Today is my birthday. I’m forty-two. I keep repeating the number to myself, thinking that if I say it enough, it’ll start to feel natural. There was something about being forty-one that still had some kick to it. I could still see forty in my review mirror and fifty seemed like it was a long way away. But forty-two? . . it’s such a soft, round number. When my mom called this morning to wish me a happy birthday, she said, “My goodness! Forty-two! That’s only eight years away from fifty!” Thanks Mom.

The thing is, I’m not resisting the idea of getting older. In fact, I really like it. I feel more grounded,more focused, more joyful than I ever have before. Forty-one was a good year, but it was also a tough year. I found myself in places I never expected to be and there were plenty of times when I questioned whether I’d taken a wrong turn. I learned a lot of lessons–some of them quite painful–about listening to myself, taking risks, staying true to my vision. Now, at forty-two, I feel comfortable trusting my instincts.

Which brings me to the most surprising part of this day. Everyone who’s called today to wish me a happy birthday has asked me how I’m celebrating, and some have seemed surprised, and maybe even a little disappointed, when I’ve said that I’m spending the day writing. I guess they think I should be out buying a pair of shoes or getting a massage. My sister actually chuckled and said she thought I’m denying myself pleasure.

The thing is, writing is one of the things that brings me the most pleasure. Yes, it’s work, but it’s good work, satisfying work, pleasurable work. It’s a joy, not a chore. Tomorrow or the next day, I may go to a movie and if I see a pair of earrings, I might just buy them. To me, that’s the best part–I can make the celebration last as long as I want to. But today, there’s really nothing I want–nothing material anyway–nothing that will make me feel as good as I feel sitting here at the computer, surrounded by books, inching my way to the end of this novel.

Last night, W grilled some of the rainbow trout we caught when we took C fishing. He prepared a lovely “birthday” dinner and when we finished, the girls brought out the cupcakes. It was perfect. I was with three of the people I love most in the world. The girls had me in stitches making jokes and talking about their lives and as I listened, all I could think was that I was pretty lucky. All things considered, I love my life. I have a wonderful family and friends who I love. I guess that’s one of the benefits of getting older–you don’t need a massage or a blow out party or a new pair of shoes to appreciate all of life’s blessings–the great and the small.

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So wish me luck! I think forty-two is going to be a great year.

A few minutes ago, I was in my room putting clothes away when C walked in. She stood quietly for a few seconds, with her face pressed against the mirror and then she asked, “Hey Mommy, do you ever wonder what this is all about? All this job and school and family stuff? Do you ever ask yourself what’s the point?”

At least once a month C does or says something so wise and other-worldly, that I can only turn to her and ask, “exactly what star are you from?” Because there’s no way she came from me and there’s no way she’s only 10 years old. She has to have been here before.

“I ask myself that question all the time,” I said, thinking that if I’d asked my mother that question when I was ten, she probably would have told me that the point was “to work hard and be successful.” I’m not trying to bash my mother. I just know how she thinks: that life is a fight and one has to be prepared; that “the good life,” is something you have to earn after years of misery and toil. I doubt she would say what I said, which was, “I think the point is to enjoy your life and the experience of being human.” I know my answer sounded “new-agey,” but it’s what I believe. I’ve spent the last five years asking myself that exact question, and have only recently come to that conclusion. I don’t want C to grow up believing there’s some imaginary finish line she has to cross before her life can begin.

I was curious to know what C thought, but experience has taught me that the quickest way to drive a kid underground is to launch into a long speech so I didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. C breathed onto the mirror again.

“What do you think is the point?” I asked, finally.

And just like that, the old soul disappeared and she was back to being a kid. “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Can I stay up until 10:30?”

“No. It’s time for bed.”

But before she left to go brush her teeth, we stood at the window looking at the full moon.

I wonder what amazing question she’ll ask next month.

There’s one thing about being an African-American mother they don’t tell you when you sign up for the job, one thing that’s written into the small print of your parental contract–but only if you’re the mother of girls: From the moment your daughters are born until they’re well into their teens, you’ll be engaged in an ongoing battle with hair. You’ll spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on equipment and products. You’ll squander countless Sunday afternoons washing, combing, braiding and twisting. You’ll wake up in the dead of night anticipating the day your daughter cries because her hair doesn’t cascade across her shoulders or blow in the wind. Dealing with the issue of hair will be the ultimate test of your patience, your love, your creativity, and your stamina. Hair will bring your daughters to tears and you to your knees. Part of the reason I haven’t posted anything in two weeks is because it’s taken me this long to recover from the most recent hair battle.But let’s start at the beginning.

