My DEEP-SEEDED ISSUES with the Black Beauty Salon - 081816

I have some deep-seeeded issues with the Black Beauty Salon.  Because....well because my wedding.  Which is probably HANDS DOWN - for those of us with enough BALLS to enter into holy matrimony - The Most Important Hair Day of our entire life.  Am I right, sisters?!?

GODDESS BRAIDS

GODDESS BRAIDS

So imagine - when on the morning of my wedding day, I arrive to my 9a.m. hair appointment early at 8:45, and my chosen stylist, who has been commissioned to create my wedding look – the famous “Goddess Braids” (examples shown above) is a NO-SHOW.   That's right, I said no-show...as in, I am slowly watching my anxiety level build, watching the time on the clock slowly slip from 9:45 a.m. to 10:00 a.m, to 10:15 am.  And, this being my wedding day, I still have a huge list of last minute errands to run, including purchasing my first pair of “thong” underwear...an absolute MUST with the dress I’ve chosen (see photo below, and please excuse the photo quality..this was 20 years ago - on "film-film", and its a scan of a copy of the photo). 

At around 10:30 a.m. when my stylist has still not arrived, I turn my attention towards Bettye* the only other stylist in the shop.  Bettye has been at the salon as long as I have, either chatting to the receptionist, or crying on and off to someone on the telephone.  Bettye has apparently just found out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her. (*not her real name)

Her eyes puffy and face streaked with tears, Bettye agrees to try the Goddess Braids - I have the photo with me, but she has never done them before.  As Bettye makes a half-ass attempt to create this style through her tired, blurry eyes, I steadily watch my dreams of playing Goddess for a day come crashing down...HARD. 

As she finishes up, I am barely fighting through tears now, and my hair looks absolutely DREADFUL.  I request that she take out her work and give me simple side-twists, something I can probably do better on my own, but I’m here now, so, whatever.   

And just as I have conceded defeat, in walks my stylist, with apologies that ring as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny from the dollar section.  However, the mastery of her craft saves the day, and in less than 20 minutes, I have the GLORIOUS head of Goddess Braids you see in the photo below, and my dreams, every girl's dreams for their wedding day, have been – temporarily - restored. 

GETTING MY MAKE-UP APPLIED AND FEELING LIKE A GODDESS

So -  there you have just a little snippet of my baggage about the Black Beauty Salon.  I have more - for another day.  Right now, though, I need to drop off some CURRENT luggage that doesn’t belong to me...it just doesn’t.  Well, at LEAST not me ALONE. 

Since last November, I have been growing dreadlocks.  Every 4 – 6 weeks, I need to go to the salon to have them re-twisted.  This process is made a bit more complicated because my birthmother is white, with what appears to be fairly straight hair.  What this means for my hair is that it doesn’t lock - as quickly or as tightly - and needs A LOT MORE HELP along the way.   Which my stylists and I (there were several stylists there who have been in my hair, including the salon owner) had seemed to develop an understanding about throughout the months: as long as I PLAYED BY THEIR RULES, which is to sit down, shut the hell up, and let them work their magic.  Which I usually did do, except for today.   Becoming increasingly concerned about the excessive amount of HEAT being applied directly on my dry scalp and sensitive baby hairs around the hairline (you know, the first place that we LOSE our hair from years of abuse and mistreatment), I voiced my concern to my stylists.

Um, not OK.  The rule about PAIN in the Black Beauty Shop is that it is to be ENDURED.  “Pain for beauty” it's an even exchange, 'mkay?!?  Oh, and the subsequent hair loss? Well, that’s simply the unfortunate, yet unavoidable by-product of this necessary ritual we call black hair *care*.  :o|

As long as I sat in that chair, for as long as they wanted me to, we were A.O.K., but as soon as I suggested that I had sat there LONG ENOUGH and that my hair was DRY, perhaps even TOO dry, like CRISPY-dry, I had now stepped into the slippery territory of telling them how to Do.Their.Job.   And you just don’t do that.  I was iced out immediately and promptly relegated to the WORST chair in the salon (the one closest to the door, with all the street noise and pollution) to think about my transgressions.  I knew this was the worst chair because when i walked into the salon, two of the main stylists were fighting over the favored chair, the one at the backest part of the store...more privacy, less noise.  

