between us

life, love, laughter

The Promise of Spring

~ livelytwist ~ 66 Comments

acting

The wind brushes my hair into a side part and I curl my fingers around my thumb. My hands dig deep in my pockets, pulling the fabric down, as far as they will go. My neck is warm, my feet are warm, the rest of me shivers. Every winter is the same; I ask myself, why am I still here.

A seven-minute walk separates the station from Chizanes. The harried strides of rush hour has given way to languid walks. I linger by the oldest statue in the city, the first mayor on a horse. Inscribed on the marble plaque is my answer: the promise of spring. The wind, kinder now, carries distant laughter past me. It is the sound of a man and woman in love. Even the stars twinkle in appreciation.

Inside Chizanes, after my eyes adjust to the dimmed lighting, he is easy to spot. He waves and rises to greet me, leaning forward. I hesitate then stretch my right hand to dissipate his confusion. He takes it.

“Thank you for meeting me. How are you?”

“Fine,” my falsetto is on, “how are you?”

“Good. Good to see you! You look good!”

“You too.”

We order drinks. I ask about his family. He asks about mine. We waste time on the menu, searching for our rhythm—this, no that; are you sure? I heard it’s good. What of the chef’s specialty? No, you decide.

He signals for the waiter.

He asks about my job. I tell him I left. He doesn’t pursue an explanation. We talk about the weather. I cannot believe that the passion we shared has fizzled to this: the temperature is expected to go below zero on Wednesday.

He clears his throat and begins. “The reason I left—”

“Fish?” The waiter looks at me, then at him. He places three more dishes on the table, naming them with flair. “Is everything okay?” He asks with a half nod.

We both nod.

“Enjoy your meal.”

We dish food on our plates. Raise bowls and pass them, careful not to touch. We eat like famished travellers.

“As I was saying I left because . . .”

He covers his eyes with his hands. I stop chewing.

“What can I say? I’m just a coward . . .”

“What?”

“I said, ‘I’m a coward.’ I . . . I—”

“Three years of my life and you tell me you’re a coward?”

“Sssh, sssh, lower your voice,” he whispers, reaching for my hand.

I snatch my hand and look around. More interested stares. Chizanes packs about thirty people in a circular arrangement. The walls are windows, which stretch and nearly kiss the high ceiling, an illusion of space. Our table is sandwiched in the centre.

“He left me three years ago,” my chair scrapes the ground protesting the sudden movement, “and now he says he’s a coward?” Standing, my voice booms and blankets all conversation. “Can you believe that?”

Quiet like the embarrassed silence after the president farts noisily.

I catch the man in a navy shirt before he averts his gaze like the others. “Sir, can you believe that? He’s a coward?” His girl whispers something to him and he examines his plate as if there’s gold in the soup.

“Ma’am, we’re gonna have to ask you to calm down and sit down.”

The man addressing me sounds important, like the manager.

“No, I won’t sit down with this coward!” I stand on my chair goaded by impulse.

“Ma’am . . .”

“Three years.” I try harder, “Three years people!”

“Ma’am we’re gonna have to ask you to leave.”

I get down slowly. Now they are watching. Cowards, all of them. Maybe someone is recording for YouTube.

“May I escort you? Sir . . .?”

“It’s okay, I’ll handle things from here,” my coward’s smile convinces the manager. He leaves us to organize our shame and repackage our dignity.

“Are you just going to let them walk me out?”

“Sssh, sssh. Let’s just go before they call security.”

Outside, he holds my bag while I don my gloves.

“Now that the world knows how you feel,” he gestures at the people watching from inside, “Have a nice life!”

He hands my bag over and walks away.

I run after him. “Don’t leave me!”

Out of view from Chizanes, he stops. “That used to be my line.” He lifts my chin and lets my tears wet his gloves. “Award-winning actress,” he whispers. “You were supposed to storm out. Wh . .  . what if—”

“Coward. You need to get a job, we can’t keep doing this.”

“In the spring when the quarries reopen, things will be better. This is great practice until we can afford acting classes. Wasn’t the food good though?”

Three years of doubts dissolve in laughter. The wind is harsher now, unforgiving, breaking tiny branches off stoic trees, sending twigs sailing across the sidewalk and freezing my tears. I nestle my head on his chest. Nothing is sure. Last year only a few quarries reopened. When his arms circle my waist, I close my eyes and count, December, January, February; three months until spring.

“Do you want dessert?”

“Do you have any money?”

“No, but I know another place where we can act . . .”

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2015

 

Author’s Note

The Promise of Spring is about anything you fancy. Me? I wanted to depict some challenges immigrants face in a country unlike the one they left.