At least once a month, I tell my girls how fortunate they are that times have changed. When I was a kid, the hairstyles were limited to three choices. I could have braids (never more than three because that was considered ’strictly trailer park,’ and never, NEVER, NEVER any adornment such as beads or ponytail holders with those yo-yo-sized colored balls at the ends) or I could get my hair pressed, which meant spending hours sitting by the stove while my mother used an hot iron come to burn every bit of kink or curl out of each strand. Then there was ‘the perm,’ which, looking back, I realize is the black hair equivalent of water-boarding. Who would pay over $100 to have a beautician smear a concoction of lye and cream on their scalp until it not only burned the kink from your hair but entire first layer of skin your entire scalp too? I did. Not just once. Hundreds of times, starting when I was in fifth grade. I won’t go into the details here but I will tell you it was beyond painful. I’d sit in the chair with cream smeared all over my head until tears came to my eyes. To say that my head felt like it was engulfed in flames doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling. Was it worth it? I surely thought so. After a long day in the salon, I had free-flowing hair cut, blown and styled to look like one of Charlie’s Angels, right down to the feathered bangs.

Ask any black woman and she’ll confirm that some black folks have serious hang ups about hair. Each year, we spend millions of dollars of hard earned after-tax dollars to ensure we have the right look. Take a close look at any MTV video and you’ll see what I mean. Our hair (real or artificial) can’t just be straight, it has to be bone straight and down to our waists. An entire industry has grown up around our obsession. Which is why I finally cut my hair off, in an act of independence lovingly called “the big chop.” I was tired of the wasting a whole Saturday in a salon, tired of rolling my hair on sponge rollers, tired of looking like the Bride of Frankenstein or Crusty the Clown every time it rained.

One day, I saw a young woman at the bank who sported a cute little afro. I told her I loved her hair and asked where she got it cut, and then I called the stylist and basically begged him to squeeze me into his schedule.  From coast to coast, my black sistahs were cutting their perms and shaving jerry curls in favor of dreads and twists, fades and flat tops. There was a serious hair revolution going on.

Thank God times have changed. Now, it’s normal to see a black woman with her hair in twists or dreads or a big, unwieldy ‘fro. I love my hair. I love that I don’t have do anything but wash it and let it air dry. I love that I can cut it in three minutes whenever I feel that it’s getting too long.

The problem is, I don’t just have my hair to think about. Every week, I have to deal with the girls’ hair too. And this is where it gets tricky. Because I don’t have babies anymore. I can’t make unilateral decisions about their hair and expect to survive. Take last week for instance. Their graduation ceremony was last Friday but we started talking about hair styles on Monday morning. C wanted long, thin braids while H wanted to wear her hair “down” (short hand for unbraided and naturally curly). C’s braids, I could handle. I do those every week, but H is getting older. She didn’t want the same hairstyle as her sister. The problem was, letting H wear her hair down meant taking a huge risk. It meant finding just the right hair products to give her just the right curly look. It mean experimenting with different style on Thursday afternoon and figuring out how she could go to bed without destroying the style while she slept. It meant dealing with the knotted bird’s nest of a mass that would certainly be her head when she came home from the class pool party. In other words, it meant me spending hours if not days trying to figure out how to help my girls celebrate their natural beauty without loosing my mind.

The key word here is natural. After my own experience with chemical perms, the last thing I want is to put my daughters through that. Aside from the health and time concerns, there’s a whole list of identity and self-esteem issues I’m determined to avoid.

And then there’s the social pressure. The worst thing a black mother can do is to let her child leave the house with a raggedy head. It’s practically a criminal offense, punishable by hanging, second only to letting your child leave the house with ashy legs.

So, it was those concerns in mind that I sat down last Wednesday evening and started doing their hair. Let me tell you, by Friday night I was exhausted. My back ached from all the hours of sitting and my fingers were worn down to the nub. Sure enough, H came home from the pool party with her hair pulled back in a bun. When I finally untangled the ponytail holder (sans colored balls), her hair was a rat’s nest of tangles underneath. It took another two hours to comb through it. But in my haste to be finished, I forgot H’s signature braid–the single, slim braid that falls right down the center of her face–and boy did I hear about it. H pestered me all day on Saturday until I re-combed it.

It’s important for a person to be willing to acknowledge her limitations. So in this post, I’m acknowledging mine. I’m done. I can’t another marathon session of hair preparation. H needs to be more independent. Hell, she wants to be more independent. She needs to have a style she can manage on her own. So last week, I got on the computer and found a salon south of Market that specializes in African-American hair styles. The earliest appointment I could get was JULY 2nd, and you know what? I took it!  One head down, one to go.