After some time had passed,  the owner took me into her chair, and the remaining 4 hours of my stay was awkward and uncomfortable, made bearable only because i have learned how to breathe myself through these kinds of horrifying, yet all to frequent social exchanges. 

Since leaving the Beauty Shop, I have given quite a bit of consideration as to whether to return.   On the one hand, there is a part of me that deeply wants to play this game, to ultimately assimilate, if only to FINALLY feel accepted by Black Women as one of “them” (I don’t even know how it would FEEL to belong to that group). 

But - the OTHER part of me, the part that is growing in strength every time I take the time to consider what it would really look like to take care of myself, has decided that “enough is ENOUGH!”  It’s time to look this particular demon square in the eye and DO something different!

Which, at the moment is to vent my frustrations in this blog.  Which was originally intended to be a blog about all the ways in which I have felt jilted by Black Women, when it occurred to me...that I have been jilted by White Women too - its just that, well, the RULES are different with White Women.  And as a transracial adoptee raised in a white family, growing up surrounded by a white, middle class community, THESE are the rules I grew up learning.   I know how to play along to this set of rules, to establish my boundaries and draw my lines. 

So when I realized that I have been torn down by all kinds of women who have walked in and out of my life, it occurred to me: it's my relationship with women.  And recently, I have been hearing a LOT about how we - women - are our own worst enemies, at this point. 

This sentiment rings true to me, growing up as a child of the 70's, learning that there where a whole LOT of women who had paved a way before me, in order that i should live as a (relatively) free woman now.  I mean, I get that I cannot undo the thousands of years of female oppression, subjugation and mutilation, all under a soul-crushing patriarchy that seems hell-bent on killing humanity, however; I don’t think I am ALONE here when I say that its really not worth arguing back and forth about how the current ruling patriarchy came to be, or whose FAULT it is, I mean, look at the state of humanity...we just 'aint got that kind of time anymore, people.  

It’s time that we ALL look our demons square in the EYE  and at least start ACTING like we truly understand how much better we are when we work together to UPLIFT each-other, to ALL of our highest-highs, and HOLD each-other during our lowest-lows. 

The sisterhood, same as the brotherhood, has always been there – just waiting to be acknowledged, properly attended to, and cultivated. 

So the NEXT TIME you see a sister walking down the street with BUSTED HAIR, and you catch yourself wondering if she KNOWS that her hair is BUSTED, just know that she knows, to a degree that you and i are most intimate with, and that HER inner critic has already bitch-slapped her into next year, so you don’t have to do that too.  Instead, send her a feeling of acknowledgement, understanding, and love.  Send THAT instead.  And make it a habit.  
 ,
I have decided not to go back to that salon.  sisters don’t let sisters suffer in silence. 

 

 

I VOTE FOR THE CHOICE THAT’S NOT REALLY A CHOICE AT ALL. 07/31/16

It’s been three days in a row that I haven’t slept well.  Last night my perimopausal body decided to *rain-make* and I woke up several times in a cold sweat.  Minus the panic.  Thank gawd minus the panic. 

And I know of others in my small circle of friends, neighbors and acquaintances who also haven’t been sleeping well.  And when I wondered out-loud to a fellow yoga student the other day before class about this not-sleeping-well-thing-that’s-been-going-on lately with people whom I know, I also suggested that perhaps all these very uncomfortable *things* that are going on right now in American politics might be contributing just a teensy bit to everyone’s existential angst (you know, the one that’s there after you remove all the bells and whistles of the media circus  -because let’s face it, that’s what this is folks, and it’s COMPELLING, to say the least.  Especially when you see Mr. Clinton playing with BALLOONS on national t.v.  Compelling t.v., folks. )  The angst that has perhaps been there all your life, that tickles at your inner ear and your heart that something is just not quite right here, ppl .  That *special sense* that may also - every now and again - wonder who the fuck am I and why am in this box?  Well, at least that’s what my existential angst whispers to me.  Ahem. 

