A Knotless, Mid-Back Length Summer

The anticipation of sweet, wet, warmth. A fever breaks out, dampness overruns the air in between and all around me. Waiting for the retirement of the placidity of spring is as gruesome as waiting in that cracked leather salon chair, you know those beat up ones, foam seeping through shards of leather. With the metamorphosis of the temperature comes the shedding of another layer of hair. I change my hair just about every two to three months, but for me, the process is something more of an emotional ritual, a tribulation. Changing the braids requires six to eight hairs of unbraiding, two to three hours of washing and detangling, one hour of blow drying, and seven to nine hours of re-braiding. Like a sweatshop, the African braiding salons are packed with Senegalese aunties, pumping out braids on a plethora of heads.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, St Nicholas Avenue, Madison Avenue, and anywhere between 118th and 145th is my braiding rat path. It’s standard to make an appointment, but this time around I was feeling impulsive for a quick change. So, by default, I need to go to the twenty-four hour African braiding salons that accept walk-ins. It’s 3:30 am, the sun is still veiling itself at the heels of the moon. I open the door to the salon, all heads snap at me. The braiders look at me with a sort of visage that I need to read in-between the lines to comprehend. It asserts sentiments of slight annoyance, aloofness, and maternal comfort. After an hour and a half of waiting with a tote bag at my side blossoming with bundles of platinum blonde braiding hair, the braiders tell me, “Come sit, baby."

There is no air conditioning, words in French, and Wolof, the Senegalese native language, draft through the air instead. The braiders keep one another cool and abate with their words, a never ending conversation. They speak to one another in their language incessantly, reciting and exchanging words of amenity and contention to one another across every square inch of the salon. They speak loudly into my ear as they twist and work the strands of hair on the sides of my head, conversations bounce back and forth, ear to ear. It’s like listening to an infinite symphony.

Pools of sweat are already gathering beneath me, plastering the skin of my thighs to the chair. The heat accentuates the pinching, pulling, and yelling as the braider weaves her way through my coarse hair. They braid tightly, seven hours of aching, but beauty is pain. I subject myself to this despondency out of vanity. It’s summertime, I need to look like I’m, “outside” so they say. Being “outside” as a woman, means I need to look sexy, be tantalizing. The only time I’ve ever felt or been recognized as such, is when I keep my thick, natural hair imprisoned in some alluring braid style. So, I sit down, shut up, and endure the pain if it means I can match the sensuous, racy energy of the summer.

Summer hairstyles are interchangeable with protective hairstyles for black women, boho braids are a classic. Resembling mermaid hair, long luscious locks of freetress, deep wave curls peek out in between honey-blonde braids all throughout the head. Lighter braiding hair is also common with this look. A blend of colors 630, 27 and 1B, to get the perfect mix. The braiders subtly roll their eyes when I flip my phone over to show them the style I want. Smacking their tongues to the roof of their mouth with a cluck, my request is ugly (in their conjecture). I want knotless, mid-back, medium-small, platinum-white braids, cut with layers almost like a wolf cut, and hot water set with rollers so they flip up and inward at the ends. Oh, and a lot of braiding hair left out at the ends.

We quibble back and forth, she tells me she can't do this style, "You don't have the right braiding hair,” she says. I plead with her, “Is it easier if I just do this, I know I have the right hair." Trying to keep the style as close as possible to what I requested, “I’ll do it like this, not that, no flip at the end” the braider demands, “Okay, fine-but could you still keep it like this," I beg. Ultimately, I know I’ll end up far from what I wanted, I’ll just have to settle. My hair sticks out like a lifesaver in a sea of braided heads, reminding me that I will never doubtlessly feel like I belong amongst other fellow black women, or the white counterpart. Rather, somewhere far off, in a space where the ethnically confused try to carve their way.

The hour reaches 6:00 am, the sun beginning to crest over the night sky, rays of warmth make the packed salon ooze of incandescence. The girl braiding my hair can’t be older than twenty, our eyes puffed, black and blue, hold one another's gaze with correlative understanding. She says, “I’m sorry I need to eat first, yesterday I didn’t eat until one in the morning.” How long has she been braiding for with no break? Buzzing from head to head pollinating each with more braids. “Of course," I told her. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a black dot crawling across the floor. A roach. It hurls its fat body over the loose locks of hair on the ground. Seven feet away lay’s a toddler, sleeping with only a thin blanket to separate them from the dirt-ridden floor. A braider walks over to move the child away from the falling strands of braiding hair. Lethargically, the child rolls over with a groan, drifting back into a deep sleep.

The twenty four-hour braiding salon: a never-ending rabbit hole of clashing socio-cultural situations. To be the braider, or to be getting your hair braided for summer. To be sleeping on the floor of your mother’s salon, or to be staying up until three in the morning to change your braids so you could feel like a real woman. To be eating your first meal of the day at 3:00 am, hands plastered in braiding gel, or to feel an entire disconnect from your own cultural background. Maybe there’s a sense of summertime sadness (hey Lana), in every trope.