sagaciously is...

I think I've been subconcsiously inspired by Xquizzyt and BrownShuga's
explorations on race, and my lurking recently on NP. This is my love letter, and my heartfelt promotion of my nappiness.

When I became nappy my mind became free. And this allowed me to question the world, and what was important, and what was definitely not. Like whether it really matters if my edges are straight every day, including the week of touchups. And whether I really cared what Bronner Brother Show extras confrontationally spit in my face about my hair. And whether it was more important to me to have hair, or to have straight hair. Or to have Pantene commercial hair, that you can easily run your fingers through. And whether I wanted a man to want me because I (meaning: my hair, my a$$, my clothes, my shoes, my nails, my jewelry...) was cute, or because I had my mind right. Finances right. House in order.

When I embraced being nappy, I embraced the beautiful blackness in me. The chocolately-ness of my skin, every hyper-pigmentation mark on my forehead, fullness of my lip and thigh, every curve on my body. I accepted all the beauty in my blackness, that which was obvious, and even that which only I could see.

And I began to see that beauty in every black-brown person I came across. Cafe au lait with freckles, dark sepia tones, caramel, pecan and every flavor of black-brown in between that I came across. Curly haired, wavy haired, nappy haired, and even straight haired - knowing it was not for me, I could still admire this on others (even if I prefer to see hair in chunks, instead of sheets). I still catch myself sometimes, staring at some person that may/may not know how really perfect they are, in and of themselves. Without manipulation, without ornamentation. Just them - raw, naked and appealing. The G'd in them shining through.

It was like, when I finally came to the realization that the image of beauty that I'd been raised with, was forced upon me by someone/something that hated me centuries ago, and perpetuated for the sake of promoting capitalism in the form of the beauty/hair industry, someone lifted off my blinders and I could finally really see.

Sometimes, I imagine that my coming to terms with my natural hair was like a blind person seeing a flower for the first time. The flower was always there, and you have a sense of it - you can smell it, touch it and taste it. But without really seeing it, it's just not the same flower. Imagine never seeing a flower, then regaining your site and walking into a flower garden. That’s me loving my hair and myself, all over again.

For those considering becoming natural, becoming nappy...you may be wondering what you have to do/be in order to make the transition. You're probably thinking that it's hard work, that it's a long process, and that there's a lot of effort required on your part. Yes, there is. And the most challenging and rewarding effort you're going to put forth is to remove the lye from your mind. To do this, you need to be bold, feminine, ornate, flexible, sublime, confident, strong, clever, subtle, intelligent, obvious, sensual, delicate, resilient, agile...but most of all you need to be determined. Determined to love your napps despite what the world may say/think/do about your hair, because in the end it's only you that really matters, and only your self-image that really counts. It's only you that will keep you nappy, and only you that will love your napps, ultimately. Anything above that..well, that's just a bonus.