BGLH Meetup

I haven't done a hair post in a while, but this totally deserves blogging about.

So two Saturdays ago I journeyed down to this neighborhood called Kenwood on the South Side, and went to a Naturals Meet Up for women with natural hair in the Chicago area. If that's not cool enough, it was run by this woman named Leila who writes this blog I've been reading since last year (bglhonline.com <--check it out) and I got to meet her and personally thank her for being awesome, haha. 


So in addition to with a bag full of cool unique new artisan jewelry and a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of bellydancing (!), I left this meet up with a renewed sense of self-worth and validation. I still remember one of the first things my new coworkers said to me on my first day at my internship was that they loved my hair. Here I have actually been stopped on the street numerous times to be given compliments about it. And coming from Mays Landing, NJ, where I struggle to remember a time when I have ever even seen another natural woman, this means a lot. 


At the meet up I saw women with hairstyles I'd never have thought of but now want to try, and got cool new tips--I might try henna!--but the things I'll probably never forget about this experience are the great things other natural women said to me. I went up to this one woman I'd been ogling throughout the entire discussion to compliment her on how beautiful her curls were, and she smiled and thanked me and then said that she's incredibly jealous of the way my hair falls. While I was at the product-swap table (you know free is just my price, haha), this new natural came up to me "just dying" to know what products I use, and when I told her my basic staples, a woman nearby said, "Ain't none of that gon make your hair curl like that though. That's your natural curl pattern, ain't it?" And I smiled and said yeah and the look on the woman's face made me feel really really proud, proud in a different way than if Darnell likes my shoes or the woman at the bus stop likes my dress, and in a more important way. 
Proud because I'd finally accepted the true beauty that lies in something I'd tried to hide and destroy for years and years, and because despite what certain other people in my life--**cough** my mother **cough**--think, the world is beginning to accept it to. Proud like a peacock must be proud of his feathers, or a lion of his mane. When I was going to the gas station to get more money to buy more jewelry (don't judge me), an older black woman sitting in her car stopped me and said, and I quote, "I haven't seen this many afros since the sixties!" I explained what was going on and that she should drop by and check it out...I'm proud of how far we've come.