Every now and then I like to write about random stuff. Stuff not connected to my father’s biography or my latest writing venture. Sometimes I ache to write about politics, however, I would probably burn up my laptop with my furious typing. But today I am going to share with you the conversation I had with myself while “doing” my hair this morning. My daughter says I spend way too much time worrying about how my hair looks. But I have always placed a lot of emphasis on how my hair looks. As I was combing it today I remembered the old childhood story about Rapunzel- “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair”. I loved that story as a young girl. But I did not have long hair like Rapunzel, I had frizzy hair, when my mom put my hair up in a rubber band I looked like I had a bunny’s tail.

I said to myself, I wonder why my childhood books were all about girls with long blond hair. Goldilocks, Raggedy Ann (no, she had red hair), anyhow –  then my brain reminded me that I did have some books about Black people. My favorite was “The Talking Yam”.

“This yam will make a nice dinner, said the farmer. Put me down! Put me down!” said the yam
“I want to stay in the dirt, I don’t want to be your dinner. Now, everybody knows yams can’t talk
The farmer didn’t know what to do. He ran off to tell the king. On the way, he met a woman and her goat “Stop! Stop!” said the woman, Why are you running like that?”There’s a talking yam in my garden! said the farmer. It said, ‘Put me down!Well, did you put it down?” asked the goat.Now, everybody knows goats can’t talk The woman and the farmer didn’t know what to do. They ran off to tell the king.”

Those long blond locks made an impression on me, though. One summer when I was eight my mom sent me off to summer camp. I discovered swimming. I also discovered that if I tilted my head back into the water when I came back up my hair flowed out behind me. Ahhh. Unfortunately, it was our last day at camp and by the time I got home my hair had dried into a huge bunny tail-my mom had a fit because guess who had to comb all the knots out? But I never forgot that camp visit.

Then my brain reminded me about the Natural. I had a serious natural. Like Angela Davis except mine was perfectly round. And I had a lot of it. Took a lot of work keeping it “together”. You needed the right comb, the right hair product. And I didn’t have to “press” it. You know, straighten it. It was my natural hair and I looked good.

Now going into the new year I have come to grips with my new hair look. My hair is thinning. I cut it short a long time ago because I like not having to “press” it in order to have a cute hair style. Those days are long gone. Short hair is cool.  I’ve already dyed it blonde to cover the grey/brown look, and though thin it grows in cute little curls. This year I don’t have White hair (like Rapunzel) or Black hair (which can help you have a bangin’ natural), I have Cute Hair. I have Hair, still. I still look good. So Happy New Year to you all and may you too discover a cool fact about yourself to celebrate.

Thanx ever so much, for stopping by 🙂