The frequent references to the wind portrays how immigrants experience climate change and how the weather now becomes an important aspect of life in their adopted country. The story opens with a question immigrants may ask when disillusionment (winter represents foreign culture and systems as much as it does weather) sets in. Hope (spring) sees them through from year to year.

The author delves into the ingenious ways immigrants survive (some illegal), and plays with the idea that although immigrants are in plain sight they live on the fringes of society (in the restaurant, although she stands on the chair, she is ignored by other diners).

Acting is the ‘job’ of choice in the story because immigrants live at least two lives—a ‘glamourous’ one for friends and family in their native country, and a ‘grim’ one for their hosts.

The story ends with the suggestion that there is another place where they can act. This is a reference to the immigrants’ mindset about moving from region to region or country to country when perhaps immigration policies tighten or economic realities no longer favour them. Returning to their native country is not an option.

Why add love and romance? Because love is oxygen. And because I have done some foolish things for love. Haven’t you?

timi

 

 

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

And The Mountains Echoed

~ livelytwist ~ 41 Comments

 

and the mountains echoed

 

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

Khaled Hosseini’s book, And the Mountains Echoed, opens with this poem by Jelaluddin Rumi. When I finish reading, I think I know what informed his choice. But what do we really know about each other?

Two sisters, Masooma and Parwana, are sitting on a branch high up an oak tree, their feet dangling. Parwana has always lived in the shadow of Masooma’s exceptional beauty. Life is like that, we are not gifted equally. Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly1. Parwana is in love with a boy who is in love with Masooma. Life is like that, the heart often wants what it cannot have. Love isn’t always requited in the measure it is given.

When Parwana discovers that, the boy she secretly loves plans to marry Masooma, she shakes the branch and Masooma slips off it. In those seconds of clarity we all have after we set an impulsive destructive course in motion, Parwana tries to save Masooma. Too late. Masooma loses the use of her legs and becomes an invalid. Parwana’s penance is to care dutifully for her sister in rural Afghanistan in the forties. It is gruelling work. Her devotion is one long unspoken apology.

Betrayals play out in different forms in the book. There are tsunamis of cause and effect sweeping through generations. Hosseini, in my view, shows us what is in the human heart. He shows us that . . . human behaviour is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries2. I find myself suspending judgment each time. When I read these words, something clicks.

I have lived a long time, . . . and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person’s heart3.

In each scenario, I ask myself what I would have done. Without the pressure of the moment and with the benefit of hindsight, I weigh my options and choose noble actions. This game I play, read and reflect; it is easy. My life has not been a journey of reasonable actions. I understand every character’s dilemma. I understand their choices even when I don’t approve of them.

Eventually Masooma decides to give Parwana a gift, freedom. She decides to die in the desolate endless expanse of sand and mountains, abandoned on the ground under the darkened sky, cold, and drugged out on a potent mixture from the hookah, with Parwana’s help.

I ponder the nature of Masooma’s gift—freedom, at what cost to Parwana’s conscience? Although she presents it as self-sacrifice, I wonder if it is not self-serving. But such is Parwana’s devotion that she leads Masooma to her death. Of course, the man who Parwana loves, who was in love with Masooma, (but married someone else), is now looking for a wife, having been recently widowed. Can unspoken wishes twist the hand of fate or are we master chess players?

After Parwana reluctantly leaves Masooma to die, trudging back home, she hears something, maybe the wind calling, “Don’t leave me, sister. Come back.”

I tell myself I would go back. Parwana does not. She reasons that nobody will know, just as no one knew about the branch of the oak tree. She has lived with secrets all her life.

For nearly 500 pages, Hosseini shows us the subtexts of our hearts, the subplots that drive our actions, like an onion, he peels layer after layer exposing, in my opinion, our capacity for self-deception. Even with a moral compass, anyone can make black white. The characters are achingly familiar to me.

And the Mountains Echoed, is not about Parwana and Masooma alone. If I have made it seem so, I have done a disservice to Hosseini’s masterful story telling. It is about Saboor, Abdullah, Pari, Nabi, Suleiman, Nila, Idris, Timur, Roshi, Markos, Thalia, and many others, including you and me, a collage of stories linked by strong and weak threads. They have had their time. We have ours now. When the mountains echo, I hope we heed its silent meaning.

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

Does such a place even exist?

 

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2015

 

  1. Hosseini, Khaled, And The Mountains Echoed, (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 378.
  2. Ibid., 378.
  3. Ibid., 124.

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Happy New Momentum

~ livelytwist ~ 45 Comments

Momentum

Momentum:

  • the strength or force that allows something to continue or to grow stronger or faster as time passes
  • The impetus gained by a moving object
  • The impetus and driving force gained by the development of a process or course of events

 

1.

