Natural Beauty (7 page)

"Well,
it's true
kinda
. Just think about what it was like to
be in love. The tingly, light headed feeling you get just thinking about them.
The way your fingers itch just to touch their skin again.
The way you count the minutes until the next time you see their face
again."

Instead
of answering, Trent just stared at me for a while. Then he said, "But is
that worth all the pain that comes if it doesn't work out?”

"Maybe.
Maybe not.
But you never know until you try."

"There's
no maybe about it. It's not worth it. I know from experience, it's not worth
it."

Shaking
my head, I said, "I don't believe you, Trent Bishop. Anyone who comes up
with that ‘small grains of sand’ line is a romantic at heart.

Suddenly,
Trent did something shocking. He smiled and said, “You liked that, huh?”

His
tone was almost flirtatious and I actually felt myself blush a little in
excitement. I quickly shook it off and said, “Whatever. You know you want a
fairytale happily ever after as much as anyone...as much as I do."

Trent’s
smile quickly faded away as he took in a deep breath and then let it out
slowly. He stared at the road and didn't say anything. In fact, he didn't say
anything for the rest of the trip. That was one broken man. Of course, he had a
reason to be. I wondered if he'd ever be able to get over his heartbreak.

Puffs:
A puff ball of hair. Most of the time afro puffs are formed by parting the hair
down the middle of the head and tying each section with
an
elastic
.

~~~

Hair
tip #11: Try a puff style after the hair has been stretched by a braid out or
twist out.

~~~

When
you go natural, you go through phases. Sometimes you love your hair, sometimes
you hate it. This week I was going through a love phase. I couldn't keep my hands
out of my hair.
 
I loved the way it felt
soft and squishy in my hands. I loved the texture and everything about it. I
loved my two little afro puffs that my hair was styled in. It kind of made me
look like a black Princess Leia from Star Wars. I bet
Vinny
would love it too. He loved Star Wars. This was probably the first hair style
since the Big Chop that
Vinny
would have liked.

Why
was I suddenly thinking about him again? It had been almost four months since I
had talked to him.

"You
are even more adorable than your picture," a female voice said while I was
eating my salad in a Georgetown cafe. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who
thought I looked cute today.

I
looked around for a second. "Are you talking to me?"

She
nodded. What did she mean I was more adorable than my picture? Was she trying
to hit on me? And why was she taking pictures of me? "I'm sorry, I don't
swing that way?"

She
looked confused for a second and then shocked. "No, no, that's not what I
mean. I'm married. I have no interest in you that way."

"Then
what exactly are you talking about?" I asked.

"I'm
Seeta
. I'm
Vinyay's
sister."

My
mouth flew open. This was his older sister who lived in Canada. I don't know
why I didn't recognize her from the pictures I had seen.
Maybe
because in all the pictures she was dressed in traditional Indian clothing.
The girl standing in front of me was modern and stylish. She also didn't look
that Indian to me. She could have easily have passed for Hispanic or even
Greek.

"Oh,
hi, I'm Mahogany." I don't know why I said that. She obviously knew who I
was or else she wouldn’t have been talking to me in the first place.

I
stood up and went to shake her hand but instead she wrapped her arms around me
and hugged me. "It is so nice to finally meet you."

"Finally?
You mean you knew about me? I
had the feeling
Vinny
hadn't told anyone in his
family about me."

She
sat down at my table and then waved the waiter over to us. After ordering a
drink she said, "Well, he didn't tell me
all
about you. I've known for years that he was in love with a girl
he met at school, but it wasn't until he bought a house for you that I saw what
you actually looked like."

"Oh,
I see. So, he didn't tell you I was black."

She
looked down guiltily. "No, he didn't."

"So
why are you here? You want to figure out what he saw in me?"

"No,
I know what he saw in you. He couldn't stop talking about you. I just wanted to
try to explain a little about my brother. I just think you should know some
things about him in order to understand him more."

"Like
what?" I asked.

"Like
that he's a complete coward and an asshole and honestly I'm not sure what
you
ever saw in him."

Okay,
I have to admit, I didn't see that coming at all.

Seeta's
drink order arrived and she took
a long swig before continuing. "If he really wanted to marry you, he could
have done it a long time ago. He is just blaming it on your race and tradition
because he is completely afraid of commitment."

"I'm
so confused. I thought you two were close. Why are you bad mouthing him to
me?"

