My mom was from the “Old School” where hair was defined as “Good” and “Bad” and it was no secret that mine was the latter. Now, stop shaking your head and thinking that I should probably seek therapy because of such a sad childhood. The label wasn’t an indictment against my personality or intellect; rather it was an indicator of the amount of work needed to get my nappy hair under control. Sometimes that meant just combing through and detangling, and other times, it meant going to Miss Thelma, the beautician who would “press” my kinks straight with a metal comb that was heated -- the "hot comb." By the time I hit my twenties, I tired of the hot comb routine and decided to chemically straighten out the naps with a “relaxer.” This process not only changes the molecular structure of hair; but also forces a crazy bi-monthly game of whack-a-mole in an effort to beat the naps out of the nappy growth just as it begins to burst through the scalp. Sometimes,...
Finding out everyday that sometimes, late is right on time.