About 300 metres to the junction, the traffic light changes to green so I do not need to stop. I cruise past the cars queued on the right lane, which are rousing from varied states of slumber. I do not remove my foot from the gas pedal on my way home, save once. My confidence grows at each succeeding intersection; red does not faze me. It is that kind of day; every light turns green as if anticipating my approach. “It’s a sign,” I say to myself, “So this is what momentum looks like?”

 

2.

Traffic on Tuesday is unexpected. That cars on the slow lane crawl faster than cars on the speed lane bemuses me. I am undecided as to where I should be. I fix my lipstick and smack my lips using my sun visor mirror. The man in the car on my right smiles at me. I smile back and ease my Toyota in front of his Nissan. Life can be as easy as changing lanes. At every crossroad in my life, someone on the ‘fast’ lane has allowed me cut in ahead of him. Riding on their momentum, I arrived at my destination faster than I otherwise would have. Later, I look at the rear-view mirror and my eyes collide with a strange pair. It is as if the man who made room for me was never there.

 

3.

When I receive a notification from WordPress that my stats are booming, I am surprised. On Saturday, even I rarely visit my blog because it is a distraction from the business of writing. Facebook is the culprit sending viewers my way. It happened that an acquaintance stumbled on a story on my blog and shared it with her friend who is a person of influence. He enjoyed the story and shared the link on his Timeline. Then his crowd came to see. In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes that we are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us1. We rely on them [connectors] to give us access to opportunities and worlds to which we don’t belong2. Your friends, after all, occupy the same world that you do3. The number of views rise like the tide over the course of the evening. I reflect that the only thing I did was agonize over every single word of a short story for five nights before publishing it on a Sunday, weeks ago.

 

4.

In the mythology of various cultures, man supplicates assistance from deities who guarantee success or reverse fortunes, from Zeus to Thor to Sango. If one subscribes to the Biblical narrative, one encounters a prophet, Elijah, running behind a king riding on a chariot. The king should arrive long before Elijah does for man is no match for horses. However, Elijah receives a boost in momentum from his God. He runs faster than the king’s chariot, a sight that may have made it to YouTube and gone viral, if it were today. Technological advances make reliance on deity a primitive concept for some. Man and the machines he has made have created momentum that carries him beyond the moon and back. But what is momentum for you? Wherever you anchor your belief, I wish you what I wish myself: that you consolidate the gains from the previous year and ride a new wave. Happy new momentum.

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

  1. Gladwell, Malcom, The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, (London: Abacus/Time Warner Books, 2001), 259.
  2. Ibid., 54.
  3. Ibid., 54.

 

Photo credit: Acatana/ http://pixabay.com/en/highway-night-traffic-spotlight-409126/

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Collaboration: You and Me

~ livelytwist ~ 55 Comments

collaboration

Collaboration. Holistic Wayfarer showed me how it’s done by inviting me to write a blog post alongside her and Nida S., another writer. An African proverb says if you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. I went farther this year, because you journeyed with me.

I overcame fear of rejection and what-ifs to approach you, virtual stranger, virtual friend. I told you that I admire your writing and I would be honoured if you shared your perspective on a series I’m doing. And when that didn’t work, I pursued you—busy you, you that hadn’t written in a while, you that was between jobs, cities, homes. Determined not to say your no for you, I ‘harassed’ you until you said, “Yes, Timi!”

From each writer, I collected kernels of truth, after you wooed and wowed me with your words. Someone noted that humility is the common thread that runs through the Learning Series. Indeed, to learn, you must first admit that you don’t know.

The Learning Series was not the only collaboration I did this year. We wrote about age, the love languages of Nigerians, and love for country. The writers took my ideas and ran as far as Australia, danced above and below the Equator, and soared to Canada; yes farther than I could go. The result? A clash of hues softened by the spaces where we glimpsed your heart.

I opine that to write an effective personal piece, vulnerability must become like meat and potatoes. The writers delivered that quality, the ability to be open and yet closed, to be known and yet not known, to lie next to someone and yet not touch. Perhaps I reread your pieces and the comments that followed, to decipher your face in the dark that I might recognize you by light. These collaborations were shared over 150 times on social media, the power of your network not mine. You took me further.

In putting your stories and mine together, my joy at editing surpassed my joy at writing. I questioned if my writing was not merely a platform to pull other writers together to present the world with an anthology, all the stories of humanity in one place. I played with this notion until I met a ‘secret’ reader at an event. The usual pleasantries segued to the question of what I do.

“What do you blog about?”

