My Hair

As a little girl I always hated Sunday nights. As the day would get darker and darker I would feel more and more unsettled. Sunday was the night that my mother would shampoo my hair and I hated every moment of it. As an African American child with typical African American hair my hair would only get washed once a week in order to not dry it out or make it fall all out. That also meant that I had a very thick head of hair that would get easily tangled.

The process would start when my mother would pull out the big black combs that would help release the braids that were in all week. The big teeth of the comb would work through the tangles. I could hear the snap and pop of my tangled hair loosening and sometimes snapping right out of my head. This was only the beginning.

My mother would fill up the bath and put me in. She would wet my hair and lather my hair. The smell of Johnson's and Johnson's no tear shampoo that did cause tears would start to fill up the room. The suds would start to run down my forehead and straight into my eyes. I could barely hear my mother tell to lean back so she could rinse out my hair. I was always so sacred to lean back for fear that I would drown, so I would out right refuse and than I would start to cry. My mother had no other choice but to give my hair a little tug in order to encourage me to lean back. She wanted to get this over with as quickly as I did. The process was just as traumatic for me as it was for her. The entire ordeal was repeated one more time.

Two towels would be ready when I got out of the tub. My mother would quickly wrap one towel around my head turban style and the other would go around my shoulders like a cape. I would run as fast as my little legs could go, fast enough to make the towel around my shoulders fly behind me. With one hand holding the towel on my head in place I would run straight into my room. I would put my nightgown on and report to my mother's room. The worse was yet to come.