What Are You Going To Do With Your Hair?

ADDENDUM: The photo credit for this picture goes to my Husband who was riding the train with me. Call me a cynical New Yorker, but I can't just up and trust my digital camera to just any old random body.

I was on line at our local soul food take out joint picking up an order of cholesterol for a late lunch, early dinner when this question came up.

I was eyeing the baked fish – the “being good part of the meal” – and wondering why the lady wasn’t dishing it up so we could move on to the “being bad part of the meal:” collard greens and potato salad.

She was absent mindedly moving the fish around with the serving spoon, but steady looking at my head. Normally, I would have picked up on this, but hunger had lowered my defenses and her question too me off guard.

“What are you going to do with your hair?”

That was what she said out loud, but her tone and body language seemed to say: “What the hell are you doing to your hair? Are you gonna fix that?”

I thought, “What am I going to do with my hair? Love it. Style it. Take if for long walks in the park, tell it how much it means to me, and ask it where it’s been all my life.” I settled for the less sarcastic, “What?”

She said, “Aren’t those small braids? What are you going to do with them?”
“They’re dreadlocks?”
“So small?”
“Yes.”
“I thought they were braids.”
“No, they’re dreadlocks.”
“How do you get them so small?”
“They’re a type of lock called Sisterlocks and they’re done with a tool, that’s why their so small.”
“Oh, I thought they were braids and you were just gonna let them grow into locks.”
“Well, actually, you can do that too.”
“Oh.”

At this point, I’d say my food was getting cold, but I still didn’t have any. It felt as though answering her questions were a precondition to sustenance. Normally I wouldn’t have minded the inquiry. I can talk about natural hair and locks all day long, but I guess I was a bit put off by her confrontational tone and the fact that no one else on the LONG line behind me - including my husband - seemed particularly interested in a hair lesson.

If only I’d brought along my new Sisterlocks Journal! But then again, I know everybody in the place would have wanted to see it, and I’m not ready to share until I’ve finished reading it cover to cover.

As you can see in the photo, I did have it on the train today and when I reached my stop, I slipped it right back in the plastic.