I sized him up. Nigerian. Early thirties. “Let me show you.” I navigated to, Running in the Airport. “See,” I said, letting him read from my phone, “This kind of stuff.”

“Oh, I’ve read that before, hilarious! Someone sent it to me. So you’re the one who wrote that, he asked, looking at me. “You look . . .”

“Different,” I offered, aware that the photo on my blog was taken about three years ago.

“More beautiful in person.”

The charmer. If I were doing a sweepstake on my blog, I would skew the results so he would win.

“And you sound so . . .  so . . .”

“Ordinary?” I offered again.

“Yes,” he replied, shaking his head. “After reading all that big grammar you write . . .”

Right there, his laughter clambering over mine, I began to write a blog post in my head.

Our laughter reminded me that my collaboration with readers either through the comments or in real life has also taken me further than I dreamed possible. Writing gives me visibility. It is wonderful to meet and know people beyond the page.

Happiness is transient for me, until I celebrate every phase of my journey. It is true what they say; the grass is greener on the side where it is watered. In 2014, my blog was a beautiful place to be because of you.

 

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
 Isaac Newton

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

Did We Do Any Learning? [6]

~ livelytwist ~ 26 Comments

equality v justice

Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities.
Pope Francis

 

Life isn’t Always Fair

It is a lesson we have all learned. Sometimes fate turns around and bites us. But I have never seen this inequity so clear and so devastating, as I have over the last three months in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

Ebola.

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia from 1965 to 1967, a long time ago.  It was an incredible experience for me, going from the University of California at Berkeley and California’s super-urban Bay Area to the then small upcountry town of Gbarnga, where I met Africa face to face and received so much more from the experience than I was able to contribute.

Afterwards, the terrible civil wars tore Liberia apart in a way that was incomprehensible to those of us who had lived in the country and had come to know her people and culture.

Recently, I began to feel more optimistic about Liberia’s future. There was hope. Liberia had known peace for ten years. Children were back in school. There was laughter in the street.

And then Ebola struck. Once again, Liberia teeters on the edge of chaos. How much more can the country take? Yes there are things we can do, must do, to help. But I can’t help thinking, over and over: isn’t it time that fate gives the people of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone a break?

 

Curt Mekemson @ Wandering through Time and Place

Half of the profits from Curt’s recent book, The Bush Devil Ate Sam and Other Tales of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia West Africa, will go to Friends of Liberia, a group of returned Peace Corps volunteers.

 

Wake Up and Think for Yourself

This year my sixty-seven year old country finally woke up. Millions of Pakistanis learned to think for themselves.

Four months ago, frustrated people stepped out of their homes and stamped their thoughts on the streets under the leadership of Imran Khan. Old men, housewives, students, and children slid open curtains of indifference and made history.

War is when your government tells you who the enemy is. A revolution is when you figure it out yourself. ~Anonymous

This year millions of Pakistanis learned about pain. Pain that transcends boundaries of flesh and geography. Pain that sets things into perspective. Love, family, home, and health. Everything else seems extravagant. You don’t expect to send your children to school and never see them again.1

We saw hope and held on to it tight. Perhaps too tight because it left blisters. We learned about healing as skins of faith quickly formed protective layers on our stubborn wounds. My people are even more stubborn.

This year I learned about victory. A victory that marks an end to our closed minds and blind hearts. I have seen my extraordinary people walk to hell and back. They tell me to keep going. Because that is exactly what they will do. They always do. And this revelation makes me realize our power.

I had a dream about you last night…and in it you said, ‘Chin up; it only gets harder.’ ~ Marshal Ramsay

Think. Question. Challenge.

Because once people begin to think aloud, they are impossible to ignore.

 

Nida S. @ on the road to inkrichment 

  1. On 16 December 2014, terrorists ran down an Army public school in Peshawar (Pakistan), leaving 132 children and 9 members of the school staff dead in cold blood.

 

 

In Search of a Messiah

I have thought about poverty and inequality, and for me, there are no easy answers yet. Years of inequality, poverty, rising unemployment (indices to gauge development according to economist Dudley Seers), and insecurity, have made many Nigerians pant for a benevolent dictator, a fairy godmother with a magic wand to wave all our problems away, while we dance with the prince and midnight never comes.

In the lyrics of Bob Marley, Most people think great god will come from the sky take away ev’rything, and make ev’rybody feel high. I believe in The Messiah, but I don’t want to be guilty of a messiah complex. These days when someone offers me help, I ask why, I ask how, I ask what, I ask where, I ask how much. And, I keep asking until I understand.

The race for the 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria resembles a dem-all-crazy; they say we have to choose the lesser of two devils. Democracy delivers to us what we demand of her. Poverty and inequality like kwashiorkor, can make people swallow nutrition devoid of protein, and then roll over to sleep not realising death is waiting.

