Natural Beauty (4 page)

Sisterlocks
:
 
Tiny uniform locks that are the result of a precision parting grid, and
the use a specialized tool used to place the hair into its locking formation.

~~~

Hair
tip #5: Jealousy
ain't
cute. There is no need to be
jealous of hair styles that your hair just can't do. Learn your hair texture
and do styles that compliment it and you.

~~~

Though
I was slowly getting used to my new hair, I still wasn't completely comfortable.
Yes, I went to work every day, but that was about it. I didn't go hang out with
my girls on the weekends like I used to. I went to work because I had to pay
the bills. Going clubbing wasn't a necessity, so I didn't do it. I just didn't
feel cute enough to get into my tiny little outfits and party. Instead, I spent
all my spare time in my apartment watching YouTube videos about natural hair
care trying to find the right combination of things to do with my hair in order
to make me love it.

After
a month and a half of this, I think my friends started to worry.

"Mahogany
Brown, you better open up this door before I knock it down," Marin said
while banging on my front door. I wasn't in the mood for Marin. I would have
hidden under the bed or something, but I knew she wasn't kidding about the
knocking down the door thing. I didn't need one of my neighbors calling the
police or something. Going down to the station to bail my sister-in-law out of
jail was not what I considered a fun Sunday afternoon.

"I'm
coming!" I yelled as I made my way to the front door. Before opening, I
slapped on a silk scarf. I was not in the mood to talk hair.
Especially
with Marin.
Her hair was amazing. She had these beautiful
sisterlocks
that reached down to the middle of her back. I
had often admired her hair. But I was too chicken to take the step into
dreadlocks. They were so permanent. What if I changed my mind after a year or
something? I'd have to cut them all off and start over. What if
Vinny
didn't like them?
Vinny
.
Well, I guess I
didn't really have to worry about what he would or wouldn't like any more.

"What
are you doing here, Marin?" I asked as I opened the door. Considering she
and my brother lived all the way in Philadelphia, it wasn't like her showing up
at my door was a regular occurrence. It wasn't that I didn't like my
sister-in-law. She was awesome. I loved her and I totally understand why my
brother married her the same day they met. She had one of those big
personalities that you couldn't help but love. She could start talking to a
complete stranger on the bus and ten minutes later have a new best friend. I
think she had about three thousand and twenty eight best friends.

"Is
that how you greet me? I haven't seen you in two months. Get over here and give
your big sister a hug." She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me
tight. For a little thing she sure had a strong grip. Marin walked in and went
straight to the kitchen. She reached under in my cabinet and pulled out my tea
kettle. In her mind, there was no problem that couldn't be fixed with hot tea,
warm milk, or a cold ginger beer. So she always had one of the three with her
at all times.

Once
the tea was made, she set it down on the coffee table and said, "Okay,
tell me what's going on."

I
wasn't a big fan of tea, but I took a sip anyway just to delay having to speak.
"Nothing.
I'm fine," I said finally.

"No
you're not. No one is fine right after breaking up a relationship as long as
yours and
Vinny's
."

I
shrugged. "Maybe I'm not fine, but I'm getting there."

"Mahogany,
you don't have to
get there
alone," she said. "You have family, you have friends. Don't shut
people out."

I
closed my eyes tightly to seal in tears. She was right. I had been blocking
people out. "You know what I think the problem is?" I said with my
eyes still closed. "Everyone I know reminds me of him. Every time I see
someone, I think about the first time I introduced them to
Vinny
."

Marin
nodded. "I understand that. The first time I met him was a week after I
married your brother. I knew then and there he wasn't the one for you."

Opening
my eyes I said, "What do you mean?"

Marin
took a sip of tea. "It was just a feeling. That's why I didn't say
anything. But now I know that first instinct was right."

"What
first instinct? What did you think of him? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I
learned a long time ago that you don't get involved in other people's love
lives.
Especially women.
No offense, but women can be
so stupid and stubborn sometimes."

"Um,
Marin, you're a woman, too."

"Which
is why I know?
Duh?"
She stood up and grabbed her
purse which she had left by the door. "We need to change the energy in
this room. The negativity is downright stifling." She lit an incense
candle and started waving it around the room. Was that her nice way of saying
my house stunk?

"Wait
a minute, Marin. Don't try to change the subject. What did you see in
Vinny
the first time you met him?"

Marin
sat back down on the couch and said, "The first time I met him, I noticed
his eyes when you hugged John. He was jealous. He was jealous of how close you
two were. What kind of a man gets jealous of his girlfriend's brother? Jealousy
ain't
cute. I just knew I didn't like him."

"Huh,
I didn't know you felt that way. Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"I
could have been wrong. I know, I know. It doesn't happen often. I think the
last time I was wrong it was around 1998."

I
pushed her in the shoulder.

"Anyway,"
she said after we laughed a little. "Add that jealous streak to the fact that
you've never met his family in seven years, well, I knew it wasn't going to
work."

"Yeah,
that was a red flag I refused to salute."

