A loc journey, protective upbringing, and the Honduran village as starting place

a year on and some noticings.

Welcome to the Life Is In Love With Me newsletter if you’re new. If you’re a regular recipient of these reminders of love, welcome back! 🌹🥭🌹🥭🌹🥭

A Sunday nightcap post because I am returning to this place softly while you’re sleeping, hopefully, and because for some reason, I truly wanted to meet you here, on this day. It is only right as we prepare for our little transitions, knowingly or unknowingly bringing a piece of Sunday night into Monday’s rising (do you feel that Sunday is an in-between too? I think of Saturday as 0, my res(e)t, my day to charge in the sun, and Sunday as my blank space, a crisp white sheet alive with quiet energy). I hope you rise well and that you listen to yourself this week.

Since today’s newsletter is thick with thought and memories, I’ll keep this section brief. What is your tea of choice?

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Today’s letter is an ode to my hair. This Tiny Desk by Nubya Garcia is one of my favourites and it feels like something you might put on on a Sunday, to match the late afternoon energy dip while you do your hair in the mirror, in rhythm, fingers memorising, a simple euphoria.

Enjoy x

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Your hair is an extension of the nervous system according to many cultures and their ancient science, as well as recent studies (also) that are catching up too. With hair being a natural extension of the sympathetic nervous system, the stored information that hair carries is vital, though scarcely spoken about. I always hear about how locs store energy and emotions, and have a deeper connection to the listening body. I think of being told as a young girl let no one put their hand in your hair. For protection, for retaining what was mine, braided into me. I think of family members I saw cut off their dreads after a death or a significant life change. My own father, after growing them for 10 years, suddenly showed up without his waist-length locs, usually roped uniformly together beneath a hat. It was just that then, a new start he said. Divorcing from dre(a)ds¹ is divorcing from old energy, past selves. Growing them is the inverse; to become again. I’ve understood this for my entire upbringing.

I now think about this as a highly sensitive person (HSP), someone who naturally picks up on all of the unsaids and has always been so deeply aware beyond the senses’ logic. A child who is sensitive becomes an individual who is intuitive, embracing or doubting it. I see that hair is not only to adorn, but to deepen, to connect further with this sensitivity. Of course I would be drawn, like sand returning back its shores on a too-fast wave, to growing my own locs.

My loc journey began in Honduras, on the floor of my rental, two-strand-twisting myself into my fullness with my reflection well into the night. I committed to myself in the fashion of many ancestors, relations and the land I come from where wearing locs carries weight that speaks before you do. Here is an account of my loc journey in the early stages and the thoughts I carry coiled in me.

Honduras, March 2023

[divine timing, endings, shrinkage]

Honduras, or Roatán island specifically, (the original settling point of the Garifuna community in this country) is where I found myself at the start of my Saturn return and also my loc journey. I knew that I wanted to begin my loc journey at this stage of my life. I had asked around to find someone who knew of a loctician and on my first day arriving, found recommendations. A good sign, I thought. I was definitely in the right place.

A few weeks into my trip and I was not vibing with any of the locticians that I had found. In fact, I wasn’t vibing with Roatán. I accepted what I was being told by land and disjointed connection; I was to be the initiator of this loc journey and so prepared to self-manage my locs.

last days with my loose natural hair, first days of 27. savouring and being seen.

I have been doing my own hair for years, it’s important to add. I’ve long found joy in trusting my own hands to deal with my strands, revelling in the intimacy of feeling my way across my scalp, row by row, plait by plait. It was a matter of intuition, precision, knowing my personal standard to re-do or re-part or accept. Doing my own hair is an extension of my practices of self-knowing and self-trusting. No matter where I find myself in the world, so long as I had an afternoon free, a mirror, a parting tool and some oils, I would be the one to make myself new with a style. In mid-March in Roatán, I spent a Saturday afternoon facing myself crossed leg in the mirror, the teeming lushness of the island almost pressed against my bedroom window, peering at my reinvention.

In the weeks running up to this, I decided to enjoy my loose natural hair entirely. Counting down dramatically, considering whether my decision was hasty, whether I should grow it out, hearing immediately the answer I was looking for. I would sit, heart racing at the thought of it, entering into my loc era, however long it was to be. Loads of romanticising my afro puff/pineapple, loads of nights running my fingers through my coils in the breeze, my final slick low buns immortalised through selfies, and in general, adoration at the several different strands that made up my afro. Everyday was an ode to myself.

After 6 hours of twisting, redoing, checking consistency and deciding on a relaxed grid rather than super clean partings, I emerged, 140+ locs light.

