Locked In

Yesterday, I made the biggest commitment I've ever made in my entire life. I decided to never comb my hair again as long as I live.

I've spent the last year and a half wrestling with the decision to keep twisting my hair or letting it go all Rasta-far-I. I'm talking seriously hardcore Natty Dreadlocks. I've always been fascinated by the locked hair look, the way both women and men proudly sport those regal, matted ropes of hair. But I never really thought I could pull them off successfully.

The road to locks has been a natural (pun intended) progression for me. When I stopped wearing extensions in September of 2006 and switched to natural hair twists, it was an incredibly liberating experience. Even though twists require regular maintenance of untwisting, combing out, and then re-twisting, I felt so free from the tyranny of heavy, binding braids.

Slowly but surely, my hair began to heal. Granted, I'm not doing it any favor by using coppery highlights to mask the gray, but at least it's not being pulled out at the roots by synthetic extensions. And my head can actually breathe.

So what took me from twisting and untwisting to letting my hair fuse together into snaky, matted noodles? Well, 72 hours from now, I'll be in the air somewnere over North Africa, winging my way to my new home for a year, Nairobi. Last year I lived in a 20 year war zone, and this year I'll live in a post-election conflict zone.

Seriously, who has time to worry about combing her hair? Life is short enough as it is. My stylist, Gary, had been trying to coax me into letting my hair lock for months, but I always balked. I figured twisting gave me the option to change my mind, maybe return to the straight look someday if I chose. But during the past few months, I could not think of a single reason why I'd want to go back to permed hair.

But what if I was up for a big-bucks job as a company spokesperson, and my competition had silky flowing tresses? What if I fell hard for some guy who was turned off by locked hair? What if I woke up one morning and just hated the danged things?

That's about the point where I realized that I was giving my hair WAAAAY too much power over my life. It's just hair. And it's not exactly the most loyal appendage God gave us humans. It turns white, breaks off, falls out. droops when you want it to curl...why the heck was I giving myself an ulcer over it?

The last time Gary twisted my hair, he said that if I wanted to let it lock, I had to go at least two months without combing or washing it out. By yesterday, it had been a month and a half, and I was ready to take a garden rake to the rat's nest that was forming on my scalp. I pleaded with him to do something, but he was thrilled. "Girl, you're locking, it's beautiful!"

I don't know, maybe he was just saying that to spare my feelings. Or maybe he had two or three other clients waiting and didn't want to have to fool with untwisting my hair. Or....maybe...just maybe....I look okay. Maybe I can commit to this locked hair thing.

So, courtesy of James Joyce, in 72 hours, I "Go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. " With a head full of Jamaica jammin' baby dreadlocks.

Me finished wid da post now.