"I
mean, his sister is in Canada. That's not that far. One quick two hour flight
would have fixed it. And haven't either of you heard of Skype? I'm sure they
have computers in India. I know every time I try to get mine fixed I'm talking
to someone from there."

"Marin,
that's not nice."

She
shrugged and went back to spreading her incense smoke all over my house.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked.

"What
do you mean? What am I supposed to do? It's over. I wanted a husband not a
roommate. There's nothing for me to do."

"Oh,
no, I know it's over. I mean what is your catharsis?"

"Catharsis?"

"Yes, catharsis.
You have to do something big
that symbolically represents the end of your relationship. Usually, I have a
system. Each month I was with a guy represents the level of catharsis I need.
For example, I dated this guy Mikhail for almost two years and when we broke
up, I went sky diving."

I
shivered at the thought. I was afraid of heights.

"But
given that you were with
Vinny
for almost seven
years, you'd need to jump out of a space shuttle to make up for that."

I
rubbed my hand over the scarf hiding my short hair. "I think I already had
my catharsis," I said as I slowly pulled it off.

Marin
screamed and jumped on the couch. Not quite the reaction I was expecting.

"This
is so exciting," she said clapping her hands and squealing like a child.
"I love it. I love it. I love it!"

"Marin,
calm down. What's to love about it? It's short, nappy and ugly."

Suddenly
solemn, she stopped jumping and sat down again. "Mahogany, don't you ever
let me hear you say something like that about our hair again."

"
Our
hair?
Our
hair doesn't look like this. Your
hair is long and beautiful. It's just mine that sucks."

"You
see this is what is wrong with our society. People associate beauty with long
hair. I don't understand why those are so often correlated." She stood up
and started pacing my living room as if she was going to give a sermon.
"I'll tell you where the problem starts. It starts when we're little girls
and we are constantly told through the images we see in the media that long,
straight, blond hair is what is pretty. Kinky or curly hair is ugly. Do they
sell Barbie dolls with afros? And when was the last time a black woman was the
leading lady of a romance movie."

"Halle
Berry," I volunteered.

"She
doesn't count. She's half black and full horrible actress."

"What
does her acting ability have to do with it?"

"Basically,
what society says is that white skin and straight hair is attractive. Black
women are only attractive if they are as close to white as possible."

"Marin,
calm down."

"I'm
sorry. I will not calm down. This is a pet peeve of mine. Do you know that
black women are the least often married." She froze and looked at me.
"Sorry."

I
took a deep breath to hold in the tears. "Deep down I know that's why he
doesn't want to marry me. He's ashamed of my race."

Marin
took my hands in hers and sat next to me. "Which is exactly why I'm so
happy about your hair," she said. "It's about time you embraced your
blackness and started to love yourself for your innate beauty. Love yourself
for exactly who you are."

Yeah,
I still didn't know what she meant. What did my hair have to do with her
happiness?

"In
fact," she added as she dropped my hands and started looking around.
"I'm going to take this step with you." She picked up a pair of
scissors and before I could stop her started chopping off her beautiful
sisterlocks
.

"What
are you doing? Are you crazy?"

"What?
It's just hair. It will grow back. That's its only job.
To
grow."

"But
what will John say?"

She
looked at me strangely. "Why in the world would he care what I do with my
hair? It's
my
hair not his." She
went back to cutting. "This is perfect. Trust me. These dreads are getting
long. Summer is coming. I don't want to be hot, fat and pregnant and have to
deal with all this hair."

"Wait.
Pregnant?"

She
turned and smiled at me. "You're going to be an aunt."

I
screamed and hugged her. At least one of us would be phenomenally happy.

Set
Back: During the natural hair journey you suffer a setback due to heat damage,
color damage, or just plain frustration which causes you to do another big
chop. It happens to almost everyone.

~~~

Hair
tip #6: If you have a setback, don't get discouraged. Just start the journey
again. Growing natural hair isn't a race; it's a life style change.

~~~

My
setback came on a Tuesday in May. My hair was in that in between stage where it
was too long for a wash n go, but too short to pull back into a poof. It had
also started behaving badly. It felt dry, knotty and downright unattractive. I
felt like there was nothing I could do with it. For work that day I picked it
out and put a flower in it. It was enough to get me through the day. But by the
time I got home, I literally wanted to shave my head. Instead, I took out the
scissors and a bottle of wine. I turned on some Otis Redding and started
drinking my feelings.

Merlot
and Otis Redding were two things I had inherited from my father. I could always
tell when he had had a bad day because he would easily go through a bottle of
red and four or five Otis Redding CD's. He told me it was something he had learned
from
his
father.
Though
in those days it was albums.
Personally, I preferred my Otis playlist on
my iPod. I didn't have to worry about switching CDs or dusting off records. It
was three straight hours of soul-drenching rhythm and blues.

I
danced around my apartment with my glass of wine in one hand and a pair of
scissors in the other wondering when I was going to make the first snip. It had
to be done. My hair at this length was too hard to handle and at the rate it
was growing, it would be months before it got to a length that I wanted.

