(left: spring 2008 before I left NYU, right: summer 2009 when I returned to NYC)

There was only one difference though between my previous cut and my current one, the sodium hydroxide also known as a relaxer that kept my hair pin straight (until that new growth kicked in!). After cutting your hair once, the idea of not having hair is not scary. So when I started toying with the idea of cutting my hair again and going natural, being considered “bald-headed” was not a concern. I was scared of the idea that for 11 years, I had not felt the real texture of my hair and I literally had no idea what it would look like. For months, I would allow my hair to grow out (I think I made it to 5 months without a relaxer once!), and pull my mixed relaxed hair and natural hair back into a ponytail and stare in the mirror trying to figure out how it would look if my new growth was all that was there.

And then came the question of my profession, in truth, I’m going to be a writer and now I’m dabbling in film, so having natural hair in the arts shouldn’t cause a huge issue, but what if I changed my mind and wanted to go back to the office setting? As free-thinking as I try to be, the world as it is and as it should be are two different things, simply black women with natural hair or afros are looked at as being either radical, unkept, or both by the majority of America. I went to see Good Hair and Chris Rock did a fabulous job on illustrating the relationships that black women have with their hair. I was so proud to have cut my hair and taken the natural step weeks before and let this be a written testimony that I will never put another relaxer in my hair.

I feel healthier body and spirit wise because I believe my hair was carrying some serious negative energy and pieces of me that I had outgrown long ago. Shout out to @imchrissij for doing my big chop and making my “go-natural” experience beautiful and memorable.

My next steps are to graduate, continue writing, and produce my documentary (more details to come). But “in the mean time,” as a new member of the indie film community, I would like to share something very special with y’all and hope you’ll show some love in return.

Shout out to the writer and director of Underbelly, Donald A.C. Conley. You can purchase the full film at http://indieflix.com

Every year, NYU’s African Heritage Month Executive Board Committee plans several events during the month of February with the purpose of spreading awareness about the different aspects of black culture. Often, the black race is stereotyped into one culture when in fact so many different ethnicities make it up. Our race is one of the most diverse with African-Americans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Afro-Dominicans, etc. (I won’t go into this though because I can do a whole post on race alone.) However, getting back to our events, one of the programs we hosted was entitled “An Art Affair with Hip Hop.” Indeed, I had the pleasure of meeting this fabulous, young New York painter named Demostina who is a truly educated artist. She completed her B.A. in Illustration & Design at Parsons School of Design but, on the more interesting tip, (sorry I’m a biased future alum) she attained her M.A. in Art Education from NYU! She’s currently a practicing professional artist and art educator. I wanted to decorate my entire dorm room, also known as a shared closed space between 3 women, with her paintings. And, keeping it real, if I wasn’t on that broke student budget, I would have definitely bought some of her paintings because her stuff is outrageously unique. Unfortunately, it came down to Spring Break in Puerto Rico versus a BEAUTIFUL painting that did not belong on my project-looking dorm room wall! Nevertheless, I wanted to give her a shout out and link everyone to her web site because she is amazingly talented.

http://demostina.com