happy2Bnappy...New poem "Secret Life of Curls"

Last year a friend of mine who is a mompreneur as well as natural hair blogger and enthusiast, LaTashia Carter-Perry had an event called "Curls Night Out" where she brought together natural hair care vendors, natural hair care professionals and lovers of natural hair for a celebration of all of the elements that make our natural kinks and curls so magical and amazing! LaTashia asked me to do some poetry for this event and I was honored and delighted. I was so excited about this event that I was inspired to write a new poem. In the weeks leading up to this event I found out that I was preggo with baby number 6 and life went from zero to 100...real quick! Needless to say I didn't memorize the poem and actually lost the notebook that it was written in! I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason so I just did another appropriate poem, but i was still bummed about losing my new poem and my new notebook.  Last week I wrote a blog dealing with my daughter's natural hair journey and as fate would have it I found the notebook with the lost poem in it...AINT GOD GOOD!




You can follow LaTashia on FB at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secret-Life-of-Curls//

and

http://mamagonethrifting.blogspot.com





So as a dedication to natural hair, black history month, and my homegirl who helped inspire this poem you have "The Secret Life of Curls"





We sew in our existence

18-20 inches

27 pieces of black girl puzzle

muzzled mane

pain in our beauty

untamed and unruly

you can't gel down the edges of the earth

can't change birth rites

there is beauty in this crown

brown mound of Mojo

the makers magic

creation lives in these curls

I woke up like this

Luscious

no you can't touch it

it's as if heaven erupted from my head

they hate it cuz they can't tame it, can't conquer it or claim it

no mater how you try and train it these roots still grow nappy

just like my mammy and my granny

I've got good genes

and as a girl my father told me my hair is good because it is growing out of my head

Just the way God intended

splendid spirals

an eyeful of ebony essence

an unintentional rebel

the revolutionary act of being a black girl

this hair has carried the fears and burdens of the world

while they marvel at it in private, this is the secret life of curls


Copyright 2014 Amber Hasan

Bonding through baldness..."it's just hair"

Yes, really, Bonding through Baldness!  There is some kind of humor in every situation and my daughter Eva and I are the type of people who always try and find that humor.  Even with that being so,before writing this blog I talked to my daughter and let her know that I was going to share this experience just to make sure she was comfortable with it and she is.  

They say that "necessity is the mother of invention", or something like that.  I don't know who "they" are but I think that "they" could be on to something.  About seven or eight years ago when I had less children and more energy I would dabble in making my own skin products; creams, shampoos, soaps, and the like.  At the time I had just begun having these really weird rashes and my skin couldn't take the use of most commercial products on the market.  Several years later I found out that the rashes were caused by Lupus. I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), commonly known as Lupus, a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). This diagnosis caused me to become more conscious of the products that I use and the ingredients in those product.  But to tell the truth just because I became more conscious of what products I used doesn't mean that I changed much, it just means that I thought about it more often.  

I didn't make any real changes until about 4 months ago when my 11 year-old daughter came to me and showed me her head and I was devastated by what I saw.  My daughter had 4 large bald spots in her head, she had worn braids during the summer that damaged her scalp and she developed traction alopecia.  When she went for her yearly physical a week later we had her doctor look at the spots and he prescribed a pill, a shampoo, and a cream but he wasn't sure that the hair would grow back.  I'm not a huge fan of pills but I also wanted my daughter to get better.  Eva is generally level headed but her scalp was damaged and I had no idea how long it would take for the hair to grow back.  I gave my daughter the medication that the doctor prescribed and the next day she had a horrible migraine with vomiting and the whole nine, which caused her to leave school early.  I decided at that moment it was up to me to help my daughter's scalp heal and grow her hair back.  Luckily I save all of my old notebooks and I found some of my old skin and hair care recipes.  I combined a hair and skin cream recipe with a beard growth conditioner to make an all natural hair growth and conditioning cream. 

I started treating Eva's hair and scalp by keeping them as healthy as possible.  As a mother there is so much fulfillment in being able to pass knowledge to your daughter, that is how we live on, through the information and skills that we share.  I would walk Eva through every step and have her assist me when I made products so that she will always know how to keep her hair healthy.  I washed her hair at least once a week with an apple cider vinegar conditioner, used a homemade hair tea every other week and used the hair growth and conditioning cream daily on the hair and scalp as needed. I styled her hair in protective styles only.  Eva wore mostly braid and twist outs that had to be strategically styled to cover the bald spots. Within two weeks we could already see results and after three months her scalp was healed and the hair had grown back in all of the spots.  

I trust my daughter's doctor and I truly believe that he is good at what he does.  With that being said I am glad we decided not to use the medication.  Using natural methods helped me to trust my abilities and I was able to show my daughter how  alternative medicine can be used successfully and that healing doesn't have to come from a pill.