"Don't
get me wrong. I totally love my brother, but come on. He's like a ten year old.
He can't even commit to a favorite flavor of gum let alone to a woman."

"So
it's not actually against your religion or culture or anything to marry outside
of your race?"

"Well,
yeah, it kind of is, but rules are made to be broken and people break them all
the time. We have a cousin who married an Italian. It's shocking at first but
people get over it. They would get over it with you and
Vinny
as well."

I
wasn't quite sure how
Seeta
was helping
Vinny's
case. I mean what was she really saying? Sure my
family is going to hate you, but they'll deal with it as long as my brother
really wants you which he obviously doesn't since he didn't marry you.

"What
about you? How do you feel about me being with your brother?"

She
took a deep breath.
One of those breaths that was usually
followed by bad news.

"I
have to be honest with you," she said after a moment. "When I first
found out you weren't Indian, I told
Vinny
to dump
you immediately."

"Great."
I rolled my eyes and started to stand. I didn't have to hear this. I was just
starting to get my confidence back and here she was trying to tell me that I
wasn't good enough for someone in her family.
Seeta
grabbed my hand and begged me with her eyes to sit back down again.

"But,"
she said squeezing my hand. "He didn't. Instead, he bought you a house.
That tells me a lot about how he feels about you."

"I
never asked him to buy me a house." Why did everyone keep using that as
the measuring stick for his love for me? It seemed like that was the important
thing to everyone, but not to me. To me the important thing was that he hid my
race from his family for seven freaking years!

"I
really don't understand what you're trying to tell me here."

Seeta
sighed. "I'm saying that
Vinyay
really loves you. He just hasn't realized how much.
Give him some time to grow. I'm sure you two can work it out."

I
wasn't so sure about that. But it did give me a little tingly feeling inside to
know that I had finally met someone in
Vinny's
family
and that she actually supported our relationship. It made me feel like
Vinny
and I had a chance after all.

Finger
Coils: Style formed by dividing the hair into small sections and then coiling
the hair around the finger.

~~~

Hair
tip#12: Coils work best on freshly washed and conditioned hair. You may also
want to use a mousse or gel to help them stay in place and give them a shiny
finish.

~~~

I
have to give it to Marin. When she decides to do something, she's all in.
Cutting her hair may have looked like a spur of the moment thing, but since
then she had made it the focus of her life. She had joined me in watching the
YouTube videos, but she had also started reading books and magazines and even
attending a natural hair support group. Yes, there was a group for black women
to help each other get through the tough times of natural hair care. And yes
there were some difficult times.

"You
can't give up," Marin said one night when I had decided to get a relaxer.
"I'm coming over."

Two
hours later she was in my apartment lecturing me about hair care.

"It's
just too hard," I said near tears. "I can't do it anymore. I'm just
going to get a relaxer and it will be so much easier."

"Easier?
It won't be easier. It will just be the same. It's just what you're used
to."

Marin
sat her cooler filled with milk and ginger beer on my coffee table. "Do
you know why natural hair
seems
so
hard? It's because we've never learned how to deal with our own hair. We've had
weaves and perms and
Jheri
curls all our lives. We
know how to deal with processed hair, although not very well. Maybe if we
started dealing with our
own
hair
from the time we were little, we would be better prepared to deal with it when
we are adults."

"So
what am I supposed to do? Spend three hours a day grooming my hair because
that's the way it's supposedly supposed to be. What about what's easy? What
about what I have
time
to do?"

"This
is bigger than you, don't you see?" she asked. I wasn’t sure if it was a
rhetorical question or not.

"No, sorry.
What am I supposed to see?"

"That
we have to take the power. As a people we have to stop believing that we are
not good enough, that our hair is not good enough. Do you realize that black women
are the only women on the planet who systematically try to chemically or
physically change the structure of their hair?

"That's
not true."

"Think
about it. It is. As a race, we have passed on from generation to generation the
fundamental idea that our hair, the way it grows out of our head, is not good
enough. We have to do something to it."

I
tried to dispute her, but I couldn't. Sure women of other cultures occasionally
got curly perms or flat ironed their hair or colored it. But we were the only
ones who did it systematically. It was ingrained in us from infancy that our
nappy hair had to be changed.

"Also,
think about this," Marin continued. "African women are the only women
on the planet with this texture of hair. Maybe we should start celebrating our
hair as unique and special instead of treating it as a nuisance. Tell me, has
anyone asked to touch your hair since your big chop?"

