| Get Into It! Spring - Summer 2008 |
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Written by C. Carletta Saunders
ONE of my earliest memories is sitting on the brown shag carpet of our two-bedroom apartment between my Momma’s knees. I would prop my elbows on Momma’s thighs as she alternately yanked a comb through a week’s worth of tangles and tapped me on the head with it, commanding me to keep still. If Momma had only known obedience was impossible. Sitting still just isn’t an option when you have hair so thick it can break the teeth off the strongest of combs.
Momma would part and part and re-part my hair, slather it with thick, sticky grease, and brush it into a configuration of ponytails so tight my eyes squinted and my mouth stretched into an involuntary smile. Once she was finished, I’d rush to the bathroom to view her masterpiece. With the minty smell of Blue Magic thick in the air, I’d lightly finger my rope-like braids, wipe the shine from my forehead with a wad of toilet paper, and twist my head from side to side letting the multicolored plastic barrettes tap my cheeks. As I ran off to play, I’d remember Momma’s rules -- don’t loosen your ponytail, don’t lose your barrettes and, whatever you do, don’t get your hair wet!
I longed to wear my hair down like the girls at my all-white elementary school but Momma had no time for a press and curl. I begged and bartered for a jherri curl but Momma was resolute – no dripping goo and plastic wave cap for me. The only change in my hair was the number of ponytails -- two, four, six, and on special occasions one big bun -- until junior high when I got my first relaxer.
The beautician parted my hair into four sections, slathered it with thick white cream and worked the cream into my “kitchen” while my scalp seemingly boiled. But the blistering pain of chemical burns was forgotten when I emerged from the shampoo bowl with silky straight hair that flowed to the middle of my back. Once despised, my hair became my claim to beauty -- the one feature I felt sure of in a world that scorned dark skin and full lips.
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My hair had become my crowning glory, and what was a queen without her crown? |
Over the years I mastered a once a week regimen -- shampoo, deep condition, wrap, air-dry, blow-dry, flat iron, then curl. On top of that was the three-hour (on a good day) appointment with my hairstylist for a relaxer and trim (please, only a trim). I’d sit in the waiting area, in the stylist’s chair, at the shampoo bowl and finally under the hood dryer, waiting and waiting and waiting for the timer to sound, only to have my stylist check me, say “not yet,” and set the timer again. But hours of maintenance were a small price to pay for envious looks and abundant compliments, my favorite of which was “Is that a weave?”
After the birth of my son, I questioned the sanity of high maintenance hair. I had long admired those who had gone natural, wishing I had the “right” texture, wishing I had the face. After months of indecision, I gathered the nerve to have my stylist cut it. But, as the lifeless locks fell to the floor, they took my sense of beauty with them. My hair had become my crowning glory, and what was a queen without her crown?
I consoled myself saying my hair would grow back, but instead of growing it out -- I grew into it. I learned to love the arch of my brow, my determined eyes, my energetic smile. Wind and rain are no longer my enemies. I swim as often as I like, jog without fear of “sweating my hair out,” and sleep without propping my head in my hands.
My two-hour a week regimen has been condensed to five minutes a day, and my blow dryer and flat iron hibernate under the bathroom sink. My hairstylist, whom I saw like clockwork through high school, college, and more than a few break ups, no longer takes space on my calendar. I still get envious looks from other women who admire the ease of my hairstyle, and my new favorite compliment is “I wish I had the face for that.”
The most important changes have been interior. I’ve moved away from society’s expectations of how I should look, the life I should live, the type of woman, wife, mother I should be. In cutting my hair, I was reborn. I face the world in a new way – naked and unashamed.
My daughter is her mother’s child, born with a head full of thick, curly hair that grows longer – and tighter – by the month. She squirms and protests and I sit her between my knees, greasing and combing and parting and twisting. I haven’t tapped her with the comb – yet, but I already wonder what her hair story will be. Press and curl, relaxer, texturizer, natural, shag, bob, flip, stack, wrap, asymmetrical or the legendary “Halle Berry.” Will she know it takes more than a crown to make a woman a queen?
A summa cum laude graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas, Carletta Sanders lives in McKinney with husband James, son Andrew (4 years) and daughter Jamine (1 year). A stay-at-home mother, Carletta worked as an insurance adjuster before leaving the field to make a full-time commitment to her family. Today, Carletta is a member of the Frisco Professional Writers’ Association. “Relinquishing My Crown” is her first published work.
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