I have learnt that on the drive to my destination, it is unwise to hand over the keys of my life and snooze in the passenger seat. Going by what I read on social media it seems many have learnt this too. The challenge is to remind the driver that he is driving our car and so we decide where he goes and when he stops.

Timi @ Livelytwist

 

 

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Did We Do Any Learning? [5]

~ livelytwist ~ 40 Comments

learning & living

The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.  
– Winston Churchill –

 

I Tried to be a Writer

2014 is the year I tried to be a writer and most of the things that happened to me—both good and bad—are centred on this.

Failure or rejection can teach lessons that take a lifetime of success to imbibe. When I was younger, my Dad often said, “Iya o je o, o wipe o gbon; tani tisa re?” (You claim to possess wisdom without enrolling in the school of suffering. Who is your teacher?).  I scoffed at the statement’s cynicism, but now I know better.

So, the correct answer to “How are you?” is not “fine”. It is a long rambling confession to the people we love and trust, opening our hearts and hoping they’ll listen, even if they don’t have answers. There is strength in vulnerability and weakness in machismo. I became versed in the manual on being broke and having to depend on people, not only for money, but also for encouragement and advice.

2014 is the year I left safe behind. I look at the wonderful people I met and the little I’ve achieved. It would have been impossible if I had not tried to be a writer.

Ifemmanuel @ IfeOluwa’s Rambles

 

Wandering Purposefully

I have created an oxymoron: to wander purposefully. In many intervals of my life, I have often felt lost and out of place like a chicken in a lion’s pride. This year however, I made a non-committal resolution (not a fan of New Year resolutions), to take charge of my life. I thought changing academic paths would bring me peace, but life is a pot of burnt beans.

Compounding my default setting of feeling lost was the feeling that I was losing myself. I started to experience small bouts of anger and bitterness that seldom translated to fisting the wall of my bathroom and ranting expletives in my thoughts. I did however have some great winning moments this year. In those winning moments, I learnt that many people are wandering too, behind a desk job, a pulpit, a graduation gown, etc, and that it was okay to wander.

For the first time in a while, I feel as though I am on the, or perhaps, a right track. Maybe I am not lost after all; maybe I am just wandering, wandering purposefully. This is what I have learnt this year, that I can wander without losing stride or sight.

Not all those who wander are lost. –  J.R.R Tolkien

Tomi Olugbemi @ I Write to Escape

 

Savouring Memories

If I had to distil my year into one sentence, it would be that seminal Dickens’ opening in A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”

Of my ups and downs, losing H was the lowest of the lows. Looking back, the surprise was not that it happened but that it happened so fast, once the downturn kicked in and things began to unravel. The one lingering regret from that summer of grief remains the tenseness that characterised the final few months.

Being alike meant we were always a few sharp words away from spontaneous combustion, something we managed to avoid for the greater part. The pressure began to tell when she began to sense that the sand in her hourglass was running out, and fast. We had our biggest flare up in a long time.

We made up eventually, thankfully—that would have been far too great a burden to carry for the rest of my life—but the thought that we could have made more memories to savour, is one I haven’t quite shaken off.

Life’s lessons are neither bleeding obvious nor palatable. All we possess for sure are the moments that we share with our friends and loved ones. The challenge is to enjoy and maximise the moments, not putting off the kind word, the lingering touch, or the act of kindness we know they deserve.

AJ @ A Geek’s Life

 

 

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Did We Do Any Learning? [4]

~ livelytwist ~ 49 Comments

 

know thyself

 

A Small Sacrifice to Make

I love December. Although I miss the sunlight of the longer summer days, I try to embrace the darkness of winter, because it forces me to re-focus; focus on me, my life, my house, my work, my family, and my friends. I see this month as an end and a beginning, a time to evaluate the past year and to think about the future.

This year has been very emotional with some considerable lows and some exhilarating highs. I fell for the wrong guy and was faced with the task of mending the pieces of my broken heart.

The most important thing I have learned this year is twofold. I saw a quote, I can’t remember where, but thankfully, it stuck in my head and in my heart: “Be strong enough to let go and be patient enough to wait for what you truly deserve.”

Repeating this mantra over and over gave me strength to make choices and say goodbyes that aided my wellbeing. It helped and is still helping me feel and truly believe I deserve the kind of stuff for which patience is a small sacrifice to make.

 

Gertie Janine Fransens makes her home in Amstelveen. When not working or enjoying books, movies, and music at home, she likes to go out, have a drink, get to know new people, and dance like nobody’s watching.

