the birth of my baby goat dreads

I had known that I wanted dreadlocks for a pretty long time, but it was one of those commitments that I kept putting off. I knew I had to be sure of it when it happened, and for a long time I just wasn’t sure. I worried about work, what my parents would say, what my extended family would say, how it would look and if I would miss having soft pretty hair. Essentially, they were one of those distant “when I grow up” dreams.

It was the week before my first trip to Burning Man when I really started to think about it. I had put my hair into a bunch of small braids to keep it manageable in the desert climate, and I liked how it looked. By the time the trip started my braids and I were pretty close. The moment I realized that I was ready for my dreadlocks I was sitting on the playa in front of my camp, “The Golden café” and the man had just caught fire. Somewhere in the crackling flames I realized that I wasn’t afraid of what anyone thought of my hair. Watching the man burn was like letting go of my doubts. A little while later a guy who had been talking to me all week came and sat next to me. I knew he liked me, but I was less then interested. He sat looking at my hair for a few minutes (it had been in a bandana almost all day and now my braids were in a ponytail) and asked what it looked like when it wasn’t in braids. I looked at him and smiled. I told him that they weren’t braids, they were baby dreads. He laughed in his weird LA way and told me I couldn’t be serious, that I was too pretty for dreads. I kept smiling and said I was completely serious and that telling me I was to pretty to get them was no way to get laid. He laughed and said that he was sure I would be beautiful anyway and would eventually change my mind. I laughed too and spent the night chasing the sunrise with my friend Rez.

I enjoyed the rest of my trip and on my 21st birthday, September 9th 2009 I started working my braids into dreads. It was a slow process, and they were not completely roughed in until my birthday party on September 19th.

It has been about twenty days now, and they still require backcombing and waxing. I hear they won’t fully lock in for 3-5 months and I suppose I will find out around Christmas. My boss doesn’t mind and my family still hasn’t noticed. It has been interesting trying to sort though all the different methods and supplies and I’ve settled into a pattern that seems to work pretty well on my soft white-girl hair. (Although I will always have lose curly ends<3)

ode to my baby goat dreads

My hair doesn’t blow in the wind anymore.

Weighed down with memories and the collecting

Of thoughts like leaves drifting

 

together to lie in heaps.

Only the fresh leaves, like children

dancing

 

I mirror their growth in human form                                

Textured like the bark of surrounding trees

 

(I still have baby hairs but…) 

 My branches grow longer and thicker slowly with 

the nurturing of my gardeners, friends

Who see me growing, and

 

bring

water

 

My hair looks like worms (when it’s wet), wriggling creatures with nine hearts that

though split by careless shovels still crawl out into the rain to

live and love with the pieces of themselves

that have slipped away.

 

Together strands bond as I connect with the 

hands that pull each piece together and they

(like branches) grow tighter with

the winds of changes and human hands

wrapped tightly in the hearts of

my worms splitting still,

and loving

in the rain tears

and life still

growing

(Note: The formatting of this has been changed to fit this page)