H A I R

Some months ago, my darling Ibukun shared a fascinating picture on her instagram handle @ibukunwrites and the caption was beautiful! I asked for permission to post it on the blog.  I was waiting for the right time to post it and I know, it is now.

A fascinating piece of Art

A preserver of history

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They call this one JUNE 12

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Art is Creating (ilarun : cutting comb ‘that English name though lol) .

Art is naming (June 12!)

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My Hair Story

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I didn’t start making hair until after SS3 (like very close to valedictory service period). I went through all of my baby pictures and I couldn’t find one picture of me that wasn’t low cut. I went to a Nursery and Primary School that allowed it but mum wouldn’t allow

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In a world where hair making is considered an identifying factor for a woman, my Mum saw it as an academic distraction you know it can be painful when they call hairstyles on Friday for the following week and you just had to sit on Saturday with your Father putting a vibrating clipper on your head for a cool trimming .

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With time, I wasn’t thinking about making my hair. But you know JSS3 after junior waec, you’ll see your mates already making hair that they know they’d cut before resumption o (I went to a no-hair making Secondary School).

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SS 3 came and some people were already making hair covering it under beret during senior WAEC/NECO. You can’t try that with my Mum. Those girls were grooming it in time for VS and here I was, collecting pass from my Mama two weeks to VS to look like a lady proper

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Many years after, still the same person who put a scissors into my relaxed hair (another story) to start a natural hair journey. . .

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What they tried to teach us; there’s enough time to be woman!!!! Don’t be getting distracted by a phase of femininity you’d surely experience. Focus on what makes you a girl the society is not used to – girls whose success are necessary. And above all, being woman is not even defined by hair making.

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That’s true cos believe me, sometimes I get tired of hair making and wigs are not even helping (they do more than protect the edges)

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Tender Heart.

A skit by That Warri Girl on Instagram reminded me of two people I once knew, well it was the song on the skit that took me down memory lane. It was Tender Heart by Lionel Richie.

Friday Fiction- The Stripper.

Lekan was dead.

There was no doubt in my mind that he was in a mortuary or his body was floating in some river or slowly rotting in the boot of an abandoned car, the possibilities of his location were endless. I had forgotten how to do probabilities and permutations, they were part of my favourite things to do at secondary school maths, along with longitude and latitude calculations. I liked Maths in secondary school and would spend hours poring over the topics. Anything that wasn’t surd and matrix.

K-Legged Tourism.

“Chai I no even dey Lagos”

I was chatting with a friend who came into Lagos two days ago and wanted us to see and after tying ‘chai’ my phone predicted the rest of the message. I smiled as I realised how often I must have typed those words in that sequence. I have travelled every month this year- more than once in some months (May was epic) and all these trips have been within Nigeria- why am I not global now? Chissss *in Charles’s Okocha’s hypeman’s voice*

Mystery, Mystery…

After Sidney Sheldon died and I had read all the books he’d written, a certain writer slowly filled the void left in my heart and mind- his name is David Badacci. Ekene might not remember now but it was through him I first discovered David Baldacci, he was holding ‘Saving Faith’ and I asked to look at it. In a few minutes I was lost in the book and felt bereft when he had to take the book with him, luckily he would later agree to loan me the book for a day and that was enough.