 

Table for One

The wind whipped my hair as I walked along the alleys of the Centrum. I smoothened my hair before I pushed the door open.

Poised, I said, “I have a reservation for two . . .”

“This way please.”

Twenty uncomfortable minutes followed.

The text came in after I sat: runin late b dere in 5.

When the third waiter asked if I wanted to order; if someone was joining me, I answered, “Yes, they’re coming!” and reminded myself to take the edge off my voice.

I refused to lose myself in Khalid Hosseini’s, And the Mountains Echoed. I refused to “smoke” my 21st century “cigarette,” that is, play with my smart phone. I sat, elbows off the table, admiring the oriental décor in the cozy setting. I played the which-couples-are-dating-married-fighting-game; and then watched the long and short hands of the clock.

Because I didn’t fill the void, (to prove what exactly?), I felt as though every eye was on me, every conversation was about me; my aloneness fingered with naan bread, forked and knifed with lamb tikka masala, and spooned with kulfi.

I had heard about a restaurant in Amsterdam, EENMAAL, billed as the first one-person restaurant in the world, and an attractive place for temporary disconnection. I had scoffed at the idea. Wouldn’t people rather eat alone in a normal restaurant? As I sat by myself, trying to be brave, I ate my words.

I write alone.

I create alone.

I think alone.

I can shop alone.

I can travel alone.

I can go to the cinema alone.

It catches me by surprise; I cannot eat dinner alone in a restaurant.

I am not as self-assured and independent as I thought I was. And, it’s okay.

 

Timi @ livelytwist

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

Did We Do Any Learning? [3]

~ livelytwist ~ 53 Comments

learning

9 Things I’ve Re-Learned This Year

Life lessons aren’t mastered in a single bold stroke.  We learn, we practice, we forget, we remember, we re-learn. Here are a few key notes I re-learned this year:

  1. Like a bottomless well, Ego’s desire for applause, accolades, approval, acknowledgement, acclaim, awards, and recognition is never satiated.
  2. When we stroke Ego, it purrs. When we stop, it snarls.
  3. It’s silly to buy another pair of shoes because we want an Ego boost from others when they see us rocking our new ruby slippers.
  4. People want us to do what they want us to do when they want us to do it. They are affronted when we don’t.
  5. When people ask us to “be honest” . . . they don’t always mean it.
  6. In many ways, we are at the mercy of the tides. Life ebbs and flows.  Joy comes and goes.  Sorrow is hard to avoid.
  7. Even if we’re not convinced that “everything happens for a reason,” taking time to look for “silver linings” helps us deal with passing clouds.
  8. When we aren’t wedded to a set destination, we enjoy the journey (and its inevitable detours), more.
  9. If we are enjoying the journey, we win. No matter where the wind blows us.

Aah . . . that’s better!

Nrhatch @ Spirit Lights The Way 

 

Diversity and the Art of Writing

Writing has reassured me that the things we feel deeply as individuals are universal—love, rejection, angst, joy, belonging; that it’s okay to admit your vulnerabilities. It might feel scary, but it also makes you authentic. Your foibles, shame, and guilt might be someone else’s quiet truth.

People read novels autobiographically, through the lens of their life’s narrative, and their values and opinions. My heroine might be a role-model for one reader, but another reader might want to slap her. I have little control over how readers see my characters as an author, and this came as a big surprise. Most readers love my male lead, but one reader thought him a tosser (although she did reassure me she’d shag him in a heartbeat, oh dear!). Now I realise I can’t write my characters to keep everyone happy, it’s not possible. That’s okay, life isn’t a popularity contest. Besides, my characters largely write themselves.

Writing has taught me that diversity isn’t some little politically correct box to tick. Diversity abounds, it is the norm. The trick is to be open to differences and to hold back from rushing in to judge.  I attempt this by thinking my characters’ thoughts, walking in their shoes, and imagining their predicaments. Besides, wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same?

Susan @ Susan Lattwein

Susan’s novel, Arafura – Unfinished Business, is a gritty romance with a bit of sex, dynamite, and hilarity – not always at the same time.

 

Real Men Carry Purses

Statements of fantasy can be metaphors for real life—you can live backwards and you can still learn at age 403! I once read that even if your body never aged, you’re statistically likely to die from an accident before you hit 600. See, you just learned something! I told you it was possible.

I have previously claimed on this blog that I am 403 years old, but I am far closer to 43. Although I exaggerated my age for humorous effect, one can learn after 40. And, while we can’t literally live backwards, we can become more open and tolerant, which is the opposite of what usually happens when people get older.

