friends!

I don't know it happens, but people keep creeping out of the woodwork: people with dreds or people who have considered dreds. Maybe I was being naive when I first got dreds and thought I would be this rare, crazy individual in this county. Although...now that I think about it...most of the dred-heads I've met have been in neighboring counties.

I now know of 2 people in this particular county who have dreds, or have had dreds (myself included.)
I now know 2 people in the county next door who have dreds, one of which I participated in the dreds-making, and 2 people in the neighboring county who used to have dreds.

I visited my sister in Kansas City and there was no creeping out of woodwork there. The dred-heads there are everywhere. It's just another hairstyle there. (Isn't that true?)
but here it still feels like a statement of some kind. (isn't that true too?)

No one mentions them at church anymore.
The woman who used to readjust her grip on her walker in order to brandish a fist at me and threaten to chop my hair off..doesn't do that anymore. The guys who used to ask to touch my hair don't ask anymore either.

things are normalizing.

not sure how i feel about that: statement-maker that i am.