Why I cut my dreads...

I still find it hillarious that people see me and say: "You cut your dreads!!! why?!!? "In order to explain WHY i cut them I think i need to explain WHY i had them in the first place.

I always wanted to grow my hair and for those that know me or have seen me in person know that my hair grows UP, like Kid from Kid N Play, or is it Play? whatever... During highschool it was never allowed since i went to private school. Shout out to Rojas for making me cut my rat's tail in 3rd Grade and making me realize how silly it was!

Anyways back in the day i remember seeing Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard with their dreads and i promised myself I wanted to have that "haircut" one day. Later on, around 1998 i saw Edgar Davids play with the Dutch team and his dreads were the coolest i had ever seen. Long story short, i wanted to look like him, since looking like a bergkamp was out of the question.

At the same time i had been really thinking about myself and how i didn't really have force of will, or never really worked hard to accomplish something i carried out to do. I said to myself that I was going to grow my locks for 3 years or until I could tie my on hair.

That's what my dreads represented... they were a symbol of my will to accomplish a goal... and it was way more than just growing hair and twisting it for hours... I can say that that whole process made me learn a ton about myself and how to go about reaching a goal... whatever it is.

I had last cut my hair on my birthday in 2002, and last 3 years and a week later I cut my locks.

I won't get into the details of taking care of them, the whole process of washing and even longer drying, the countless jars of beeswax, etc et etc. But it was getting a bit too much for me, to put it mildly. Not only could i tie my own hair on the eve of the 3rd year but I got so fed up with random people asking me for marijuana.

Even though I thought a lot about dreads and did a lot of research, bought boooks, etc one can never forget how serious it is for the Rastafari, and I am not Rasta, never have been and never will be, so i had to take a step back and become aware that even though we can do whatever we want and give meaning to whatever it is we want, societies and subcultures have certains trademarks to put it in way, and in the circles i moved having dreads and not being rasta or into certain rasta things we clashing. With that said I want to make clear that i respect Rastafari and have nothing against anything related to it. I just felt the connection between dreads and that was getting to a point were i didn't want to deal with it, in addition to getting pissed off just by washing my hair and the 3rd year of growth coming along.

Whatever... I cut them and I can tell you it was one of the greatest feelings in the world. Lenny Kravitz said that when he cut them he felt all this energy leave him, good and bad... i don't really subscribe to this train of thought BUT i did feel something deeper that just hair being cut.

I love them still and sometimes wish I had them but I won't be growing them for a long long time. Oh but what i miss the most are my boys back in Caracas calling me Pelo Púbico (pubic hair, thank you), Coleto (mop)... a deep and heart felt bow to Gonzo, Ramón, Jesus, Burger, Igor, Ana Carolina and even more to those people that called me DAVIDS when playing the beautiful game in the greatest place on the planet....

Caracas como te extraño!

peace