Actually
several curious people, mostly white, but some black, have asked if they could
touch it to see what it felt like. Sometimes it got downright annoying.

I
nodded to Marin.

"Now,
had anyone ever asked to touch your hair when it was relaxed or when you had a
weave."

I
shook my head.

"So
what does that tell you?" she asked by way of summary.

"That
people are weird and nosey."

"Or
that your hair is special and so are you." She gave me a knowing look as
if her words had deeper meaning.

"Okay,
you don't have to turn all
psychiatrist
on me," I
said looking away.

"Well,
I think maybe I do. This is what we go through all the time in my hair therapy
group. For some women, their entire self-worth and self-esteem is tied up with
their hair. I think you might be one of those women."

"Are
you saying I'm never going to be able to like myself until I like my
hair?" I asked.

Marin
shrugged.
"Maybe partially."

"That's
ridiculous Marin."

"Is
it? Is it ridiculous to think that when a woman looks in the mirror and doesn't
like what she sees that it might have something to do with the way she feels
about herself, the decisions she makes, or the men she chooses."

I
was getting slightly tired of the lecturing, but she did it in such a caring
and concerned way, it was hard to be angry with her. It was even harder to tell
her to stop. Especially since I was starting to think she had a point.

"It's
not about equating your hair to your self-worth. It's about being able to look
in the mirror and like what you see. When you can't do that, it causes so many
other problems in all aspects of your live. Your hair is more than your hair.
It is your self-image and identity."

"But
I used to be able to do that when I had my weave. I liked what I saw all the
time."

"Then
why did you cut it off?"

"I
cut it off because I was pissed at
Vinny
."

"I
don't believe that,” she said shaking her head. “I think you cut it off because
deep down you finally wanted to be yourself. Once you accept that your hair is
never going to be like white hair you're going to be happy. Just like when you
finally accept that you are never going to be what
Vinny
wants you to be."

This
was hard to hear. I tried not to believe it but I had to. I was never going to
be Indian like
Vinny
wanted me to be in order to
marry me and my hair was never going to be straight, not naturally that is. In
order to make it straight, I’d have to do constant irreversible damage to my
hair.

I
sat silent in my living room as I stared in the mirror at my short nappy hair.
It was going to take some serious mental retraining in order to start thinking
of my hair as special and unique instead of ethnic and ugly. I tried to
concentrate on all the compliments I had received lately. I never received
compliments on my hair before. Now my hair was something different that people
weren't used. Different wasn't always bad.

"Fine,
I'll stick it out," I said, finally relenting to her way of thinking.

Marin
let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Good. And I think maybe you should come
to my support group with me."

"All the way in Philly?
I don't have time for
that."

"Come
on, it will give you a chance to come see your brother. And you can help me set
up the baby room."

I
shrugged not willing to give her a firm commitment. Driving two states away
just to hear a group of women whine about their hair was not near the top of my
to-do list.

"Now
let's see what we can do with your hair," Marin said. "I have a great
idea for a style. We can brush it out section by section and then put finger
curls in it with gel. Your hair is the perfect length for it and it will look
great.

I
sat back and closed my eyes as Marin got started on my transformation.

~~~

Two
weeks later there was a hair show in Atlanta. Marin and I decided to make a
girls' weekend out of it. We tried to invite
Carnece
but she had a completely different concept about hair.

"Hair
is an accessory,” she said.
 
“An accessory like my shoes.
If I don't like my shoes you
don't see me getting all weepy over it. I just go out and buy another pair.
It's the same with my hair. If I don't like it one day, I buy a new wig."

"Yes,
but don't you want your own hair?" Marin had asked her.

"It
is
my hair. I have the receipt,"
Carnece
said with a 'duh' look on her face.

It
was at this hair expo that I think my eyes were finally opened about this whole
hair revolution thing. There was a change brewing. I saw so many different hair
textures and styles and so much pride. People were proud of their hair whether
it was short, long, curly, or kinky. I saw products that were created
by
black people
for
black people. Products that the creators had used on their own
hair and thus could give advice on specific hair care techniques. No products
from major corporations who didn't even have a black employee. That was
something that had always secretly bothered me about the hair care industry. I
mean, black women only made up about 8% of the buying population, but they
bought 90% of the products. Change was coming and change looked good.