My hair has always been a point of contention.

My earliest memories are of my hair being constricted in a futile attempt to turn it into something that it wasn't: bone straight. I cringe whenever I think about it. To get ready for church the next morning, I would spend my entire Saturday with my hair: washing it, conditioning it, braiding it up, drying it out and then straightening it. While everyone's technique varied, for younger girls all of this usually takes place at the kitchen sink and then the nearby stove, where the heavy iron/steel implements sit waiting to take the kink out and burn your skin/ears/scalp.  Eventually, you graduate to chemicals--relaxers and perms.  But I digress.

I was supposed to keep this hair-do with pink rollers, pin curls, hair pomade, whatever it took. Maintenance and upkeep meant lots of things besides wrapping my hair at night.  It meant no hot baths, because the steam would make my hair "go back." It meant no strenuous athletic activity or exercise, because sweat would essentially do the same thing. It meant absolutely no swimming. And God help me if it rained and I had nothing to cover my head.

No one ever explained why what my hair was doing naturally wasn't good enough.

After years of weekly press 'n curls, I was assured that I would soon receive the real mark of black womanhood: a perm. This meant freedom, of a sorts: I would graduate from the pain and high maintenance of hot combs to the more sophisticated torture of chemicals applied directly to the hair and scalp. I could sweat and swim with the best of them, knowing I was only 30 minutes with a blow-dryer away from a perfectly straightened and well coiffed 'do.

Unfortunately, I was a tomboy, with six brothers and no sisters. Until puberty hit, I was running neck and neck with them. We had a swimming pool, played basketball in the driveway, baseball in the backyard and were constantly on our bikes. I was so overwhelmed with the chore of having to do something with my hair all the time that I stopped caring how it looked. Having fun was way more important.  I read books and swam constantly, and I loved to run through the woods with our dog at breakneck speed, usually with no shoes on.

This inability to keep my head of hair straight meant I was patently unattractive, something that I carried with me for far longer than I should have. It also meant, on a certain level, that I was a discredit to my race and gender because to the black girl community at large, hair is everything. Do whatever you have to do: fry it, dye it, weave it, but don't you dare leave the house unless it's "right." And everyone knew what that meant. Fortunately, by the time my perm years had truly begun, I'd moved to Austin and shaved my head.

For the first time in my hair-conscious life, I felt free...