flying free.

it's finally happened: i can no longer fit my swim cap over my dreadlocks.

i knew this day was coming. for the past couple of months i've struggled to shove my dreads under the fabric cap before i swim. i'd come out of the pool with a headache from the too-tight cap and sore eyes from the too-tight goggles.

on saturday the cap ripped while i wrestled with it. i didn't have a spare cap or even a hair tie with me. how could i swim with my dreads loose? and then i remembered ... i surf with my dreads flying free - and i love it. why can't i do the same when i swim?

so i tried it, and i've decided i will never, ever wear a swim cap again. it's so much more comfortable with out it! i think i actually swim better with my dreads loose, floating around me in the water.

+ + + +

i've been dread now for two-and-a-half years this month. the dreads are finally growing a little. fattening out a lot. some of them are monsters. some of them are starting to blunt at the ends. they're really hard and rough, nothing soft and smooth and cuddly about these dreadies.

i'm starting to notice the weight of my dreads. it's odd for me, who spent more than a decade with my hair severely shorn, to have such heavy hair. i love the feeling of my dreads swishing across my shoulder, or spread out across the pillow, or the weight of them tilting my head back when they're piled in to one of my head wraps.

i do still hope for them to be long, really long. like, waist-length. whether they will ever get to that length remains to be seen. my hair has never grown beyond my shoulder blades, but that was a long time ago.

it's all part of the patience that being dread teaches you. you can't hurry dreadlocks [well, you can, but that's not my path]. they do what they want, when they want. and so the journey continues ...

+ + + +

john and i recently did a little photo shoot of my dreadlocks. he took three of the four photos above.
[i took the one of myself in the mirror.]
for perspective, here's a photo pohangina pete took of me two years ago when my dreads were just six months old.