Halfway through a bottle of wine
and while belting out the lyrics to
Try a
Little Tenderness
I heard the doorbell ring.

"What
are you doing here?" I asked
Vinny
who was
standing in my doorway holding a cardboard box. It had been well over two
months since I had seen him.

"I
was clearing out my apartment and I found some of your stuff," he said
referring to the box. "Are you okay? Why are you playing Otis? What
happened?"

I
smiled a little. He remembered. He remembered how I played Otis Redding
whenever I was depressed. But of course, after seven years he
should
remember something like that.

I
wasn't thinking clearly though. It could have been the wine, or it could have
been the fact that I hadn't gotten laid since two weeks before we had broken
up, but I suddenly wanted him. I wanted him so bad. Maybe it wasn't him exactly
that I wanted. Maybe I just wanted to feel loved and desired. In any case, I
invited him in.

"You
want a drink?" I asked after
Vinny
had set down
the box on my dining room table.

"Yeah sure."

I
went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of his favorite beer that I hadn't
gotten rid of yet. After I handed it to him, I topped off my wine glass.
Vinny
sat on my couch and put his feet up on my coffee
table. I used to hate when he did that, but tonight I didn't mind. I just liked
that he was there. I missed him. I missed us.
Try a Little Tenderness
ended and the next song started
I've Been Loving You Too Long
. The
lyrics were so true. I'd loved
Vinny
for so long. Why
stop now?

After
chugging my glass of wine, I sat down next to him on the couch and put my head
on his chest.

"Maggie,
what's wrong?"

I
leaned up and looked into his eyes. "I just miss you," I said.

"Oh,
Maggie," he whispered against my lips. "I miss you too." When he
kissed me, it was like no time had passed. It was just as the way things had
always been. In fact, it was better. After being together for so long, our sex
life could sometimes slip into a routine. But tonight was different. Probably because
it had been almost three months since we had touched each other.

Vinny
was slow and considerate as he
made love to me not leaving even an inch of my body undiscovered. I was in
ecstasy. That was until the wine wore off and I realized what I had done.

I
stared at
Vinny's
naked body tangled up in my bed
sheets. What kind of a person was I? We didn't even have a conversation before
I practically jumped his bones. What the hell was wrong with me?

Vinny
groaned and rolled over as if he
was about to wake up. I didn't feel like talking to him. Not yet. I had to
figure out what I was doing and why. I slipped out of bed and went to the
kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. The clock said four thirty. That was early
even for me. I sat at my dining room table for nearly two hours. After all that
time, I still wasn't sure what I was
doing .
How could
I let
Vinny
back into my life? Nothing had changed.
Had it?

"Why
are you up so early?"
Vinny
said coming out of
the bedroom scratching his naked belly. "It's Saturday."

"You
know me. I like to get an early start," I got up and walked to the kitchen
while awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact with him.

"So
we didn't really talk much last night," he said sitting down at the table.
"
Which, honestly, was quite all right with me.
But we should probably talk now. Can I get a cup of coffee?"

Wordlessly,
I poured the last bit of the pot into a cup and then placed it in front of him.
Vinny
reached out and touched my hair. "What is
up with your hair?"

"What
do you mean?"

"What
did you do to it? It never looked that way before."

I
sighed. I didn't feel like going into it. He wouldn't understand. Suddenly I
wished I had the kind of relationship with
Vinny
that
Marin had with my brother. She didn't even consider what John would think when
she cut her hair. As she said, it was
her
hair not his. But with
Vinny
, it was different. I
suddenly realized that
Vinny
was often concerned with
the way I looked. Maybe a little too concerned.

"What
did you want to talk about,
Vinny
?" I asked
sitting across from him.

"About
us," he said before taking a sip.

"There
is
no us." I didn't even know I was going to say
that. It just came out.

Vinny
set down his cup and stared at
me. "What do you mean? What about last night?"

"Last
night..." I sighed. "I was lonely and depressed and I needed
someone."

"And
you got me. You need me and you have me.
Forever."

"Really,
Vinny
?
Forever?
How am I supposed to know I have you forever?"

"Is
this about getting married again? God, Maggie, what is with you? Why is
marriage so important? Why can't things be the way they've always been?"

That
was a good question. He had a right to an answer to it. And I finally had a
response.

"Because
I'm not the same as I've always been, okay? I've changed and I need more. I
need more than what you can give me."

"Well,
you seemed to enjoy what I gave you last night," he said with a smirk. You
have to understand something about
Vinyay
Gupta. He
wasn't trying to be hurtful when he said that. He honestly thought he was being
funny. Like everything was one big joke. He would probably go write that down
so he could share it with his roommate later.

I
stormed off to my bedroom and slammed the door. Then I opened it again and
tossed out his clothing. He could find his way out by himself. As for me, I
turned on some more Otis Redding and curled up under the sheets.

I
realized this was a major setback, but I was going to get through. I had to.
There was no way I was getting back together with
Vinyay
Gupta.