Very grateful to introduce you to Solomon, from Georgia. Solomon views himself as a man of the Spirit and lives life each day as it comes. He is 21 and as many Loc wearers, grew in a certain core type of wisdom through his hairstyle choice. As he relates his story, you can feel his spirit being pulled to his cultural past and returning to the present with a deeper insight into himself. I hope you enjoy his Loc journey as he takes us through his world.
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As I sit here and write this interview I have just reached my 7th month of wearing Locs.There has been highs and there have been lows.There have been days where I've walked out of my house with an estatic sense of pride to be developing Locs; enjoying inner freedom where quite frankly people's opinion's meant less to me than dog droppings and to see how far I've come as a young adult.
Likewise, there have been days where I've had the alfafa's and unicorns that never seem to go down no matter how hard I've tried. I've had the knotty super matted day's and the day's where I've even daydreamed about getting the conditioner, combing them out, and just rocking the fro again. Through it all I've looked through my personal loc album of loc pics; all the way from my barely half an inch starter twists and have been encouraged from online groups of hundred's of people who went through the same process. [Other people just like me] From the starter twist's, to the babie's, to the unruly teenager's, to mature and glorious.
The funny thing is for many people it starts as a curiousity, a wonder, and then to a "I think this would work for me hairstyle" and as time goes on and you go through the stages of development many people see how Loc's no matter the style or starter method mimic life in so many ways and in every stage. From just a fro or strands of hair that have potential to initiation twist's or plaits, to babie's and so on and so forth.You learn how to be patient. You learn how to be still. You learn self-acceptance. You learn how to be free on your own terms, to go back to the basic's to look within even if that wasn't your intention. This is not true for all Loc wearer's, but from the dozen's I've spoken to who plan to keep them for decades or life, it's true.
There are many reasons why I chose to wear this style. Initially moving to GA as a teen not too far from Atlanta, Loc's and twists where everywhere! I fell in love with the comb coil twist style. It was neat, was gender freindly for a man, and you could grow your hair all in one! At the time I was sporting an s-curl and it wasn't till I was 19 I grew my natural hair out and just did it.
Within 3 months I cut them to go to an educational program and honestly for those eight months I just wasn't the same. It was a negative enviornment and It was a negative existence emotionally, mentally and spritually. Within 8 months when I got as much as I was going to get I resigned early, came back to a positive enviornment, and within a month I was loc'ing again! I made a vow I would never cut them again for a job, school, relationship; nothing. If they can't accept me with locs I don't need them.When you sell-out - your selling more than you think. What will you have to change next? It definetly will be something else.
I realize my reasons now are quite simple. It started as a general love for natural hair, to restore my hair and scalp from damage, and a great style that fit me. Now I realize the subconcious reasons. It was me stepping into my self-acceptance and freedom, my self-love manifesting physically, me wanting to express honor to my Creator for making me this way, and giving honor from my ancestral subconcious to all those black ancestors I have who lost their lives on the Atlantic Slave Trade Route; who had to conform and lose their culture. Also honoring those who I came from paying homage to even recent ancestors who where beaten, killed, and raped for my civil rights; to step into the glory of the melanated man The Creator made me to be. I have realized it's more then just the hair, but truly the mind and the spirit beneath the crown as well.
Ashe
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