how my hair as absolutely gorgeous. Wow! I thanked her for her kind words and told her how much they meant to me because the decision to cut off my relaxed hair was not an easy one. She assured me that I wore it well and she looked forward to seeing me next Sunday.
God is amazing. I'm telling you He placed strangers in my path this weekend to give me the boost I oh so needed. Some people may read this and misconstrue my words to think I need peoples approval and that could be farther from the truth because if that was the case I wouldn't have made the decision to return to my natural roots in the first place. As I've said, I have my days when I feel good and others when my afro looks like Florida Evans from Good Times (not a good look on a thirty something young lady). I have no regrets. This journey is not a fad for me. Being who you are can never be a fad because I will never go out of style. But everyone has moments when you need to feel the love and it was all over me this weekend. Thanks for reading.
aWordfromSmith
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| My sister and I with relaxers |
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| Pre hair cut |
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| Post hair cut |
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| Natural me! |