I also unexpectedly learned a great deal about my daughter through this experience.  My daughter is more resilient, self-confident and fearless than I could have ever hoped for.  I know that kids can be cruel so I did my best to conceal the hair loss, which was hard in the beginning.  Eva never let it bother her, if someone happened to ask about the hair loss she would give them a matter of fact response, she owned it.  She would always be polite but she was never embarrassed or intimidated by the questions.  Classmates would also ask her why she didn't just wear weave, and she would respond by asking them why they were concerned with HER hair.  When we would discuss it I would always tell my daughter "it's just hair, it will grow back" and that is the attitude that she embodied through it all.  At such a young age she understands that she is so much more than her hair and she is comfortable in her own skin.  I don't care if she loses all of her hair, I just hope that she never loses that understanding...

Left October 2014/ Right January 2015

Fighting for Eve's Innocence

My new book of poetry entitled "Fighting for Eve's Innocence" has been finished for over a year.  The book has been patiently waiting for me to be ready,  waiting for me to be still enough to give it the love and attention that it deserves...and I am almost there!  "Fighting for Eve's Innocence" is about being holistically woman to the best of my understanding.  The title represents the battle that women around the world fight daily.  It represents a battle that transcends race, class, educational level, income, religion, political affiliation and sexual orientation.  A battle to live outside of boxes built to imprison us, and color outside the lines drawn in order for us to paint "pretty pictures".  We as women have been the scapegoats of society, bearing the weight and responsibility of all the wrongs of the world while being denied the praise and benefits of what goes right.  This book is an acceptance of dualities, this is my manifesto for the mothers of mankind...they say the pen is mightier than the sword...so this book is me bearing arms!!!  Be on the lookout!!!

National Poetry Month Poetry Challenge 1 of 30...yeah i'm late, poets are always late!

National Poetry Month is on of my favorite times of year!!!  Mostly because it is in April and I love spring...but I love poetry as well.  It is always fun to see all of the "poetry challenge" posts on social media sites along with all of the awesome poetry events that go on during this month.  I love the poetry challenge but being a mother of five it is hard for me to make any commitment past taking a shower and brushing my teeth on a daily basis!  So I am going to humbly attempt to write 30 poems in 30 days, even though I am a spur of the moment, middle of the night, while i'm driving with no pen or paper in sight type of writers.  I am already 10 days late and playing catch up, so these 30 poems in 30 days may never come to fruition...and if not, oh well, it could be worse!!!

Epilogue of Clementine

Life Actually

Rhapsody wrapped in beautiful tragedy

Causality of my own calamities

Clementine

Coal miners daughter

Got to close to the water, mesmerized by my own reflection

I got carried away

Hopefully one day

School children will sing songs of my demise disguised by innocence

Death is so poetic when paired with the right melody

Sing the song of my transition in a key of transparency

Let them see me for what I really was

Am

Always will be

A girl who teeters near the fringes

Fear of falling is not a strong enough deterrent

The rumble of the current sounds like the ancestors speaking in drums

The whispers of the waves call me to wade in the brine

The divine is not sublime here

It is in your face

Up close and personal invading personal space

Bold and thrilling

Fulfilling private prophecies

Weaving me into the tapestry of God’s property

I am not lost and gone forever

And I never will be

I am music

I am memory

I am mystery

I am free

"A Taste of Flint" Poetry, Music and Food wrapped in one event! You don't wanna miss this 2/15/14

"A Taste of Flint" 
2/15/2014
Greater Flint Arts Council
6-9pm
Tickets $10 (includes food)
Come out and experience 3 of my favorite things wonderful poetry, music and FOOD! Featuring music from Green Chi, poetry by De'Marcus Johnson,She'a Cobb, Crystal Turner, Stanford Lewis and Amber Hasan! This show will feature "Sensational Sauces" created by Flint Town's own Chef Duane Wardand food will be provided by Eazey's Smoken' Bbq De...This event is sure to excite the senses!!! Tickets go on sale tomorrow!!!

Why I Cook Black Eyed Peas for the New Year and A NEW POEM!!!!!!!

For the past few days I have had the strongest craving for black eyed peas!  When I woke up this morning it dawned on me why (No I am NOT pregnant again).  I believe the reason for my craving is because it is New Years Eve, and for as long as I can remember my mother, grandmother, and aunts always make black eyed peas on New Years Eve.  I believe that the tradition is centered around having good fortunes in the coming year, but seeing as though I am not a subscriber to luck I cook black eyed peas on this day for another reason and that reason is tradition.  I no longer have my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother in my life to turn to for wisdom.  I spent so much of my life being influenced by the examples of those two wonderful women, learning from every visit and conversation.     So even though I can no longer share physical space with those special women, on this day I can stir up their memories in a pot of Black Eyed Peas!  Everyone have a safe and happy New Year!

Peas In the Pot

Black eyed peas for the New Year
Not because I believe in luck
but because its what my grandmother did
it is tradition
Black eyed peas are never as good as they are on New Years day
tasting like my Granny's hugs and kisses
memories simmering
pots full of family
feeding spirits
reaching back and passing forward
I bring them with me in bowls full of knowledge
pot liquor poets
those women-folk who fed me
gave me recipes for survival
something substantial to chew on
to grow from
to digest
in my soul and in my flesh I was nourished
gave it to me straight
their truth gave me courage
the way that they flourished in the worst situations gives me patience
motivation
their is no "give up" in my blood
only black eyed peas
cooked on New Years eve
and bellies full of love