So I learned two things this year, both related: to respect women on a higher plane and to break free from my personal gender stereotypes. While I’ve long thought of myself as a feminist ally and viewed women as equals, that didn’t stop my subtle objectification. I was never the creepy dude, but I wasn’t the ally I thought I was, either. The journey toward being a better person is a welcome one.

With encouragement from the women in my life, I finally bought something this year I’ve wanted for ages, a purse. Why can’t a guy have a purse? It elevates the quality of life. I needed to build up my “bravery” first, which shows you how badass women are. They carry purses all the time.

Eric @ ericjohnbaker

 

 

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Did We Do Any Learning? [2]

~ livelytwist ~ 28 Comments

training bike

Keep on Moving, Don’t Stop!

I’ve grown. If according to John Foster Dulles, the measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year, then I’ve grown and become successful. A few years ago, I created a problem for myself that cost me in currency that did not exist. That blow, that loss, that disappointment, that self-loathing, stole one year of my life. I hid under the bedcovers in January and did not emerge until December.

This year, I created a dissimilar problem. The blow, the loss, the disappointment, the self-loathing, was the same, but it did not steal one year of my life. I drew a circle of blame with one big dot in the centre, representing me, the first step in securing redemption and embracing grace. Then I forgave myself and doubled my productivity.

Since yellow is the colour of sunrays, Soul 2 Soul’s Keep on Moving, became my refrain. My mistakes helped me locate myself on the ladder of my development, several rungs below where I’d hoped to be. But wading through the putrid mess, I found as John Maxwell says, keys that I can use to unlock the next door of opportunity.

Fall, rise, keep rising, keep on moving, don’t stop!

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Did We Do Any Learning? [1]

~ livelytwist ~ 74 Comments

Learning

Yiikes, I’m a Control Freak!

Accomplished is my word for 2014. But so is Control Freak, as I’ll learn later.

It was a fine morning in June 2013 when I sat, filling out forms in the anaesthesiologist’s office.

“Gosh, you have OCD,” he said, when I handed them back.

Puzzled, I turned to him, “Why do you say that, sir?”

“Well, you’ve filled out every detail on the form. Hmm, the people who work for you must be suffering.”

What? All that from filling out a form properly? No appreciation? Why ask for the information if it was unnecessary? I shrugged but paused, thought lingering.

 

Fast forward to November 2014.  I’m reading, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m awed that she, thousands of miles away, can write my heart so perfectly. In the book, ‘Liz is in conversation with her friend, Richard:

“Lemme tell you something, Groceries – you got some serious control issues.

“My rage at this statement consumes me like fire. Control Issues? ME?

“…Listen, you’re a powerful woman, and you’re used to getting what you want out of life,…Life didn’t go your way for once. And nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin’ her way.

“You gotta learn how to let go, Groceries. Otherwise, you’re gonna make yourself sick. Never gonna have a good night’s sleep again. You’ll just toss and turn forever, beatin’ on yourself for being such a fiasco in life…How come I screw up all my relationships? Why am I such a failure?”1

I scream in my head. This is me. Has been me forever.  And so I’ve decided that my phrase for 2015 is Letting Go. Because I can’t look forward and back at the same time.

Control Freak. Letting go.

 

Ozoz @ Kitchen Butterfly
Watch her Journey by Plate, at TEDx Port Harcourt, October 2014.

 

No Stopping Me

I refuse to listen to the cynical voice sending evil messages to my brain, “You have reached your limit, just give up and maintain what you have.”

It is not possible that I cannot lose any more weight. Short of sewing up my intestines, tongue, and teeth, I have tried everything humanly and spiritually possible to lose weight.

Last Friday, I decided to give my body a treat. Off I went to a nearby gym and spa center. I asked about their services.

“Pedicure, body polish and massage, facials, tummy blast—”

“Eh Tummy blast?” Light bulbs went off in my head. “What does it entail?”

“We have a machine that rolls over the stomach, as well as a kneading wood that helps to blast the fat.”

“Wow! Really?”

“Yes ma,” the lady responded. “But you need to come in for a minimum of six sessions to see tangible results.”

 

Treatment started in earnest. The machine began its work. Years of unleavened fat would not go down without a fight. The kneading wood was applied to further flatten the pouch. Next, they tied me with cellophane and a long strip of cloth. I made Herve Leger’s bandage dress look like child’s play. Na wa, so this is what it feels like to be an Egyptian mummy?

Fifteen minutes later, I had lost about an inch! They placed me on a three-day fruit diet with lots of water and gave me aloe vera gel drink as part of a detox plan.

Although the aloe vera drink tastes like shit and my husband laments that he and the kids are the real victims of my never-ending weight loss programmes (they cannot go to the toilet after me since air fresheners and diffusers are powerless against this form of domestic terrorism), I am trudging on. Ain’t no stopping me. One down, five to go.

