Hot Comb
Becoming a mother has made me think back to the things my mother did with me in the past. As I stand here preparing to do to my daughter what my mother done to me, I laugh as the smell of the hair grease, and smoke from the hot straighten comb fills the air. The smell takes me back to the memory of burnt ears, the feeling of the heat right next to my scalp and hours of torment. Be still, before you make me burn you, my mother would say to me. Does she know how scared I was and she wants me to sit still. I just knew when I got my hair shampooed it was time to get a hot press. I dreaded getting it done, but the complements that followed were well worth the burnt ear. I think back as I hear myself saying to my daughter what my mother use to say to me. Hot pressing is a strong part of African American roots, to get straighter hair before there was a chemical straightener or a flat iron came along, a hot press is what you had to get done. You could hear the hair grease sizzling and popping from the heat and just knowing your scalp was so close to it, you tired your best not to move an inch. Burns did not happen all the time; I don’t want to sound like my mother was abusing me, but when it did it made up for the times you didn’t get one. When she tells you to hold your ear, you are praying the sweat from your hands don’t slide because that ear is going to get it. The day I got my first relaxer was the best. No more hot combs, sizzling grease and burnt ears. Just thirty minutes for a chemical process and I’m outside playing instead of spending my whole day being wasted on hair. I know this is what my daughter is feeling as she braces herself for the extreme heat that I’m about to apply. I wonder when she gets of age and has a daughter of her own will she have these memories of me combing her hair, the smell of hair grease and the fear of getting her ear burnt. Now, that I chemically relax her hair the smell of the chemical will make new...