Free at last!

So I got my sisterlocks this weekend. 38 hours! It was definitely a journey! See when you sit in a chair for 38 hours, you have lots of time to contemplate life, I really could've plotted total world domination in that time lol! But it got me thinking about the standards of beauty that we as black people hold ourselves to. Two completely different females, who might hate each others guts can at least agree on one thing...The Black Woman's Hair Struggle. We've all been there. Relaxer, texturizer, braids, weaves, grease, oil, hot comb, flat iron, chisel, wrench!! But really though thinking about how much I've put on/done to my hair in my lifetime is quite shocking. At what point did I decide that my natural hair was not good enough? not sure, I actually have no memory of having natural hair, I must've gotten relaxer slapped on my head at a very early age. I can't really blame my mom though, with 4 daughters to care for...she probably felt like relaxer was the only way out. But all my life I've been fighting to convince my hair to do just the opposite of what it naturally wants to do, so about 3 years ago I decided to give up the fight. Went downstairs into the basement and just snipped my hair all the way down to the 1" of new growth that I had. The look on my mom's face when I came back upstairs cannot be described. She didn't say much, likely because she thought I was crazy and didn't want to provoke me. Getting sisterlocks was like someone saying..okay, enough now. So 38 hours of liberation lock after lock was nothing compared to the years that I've been a prisoner to my hair! It was long, but well worth it, at the end of the last lock the consultant and I actually hugged! You get really close to a person when they've been in your head for 38 hours. So here's to being set free and being able to devote time to the more important people or things in my life!

In poetry world...I signed up for the Edmonton Poetry Festival in September, I'm looking forward to hearing from them. I also finally sent in a membership form for the Stroll of Poets Society