It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I am preparing a post about my one-year dreadlock journey. I don’t celebrate holidays; I haven’t celebrated a holiday since my mother died, so this is a typical day. Holidays for me consist of reflection, grief, guilt, and tears. So, I occupy myself as best as possible and start blogging.
I started my post with, “first anniversary, as yesterday marks the first year I started my dreadlocks.
To put this story in context, I started dreadlocks in memory of my mom; she loved locs. She loved them because ” my dad loved them.” She cut them off after he divorced her and restated them because she discovered she loved them. When she died, I had the mortician cut off a lock. I intend to add the loc to my own.
As I started writing, I noticed that the word anniversary is similar to the word adversary. I google it, and the root word “vert” means “to turn”.
I had an “ah-ha” moment. I don’t need “to turn” to a place and time that destroyed me.
My anniversary of loss is genuinely my adversary. I don’t need to return to a place where I am a complete mess.
-vert-, root.
- -vert-, and a related form -vers-, come from Latin, where they have the meaning “turn;
Where the light is... 