These days I’m again going through the paces again with my hair. By that I mean: now that it’s more gray and white than black, I’m trying to figure out what to do with all the gray kinks and curls. I wish I had the nerve to just go “natural” the way younger women are doing. I’m also fascinated by the way African women have for centuries worked their hair. Look at novelist Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi’s many styles! Here she is in my favorite:

How I wish she had been around when I was much younger, for me to have seen how beautifully my type of hair could be worn. But then I lived in Europe, and there were no hair weavers or braiders and anyway, all I wanted was straight, manageable hair. Even when straightened, a few weeks after going through the process, the roots betrayed my hair’s nature.

Hair defines those of African ancestry. Growing up in a White family and community, I had no exposure to a Black people. I wanted to be like everyone around me who had straight hair. Issues of hair became, early on, my cross. Had my German parents asked my birth mother, they would have learned (had they trusted her knowledge…) that all they would have needed to do to avoid the daily torture, was moisten my hair to relax it. Then the comb would have gone through, and my braids would have been in place in no time and without pain.

It is no surprise that thanks to my hair, I experienced a painful racist situation in Germany. It was no secret that I had won first prize in the Miss Mannequin 1963 pageant by a significant margin. It was also no secret that the sponsors wanted the award to go to a white girl. I gracefully accepted the second prize, which wasn’t bad at all, seeing that among the lovely gifts accompanying the recognition was a year of free service at a premier beauty parlor. Anything the second place winner wanted done to/with her hair… would be. Wow! I could have excellent professional treatments for a whole year!

Of course I was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it. I accepted the rejection, for although I had all sorts of wind in my sails at the time, my damaged self-esteem had me believe that being rejected was something I deserved. Mind you, had I been awarded the first prize, I would also have felt I deserved it, showing that either way, my sense of superiority and inferiority was well-developed in its own awkward way. I felt superior to the Whites around me, but when my Blackness became an issue, that superiority was easily squashed.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Michael July’s coffee table book, AFROS: A Celebration of Natural Hair. It is filled with magnificent images of Afros, and reminded me of the uproar about Beyonce and Jay-Z allowing Blue Ivy’s hair to grow as God intended. It is obvious the child’s hair is soft and well taken care of… and she looks beautiful, probably the way Beyonce looked when she was a baby.

But now it’s summer, hot, and time for a hair cut. After that I’ll let it grow, and maybe in the fall, when temperatures drop, I’ll have the courage to play with a head full of natural hair.