Article illustration by Studio Baby Cupid — Article illustration by **Studio Baby Cupid**

Prior to April 2020, I had never washed my own locs. Up until the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, I had dutifully maintained a standing appointment at Artizans 4/22 every four weeks for exactly a year. My loctician, Lovely, washed my hair with a kind of love that is, truthfully, indescribable.

Lovely knows nearly everything about me. She has stood behind me, both figuratively and literally, through heartbreak, career crisis, and a few of my darkest hangovers. She has fielded all my late night DMs about how I've been thinking about dyeing my locs purple, or how I want box braids down to my knees. She was patient with me that time I went swimming before my locs had even begun maturing and nearly ruined all her hard work. She listened to me bemoan the harem of DJs I was sleeping with in the summer of 2019 and didn’t judge me when I sat in her chair, still half-drunk from the night before, smelling like the Durocher basement. Lovely is a saint, and there was no one else who I’d let wash my hair but her.

And then, in an instant, I was alone. There was no one to massage my scalp but myself and I had no clue what I was doing. Suddenly it was just my hair and I, staring at ourselves in the mirror, with no clue when we were going to be rescued. And so, I tried to adapt. I bought hair products off the Internet with CERB money. I watched YouTube videos until I could recite them from memory. I sat on my couch with a mirror propped up on my dining room chair and tried to wrangle my locs into twists while watching an entire season of Too Hot to Handle. At some moments, I felt like I was at the rock-bottom of my hair journey, constantly afraid my locs were going to shed themselves from my scalp in my sleep as an act of protest.

Though my mom is white, I grew up surrounded by Black women who tried to teach me how to manage my hair after years of chemical relaxing and emotional turmoil. The first Black woman I remember touching my hair was a student at the beauty school in the strip mall near my house. I went to her, faithfully, until I showed up for an appointment one day and she wasn’t there. Instead, a man sat me in a chair surrounded by several white women who gnashed and pulled at my hair until I was sobbing. I remember being so small, and in so much pain, and the salon kicked me and my mother out for causing a disturbance. God bless my mother, she tried, but my hair has always had a mind of its own. It took many years and the nimble hands of several African women to teach me how to love it. Now, the only people I let touch my hair on a regular basis are my loctician and my barber, Mike Chacko (a true legend), in addition to some (but few) close friends.

And though I am of course, in theory, capable of caring for my own hair, I have grown to depend on the guidance of those trusted individuals who maintain my mane. After a few years of paying an exorbitant amount of money to have other people make sure my hair is healthy, I almost forgot that my hair is mine. Before COVID-19, I had only scratched the surface of Black Girl YouTube. Aside from oiling my scalp and making sure my locs were moisturized, I never really thought about my role in the life of my hair. In some ways, I felt like my hair belonged to other people, and it was on loan to me, to take care of and not fuck up between appointments.

Like when I went on a trip a few months after starting my locs and swam even though I definitely was not supposed to. (When I sat down in Lovely’s chair, she was horrified by what she saw. My locs were falling apart, unravelling, frizzy and dry. I felt so guilty, as if my hair was not even my hair and it was her money that had been spent over the preceding 3 months, not mine.) Or that time, in a pinch, I went to see a barber who wasn’t Mike Chacko (Sorry, Mike, I love you!) I felt like I was committing adultery against a long-term partner (which, as the post-quarantine TikToks suggest, is an actual breach of the Barber Commandments).

In under a week in March, I went from having my appointments booked for three months in advance to having them cancelled indefinitely. It was terrifying. I was like a child left to my own devices. I was Kevin in Home Alone, setting elaborate traps in order to create a system that protected me from my own ability to cause irreparable harm to my scalp.

Truthfully, I cried. I cried often. My arms grew tired from installing twists with cheap Kanekalon bought off the Internet. I spent most of my waking hours scouring Black Girl YouTube trying to figure out how the fuck to keep my hair moisturized. I genuinely considered spending $500 I didn’t have on a wig. I don’t even wear wigs! I couldn’t have installed a wig if my life depended on it!

But there’s one lesson we have all been forced to learn over the past six months. Humans must evolve. We have to figure our shit out. We have to grow. We have to do what terrifies us, what we think is impossible, or else we won’t survive.

I would never have imagined it possible in April, but my hair and I have built the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. We are two scorned lovers, reconciling and committing to extensive couples therapy in order to heal our relationship. I love my locs. I’ve washed them on my own a few times now. None of them have fallen out, and after touching them just now to verify, they are healthy and strong.

I’ve been thinking about that little girl, sitting in a chair like an animal at a petting zoo, having inexperienced stylists beat her hair into submission. That little girl felt so lonely, so scared. She was confused and angry. It’s cheesy, please forgive me, but if I could go back in time, I would tell her it’s going to be okay.

I would tell her about the friends who’ve stayed up late with me to install my braids. I would tell her about the friends who’ve stayed up late with me to take out my braids. I’d tell her about the women on YouTube who showed what Cantu products to use when I felt stranded in the aisles of the beauty supply store. I would tell her about Mike and Lovely. I would tell her that there are people out there who will take the time to treat her with respect. I would tell her that she herself will become her own hero. She will learn, she will adapt. She will be scared. She will figure it out. Her hair will grow and she will feel beautiful.

Willow Cioppa is an interdisciplinary writer based in Montreal, QC. Their work focuses on the nuances of sexuality, trauma, self-reflection, femininity, Blackness, and their undying love for rap music. In addition to working in the tech industry as a UX writer, their life’s work is the search for the perfect rep wine to drink while writing about ex lovers who have wronged them.

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Art by Studio Baby Cupid