The next morning, I walked out of the house with my fresh twists, excited to be my new self where the world could see. Within the hour, I noticed that the full length of my twists had shrunk up to ear level. My shrinkage was coming right with me into this new journey. After trying to stretch it with bands, I embraced it and planned some new hairstyles to accommodate.

Honduras, April 2023

[self-sufficiency, community, village talk]

After a month in Roatán, I made my way to a small village in Tela, to stay with Luisa, one of the best friends that my nomadic lifestyle has gifted. She has an eco-lodge named Nuguchu on the outskirts of a village and uses her space to display the wonders of plant-based eating, low waste living, conscious offerings, and her beautiful Garifuna roots and community. She picked me up from the airport with her driver friend and prepared for a 2 hour journey to the village.

The car journey was filled with punta music, long catch-ups, and a conversation with the driver friend (Mario), whose wife maintained his healthy back length dreds. Again, I thought, I was perfectly placed, this time for my first retwist.

Maintaining my starter locs after 2 weeks was a comedown. To put names to them, it was Central American heat and humidity. My hair was still in twists, only not very neat. Everything I read suggested that I should wait a month before washing and getting my first retwist, and so I did. Swimming (or learning to) was ruled out. It was only after getting locs that I was able to swim, but that is an observation for another day.

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After almost a month in the Garifuna village, I had developed a routine for my hair that seemed to be working. It was also time to consider my first retwist. I decided to seek out the expertise in the village because 1) I saw so many beautiful dreads everywhere I went in the village, and so someone had to be able to maintain them and 2) although I was dedicated to self-trust, I wanted the first retwist to be done well, to eventually learn from. 3) (big one) Mario’s wife was out of town.

Showing up outside the house of the young woman known for her hairdressing skills, I was given a garden chair, the dust from the street creating a small cloud as she pulled it into the shade for me for our remaining few hours of the appointment. I was partaking in something traditionally communal, something I hadn’t for a while. The collectiveness of sitting with the hairdresser while she shares only a little but enough, her frequent talkative companions, the waitress who recommended the hairdresser stopping to make faces at the baby and evoke gurgling laughter, the aunties passing by sharing their gossip in Spanish and Garifuna, the plentiful and intermittent gracias a Dios, the staring children, their restless running around, the halting water truck and the little brother hanging off the back of it, testing out his loudest ‘MIERDA’ when his sisters shout him down, the sleeping dog, the taxi driver friend stopping to check in on me, hovering over my head, thumbs up as he continues his journey, the dedication to reinvention with fingertips, comb, gel twirling at my root. Self-trust is also knowing when it is time to offer complete trust with inner-knowing that it is in alignment.

My first retwist, which I consider my first decision to truly commit, was my word to myself, to not unravel the fuzzy twists while I was still able. Also, to trust the process of this new/ancient process of sealing and manipulating hair in its natural state by those who know it. I was doing so in a community known for maintaining and preserving their roots (!) in a land that will forever be connected to me now. I walked back to Luisa’s house with my scalp now visible and my locs now locs.

Belize, June 2023

[learning to retwist, ritual, budding stage]

By the time I arrived in Belize for my third visit, I was adjusting to living on a small island and I had decided on faux locs during my transition. I was transitioning through a lot. I’ve said that Belize is a teacher many times. In Belize I learned how to show up as myself even while in an undeniable transitory phase of life.

Arriving in Belize in May, I was preparing for another retwist. Open to whatever was to be, I asked around and eventually landed on the idea of retwisting myself. I had aloe vera gel and willingness. Thankfully my downstairs neighbour Kaila from

Smith Street

was already two years into her loc journey. Wearing her locs in two strand twists and then unravelling them when she felt ready, she offered to teach me how she self-maintains her abundant set of locs (and how to have patience in this stage of the journey. I had so many questions: How long was your budding stage? When did your locs drop? how long does your retwist take you? followed by my 3-hour-inaccurate estimate for my own retwist). She’d be downstairs in her apartment retwisting while I’d be upstairs doing the same, sending her pics and updates, trying to make good use of the holding clips she had leant me.

I also knew faux locs wouldn’t be sustainable during the budding phase². I decided to experiment with head wraps and turbans, adding a whole new way of presentation and, undeniably, my self view. Going through this phase in Belize was affirming and very new. Wrapping became a ritual by way of conditioning my body to see myself with this newly regal style, somehow an extension of my hair. Everyday I would experiment with a new head wrap and receive a reminder that this is also how I can be and can always be when I choose.

sacral.

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A cycle

of loving, deeply, how I choose to be. Getting locs has been one of the most aligned life decisions I’ve made. Beyond my personal experience with locs a year on, I have noticed many things:

~ On breaking the cycle. Of eurocentric beauty standards, because that is also one of my motivations for committing to my dreds. To be a dred woman who knows she is beautiful even if there is no mirror in the room for me.

