Do you ever have days where you feel 100% off your game and you can’t focus and your mind appears to be slipping between layers and dimensions of time and space without your control? I am having one of those days today. Technically you can call it PMS but I prefer to think of it as a mystical state of womanhood that goes way beyond my monthly cycle.
I am supposed to be writing an article for Huffington Post about ‘Taking Back Your Beauty!” which I am actually really excited about…….but…….today is just not the day. It’s a self-imposed deadline anyway.
I feel incredibly nostalgic all of a sudden, missing my slowed-down country life. Maybe I will pick up a copy of Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, a great book by one of my all-time favorite authors, Donald Harrington. Check him out if you want a mystically sordid and juicy look at rural Ozark life.
But first, I will tell a little story.
In Arkansas, outside of the little Ozark town that I lived in for 7 years, there was an old road called Black Oak Road.
To me, this road was shrouded in mystery. It may have been because it had such a powerful cool name. It also could have been the haunted folklore that went along with the area, or maybe just the stark rural-ness of it.
Black Oak Road was a 10 minute bike ride from my house, and it shocked me to see how quickly the townie landscape turned to deep country. Where the pavement turned to gravel on Black Oak Road, time slowed way down, and all the sudden I found myself in a past century altogether.
I tell this story because I picture a girl with these featured fierce braids living in an old stone house on Black Oak Road.
Here is how to do the Black Oak Braids.
Remember lace braids? Where you french braid the hair, but you only add hair in on one side instead of both sides? This hairstyle is just essentially 2 lace braids. Super-duper easy. That has been the theme with the Fierce Braids Series……Hairstyles that look complicated but are actually quite simple to do:)
The Black Oak Braids are best done on medium to long hair, and I always recommend using a sea-salt texture spray before embarking on a braid. Masterbraider is my favorite, and you can get it here:)
Begin by parting the hair down the center.
Starting one one side of the front hairline, begin a braid as if you were going to french braid the side. When you begin adding in hair, only add it from above the braid, not from the hairline side. So you are adding in hair every other overlap.
As you add hair in, guide your braid straight downward. The braid itself should fall against the face, unattached on the hairline side.
Your last add-in section should be a vertical parting that lays roughly behind your ear. Then, stop adding hair in and braid your way down the free end of your section. Stop a couple inches from the ends, and secure with a clear elastic.
Now repeat these instructions on the other side.
Once you have completed both braids, overlap them across the back of your head.
From underneath, stick a large bobby pin through the braids and secure them to the head. Let the ends hang free.
Channel a mystical woman from a forgotten time. And be easy on yourself. Take time when you need it. Eat a cookie or somethin’ if you want.
BTW, in trying to explain what ‘PMS’ is like to my Jonny, here is as far as I got.
Imagine that you haven’t slept well in days, and you accidently lock yourself inside an old phone booth. You are sweating and on the verge of panic. From inside the phone booth, everything sounds grating and harsh. The smell offends your senses. You can see out, but it is blurry because the window-ed walls are scratched up and all scuffed so nothing is very clear. You know that people can see you in there, but they can’t hear what you are saying, so they assume that you are
A. a crazy person
or
B. Just fine and don’t need their help.
You rationally know that you will get out of there in one piece but you can’t logically form a plan of escape. So you just breathe and wait for it to end and try not to make any sudden movements.
Anyone out there have a more positive way of framing PMS? Please share.
If you don’t experience PMS symptoms consider yourself either lucky or out of touch with your body……….But just WAIT till you have children. If you plan on not having children, that is great, you will miss out on an insane rollercoaster ride of hormones. Power to ya, either way 😉 Fist bump.
xoxoxox, HTHG
