Why I went natural has more to do with PEACE than anything else. I had very little peace with processed hair. If it was not one thing it was another. It would be that my scalp would bleed during the processing itself; it was the chemical burns all around the edges of my head and thoughout my scalp popping up as early as after the final rinse. It didn't matter if it were Jeri Curls or Perms or Wave kits, or even pressing combs for that matter... I had a tender scalp and I bruised very easily. No peace. No peace. No peace.
The chemical burns would endure all the way up to the next processing. The perm only held for three weeks. It was craziness. I was in my Junior year of college when I came back from Atlanta visiting a friend I met while in New York (Lower Westchester County). She and her boyfriend were locked at the time. They had big thick wonderful locks... the kind the young men from the U.S. and British Virgin Islands had who were attending college with me. I never considered at that time that landlocked Americans, let alone women, could or would lock their hair. I thought it was a V.I. thing, a Jamaican thing, a Rasta thing... a Whoopi thing... I was a little sheltered girl from Waco, Texas... what the heck did I know about the world or life?... But, I was learning, growing, and knowing.
After flying back to Austin that Summer of 1989, it was all but sealed. The tug, the nagging, self-imposed, obligatory bondage of chemical dependency had been severed. I had found a narrow path to a bit of peace of mind, and I claimed it. The peace. The peace. The peace.
Now, I don't want anyone to think that when the tide turned away from chemicals that I didn't get washed away back into the muck and mire of dependency because I did. Like a recreational drug abuser, I went back four or five times for a hit of a perm or a s-curl or a texturizer. However, today I can finally say I am free, and as life is teaching me, when you finally know that "you know that you know"... It is a great day. I never have to be dependent, and I can have peace.
Cheers... Here's to you. On this day, as the year of our Lord 2005 comes to a close... I give thanks and praises for all those people of courage, all those people of faith, all those who hold fast to naivete and social unawareness, the rebels, the statesmen, the free, the humble, the peace makers. Blessed are the peace makers for they will be called Sons of God. Matt 5:9
Thank you God... Whom the Master frees is free indeed.
Locked 2 years
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