What this Political Circus would like to DISTRACT us from (which it does an ever increasing piss-poor job of doing lately, imho) is that while we wrangle over who is the MOST VILE of the candidates for varying degrees of Very Good Reasons,  the planet is being STOLEN FROM US right under our very noses.  And we are handing over the keys.  We hand over the keys every time we point the finger at someone else’s horrible behavior before doing a thing about our own horrible behavior.  We are all hypocrites of varying degrees, why just have a child and they will most certainly point out your most glaring hypocricies  to you on a daily basis.  Because at the end of the day, if what I SAY doesn’t match what I DO, then I have really got no business instructing YOU to do anything at all.   

And of course if I choose to play at this ridiculous game of "Who gets my (perhaps uncounted) vote", Hillary Clinton is my obvious choice!  I mean, lets face it ppl, she knows how to muther-fucking do her job…which we could argue back and forth about until the COWS come home what that particular job IS, but Hillary Clinton knows how to do it.  And if you didn’t know how muther-fucking qualified she is for the job of President of the United States of Amerikkka, well just read this here article and you will be muther-fucking schooled, once and for all.    

We are ALL complicit in the mess we have made of things on planet earth.  It does us no good to figure out which one of us is worse, when at the end of the day there is still a steaming pile of shit sitting in the middle of our shared-humanity dinner table.  I mean, who is going to clean up the steaming pile of shit, regardless of whether you and i agree on WHOSE SHIT THIS REALLY IS?!? Oh, right, that would be our children.  Like the time in the 7th grade when the 13 year old Sun came home from school asking if it were TRUE that we are currently scheduled to run out of drinkable water in the next 20 YEARS.  Or when the students were schooled about how BAD plastic bottles are for the environment, that we have plastic island called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floating in the middle of the pacific ocean, yet the school vending machines sell bottled water.  Or how about the fact that we are being POISONED by our own genetically-modified FOOD, or by the AIR we BREATHE?

So yeah, if society as we know it (not the earth, the earth will continue to spin on her axis as she has done for last, oh, 14 or so million years without us humans giving her the finger on a daily basis) is going to HELL in a hand-basket, how would I rather go down?  Do I want to go down HARD and FAST, the way ANY meglomaniacal leader with lots of MONEY and POWER (and perhaps a big CHIP on his shoulder because his daddy didn't love him right) would like to take me down?   Or, do I want to be taken down gently, with Hillary’s soft touch, you know the candidate who's lifelong job it has been to hold the status quo so that I time to prepare a motherfucking TRANSITION PLAN or EXIT strategy our of this social experiment called Amerikkka.  Personally?  I want to be taken down gently, given more time to prepare, and perhaps sort through what my next big move is going to be, maybe get some passports in order,  purchase a couple more 5 gallon water bottles for the garage…in case of emergency.  I mean for fucks sake i'm an accountant.  I deal in money.  Which means I can plainly see that when a mere 80 PEOPLE own more than HALF the world’s entire wealth  (as IF you can actually OWN a planet) that the game is rigged folks.  It’s not rocket science; it’s just simple mathematics.  And, as James Carville coined during Bill Clinton’s run against George Bush, Sr., “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Because at the end of the day, if I am not able to earn enough money, working HARD every day to provide food, clothing and shelter for my family, I really don’t care what the fuck-ity-fuck my Prez THINKS of me, or what sort of vile names s/he might call me -  or any of my kinfolk – behind  my back, or even to my face for that matter.  I really don’t.  Honestly, is it too much to ask for you just to fulfill your fucking campaign promises?!? Apparently it is. But, as a career player in the Game of Politics, Hillary Clinton knows how to hold the status quo.  Oh believe you me, she KNOWS how to hold the status quo down TIGHT…it’s what she gets paid to do and she's been doing it most of her goddamn life. 

And anyway, it is my personal opinion that the President of the United States is not Elected , but rather, is actually Selected way before I cast my vote.  But again, I digress - my point is this: over the next three months and through the election results, I am happy to now be able to shut the fuck up about any “he said/she said” political theatrics about who I am voting for and why I am voting for them, and just point them to the direction of this Report.  

And make no mistake, although i will be casting my Very Important Vote for Hillary Clinton, i am by no means "With Her," nor will i be RALLYING around her.  

I'm with HER.
  

Carry on.