~ On the constant cycle of protection. I remember while living in Birmingham, UK, I met a Rasta woman working in the theatre who I waited behind for, so that I could compliment her waist-length healthy locs. Aware of how society can be for Black women in the UK, we spoke boundaries with hair. She told me that she usually wraps her hair in a high or low turban just to protect from unwarranted hands running through her clean locs. It gives the same energy as the Jamaican women I would see wrap their hair on the Sabbath or even on a Friday while frying fish, protecting their tresses from what isn’t to interfere with them.

A part of having locs is protecting them, depending on where you live. It is covering them to prevent unwanted gaze, pollutants, unwarranted touch, to dismiss the entanglement of unwanted energies etc. Historically, Black women have used head coverings as a way of shielding from unwanted attention or energy, or by law or tradition, and in the meantime - obvious regality. I pay attention to when I feel called to cover or reveal my locs. I’m thinking of just how gravity defying and attractive they are, how you do not always know how you will be received. It’s also worth remembering how people with dreads in the Caribbean would have their sacred locs shaved as punishment by police or others who despised the culture³. I wonder how much of this we hold and internalise, bundle up and wrap tightly - to resist.

~ On the cyclical self-sessions in mirrors. Retwist days are therapeutic whenever they come around. I’ve gotten into the habit of preparing my flaxseeds; boiling them down to a gel, straining them, letting them cool, gathering my clips and bands, and dragging a mirror to the verandah to do my retwist among the elements. Sea breeze sometimes too strong and threatening to knock over my half full bottles but it’s a date with myself after all. It is what I choose. As I write this, I realise how reminiscent this is of how it started in Honduras.

~ On the cycle of needing less. In my last post I spoke about healing the root and I suppose this week I have found myself on the other side, tending to the crown. Loc’ing my hair has triggered a transformation that is deeper than my hair follicles, it is about holding myself as sacred enough to only give myself what I know to be healing and good. I protect myself. I try to care for my locs with only the safest, natural ingredients. Handmade natural rosemary shampoos, oils I’ve blended myself, rose water I make in the kitchen alongside hair gels on Sunday mornings. And it does start in the mornings, my commitment to self-caring. I start the day spritzing rose water and massaging oils into my scalp and it sinks into the rest of the day and how I tenderly meet my needs to the best of my ability.

I have so much to reflect on. I’m sure you can tell by this letter that this personal retelling is just the beginning. In fact, I’ve focused on my first few months and some memories that stand out but of course there is more. 9+ months and more. I think there will never be enough archives of Black women recounting the lessons received through time spent breathing and reconditioning via the scalp. Let’s return sometime soon.

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A Prompt

What did your upbringing teach you about your hair? And how does this change as you do? (I wonder, will you see it as invitation to continue the cycle of transformation?)

the cashier wanted to finish his cigarette before serving us, the store was empty so we were singing, my retwist was geometry, the golden hour was becoming sunset, Sundays are divine, everything is

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Thank you, so much, for being here.

Below I share some more writings that I hope you will enjoy.

An Origin Story: Food Poisoning In Mexico Turned Me Nomadic

The Friday unwind 006: A Final Pep Talk Before My Year Of Audacity

A story about quitting my job to write

Musings on Black nomadism (pt 1)

The Friday unwind 004: When there is nothing to become

Love,

Amara Amaryah

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1. In this essay, I interchange between locs and dre(a)ds. From my understanding, ‘dreadlocks’ was a term used in a derogatory fashion to undermine and warrant violence on the Rasta community and those who chose to wear their hair in this way. There is nothing dreadful about this livity or hair choice, I agree. Still, I live in the Caribbean now and grew up around Caribbean family members who referred to themselves as ‘dred’, with love and honor in their voice. Belonging is fostered through this word. While I understand that using ‘locs’ is a way to move away from the false image of what dreadlocks are, I sometimes refer to myself as dred too. When you are of a set of people who must unlearn and relearn who you are, sometimes the semantics of it doesn’t matter as much as the uplifting reclamation, in my opinion.

2. The budding phase is a part of the loc journey where the hair begins to ‘sprout’. It is the second phase where locs start to bulge and prepare to remain loc’d. It is also described as the stage where the swelling is a sign of maturation, where your hair starts to ‘tangle inside the loc and form its own internal loc matrix’ as put by the Digital Loctitian.

3. So much history to unpack here, it truly deserves more space than this post can facilitate. Still, it is worth exploring when you have time. Only in 2020 it was reported that Jamaica’s High Court ruled that a school was within its right to ban a child from attending class due to her locs. I also recommend Kei Miller’s ‘Augustown’ as a fictionalized detailing based on true events in Jamaica.