My Curls

I’ve observed that my mum says I look pretty only when my hair is straightened. So naturally I blame my heat damaged ends on her and my younger self’s desperate need for approval.

I cannot put into words the comfort I had found when I followed a curly hair routine and watched my first curl form as it dried after years of harsh heat and general mistreatment when I was 14.

“There it is!” I was thinking.

There I am.

I vividly remember, sitting in between my mother’s legs when I was 6, with burning tears streaming across my fat cheeks as she roughly dragged a comb, that was most definitely not made for my hair type, through my angry and thick curls. I remember the knots and frizz that used to form overnight and the dread I’d have the next morning when she spotted the nest that had formed.

There really must be something wrong with me.

I’ve watched over the years my dad persistently dying his hair, clinging onto youth that had long ago retired and my mother straightening hers to the point it’s given up and is now in a grotesque state of existence, permanently fried and eternally distorted.

It occurred to me that I’ve picked up this habit of rejection of self from my parents

I refuse to continue that cycle.

Ayisha (my bestie <3) demands my curls every time I ask what I should do with my hair, fangirls over them a little extra whenever I’m threatening to shave them off and reminds me often of how much she’s in love with them.

The people around you truly do have a phat effect on you.

I know my discovering of my natural hair doesn’t sound like a big deal,

but it is!

Whilst growing up and breaking down everything around me, I’ve discovered that there was nothing wrong with me, but everything wrong with the society (ew) we’ve built.

We celebrate only docile and conventional hair (and women.)

Parents aren’t expected to sit down and understand our hair, our fears and our quirks, but rather hurriedly brush them all away, no matter how much it seems to pain us.

And that the easy route of changing oneself is much more common than the much more tiresome and terrifying path of self-acceptance.

I’ve realised, however, how magical the hair I’ve grown really is.

All it takes is water to resuscitate them, and they spring back into their natural state of tight and uniform swirls!

They take inspiration from the curves of Mother Earth, the disorderly order of nebulas and the reliably chaotic motion of waves.

My hair is mystical.

And so I think about my great grandmothers, from many generations before,

How they must have deep conditioned their curls with Jasmine Oil and rinsed with rose water. They must’ve strung chains of gold across their curls or cloaked them with silky dupattas and decorated their braids with colourful cloth.

I think of how much it must ache and break their hearts to watch me fry my hair, our hair, to fit into some Eurocentric standards

Set by colonisers that invaded their land

And my mind.

So now I too massage my roots with Jasmine oil, deep condition with coconut and hibiscus and run through my hair with argan serum. I scrunch each strand as it dries and wrap them up in a microfibre towel.

And I realise that,

Each curl is precious, like a newly budding hunk of amethyst.

Each curl is delicate, like the swirly smoke that dances away from incense.

Each curl is worthy of appreciation and awe, like every marbled statue ever. (No but seriously, how do you carve marble?)

Each curl is undoubtedly sculpted by God herself,

And its time I start treating my hair that way.

My mum may not think my curls are pretty,

But I know that they’re divine.