 

Eriye Onagoruwa is a legal practitioner. She writes satirical pieces for The Guardian.

 

A Thin Line Between Yes and No

I tend to say yes to almost everything.

I tell myself that this is due to my good nature, after all what’s so bad about trying to avoid the landmine of hurt feelings? I sometimes suspect though, that it is because I hate being told no myself. My reluctance to use the word no usually results in my being burdened and stretched with over commitments and ever-increasing responsibilities. This was a constant thread than ran through the fabric of 2014—a constantly overflowing schedule. The slender margins took a toll and gave rise to frayed nerves and a quick temper.

A person who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul.2

I wish I had known earlier, the freedom that comes with just saying no. Saying no does not close the door on opportunities; rather it creates the opportunity to say a resounding yes to the things that do matter. Saying no is just another way of saying, “Yes!” to the important things. Lysa Terkeurst calls this our Best Yes.3

I am not one for New Year resolutions, but as 2015 peeks from behind the folds of 2014, I hear, margin. I have learnt that I need margin in my life and to achieve this, sometimes, I need to say it loud and say it clear, with a dash of understanding and empathy of course, “No!”

 

Tamkara @ naijaexpatinholland
Tamkara rocks her clogs expat style in the book, Dutched Up! with 27 other expats who share their perspectives on life in The Netherlands.

 

  1. Gilbert, Elizabeth, Eat Pray Love (Croydon: CPI Group (UK) Ltd. Books, 2007), 158 – 159.
  2. Goins, Jeff. 025: Saying Yes to the Best Things: How Do You Balance It All? [Podcast]
  3. TerKeurst Lysa, The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demand

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Beyond Bob Geldof’s Ebola Christmas

~ livelytwist ~ 59 Comments

charity

The debate and backlash that surrounded Bob Geldof’s resurrection of Band Aid’s 1984-charity single, Do They Know It’s Christmas, to raise funds for Ebola held my attention for many days. While some questioned the rich celebrities’ motives, others were appalled by the patronizing lyrics, which they claimed cast West Africans as people who cannot solve their problems and so were always in need of foreign aid. In between were a thousand other pros and cons. I capture selected sentiments (edited), below:

 

They need all the money they can get. What have the people complaining done?

My parents gave money when I was two. Now I’m thirty-two, I have to give money—hang on, my daughter is two. Is this a generational thing?

Well at least they’re changing the lyrics.

How about new lyrics: cure the world, yes they know it’s Christmas time, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?

It’s called Band Aid not Deep Surgery for crying out loud!

 

Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the countries facing the wrath of Ebola, cannot afford to turn up their noses at financial assistance from Band Aid 30. I suppose it is left to the rest of us to speak up for them. And we did.

By now Bob Geldof knows:

  • Rhetorical questions like, do they know it’s Christmas time at all? will be answered on Twitter and Facebook, with viral effect, as long as he keeps asking.
  • Hyperbole, that literary device sometimes used to coax emotive response, has been withdrawn from his poetic license—where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears; where nothing ever grows; and now, where a kiss of love can kill you and there’s death in every tear.
  • Irony, well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you, has never been more tongue in cheek.
  • Synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, is the preserve of Africans for Africa.
  • White savior complex means that in the absence of a black Jesus, Africans might accept a mixed race one, the scion of a black father and a white mother or vice versa.
  • The danger of a single story will haunt him, although thirty years later, Africans are yet to acquire their own Cable News Network, African Broadcasting Corporation, or Al j’Africa to tell their multiple stories.

 

But I suspect Bob Geldof also knows:

  • Visibility creates heightened awareness. Celebrities generate greater visibility for causes than the United Nations does1.
  • When it comes to charitable giving, people act from the heart not from the head. Facts and charts are boring.
  • Emotion is the language of donation, images of children and women, the defenseless, make viewers emotionally invested2. Images of a prosperous Africa will zip purses close.
  • Words can evoke powerful empathetic responses because they transport us into other people’s world. Hence, no peace and joy this Christmas in West Africa – the only hope they’ll have is being alive.
  • He is a musician who knows how to compose popular songs that will sell.
  • He wants to help on his terms not yours.
  • Generosity is most potent at Christmas.

 

So, can we take a pause from shouting ourselves hoarse on social media and dismount our righteous soapboxes please? Give us your aid on our terms, sounds chivalrous, carries the ring of revolution even, but isn’t it as naïve now as it was then? Does he who pays the piper not dictate the tune?

Band Aid 30’s charity single, Do They Know It’s Christmas? in aid of the Ebola crisis, has become the fastest-selling single of 2014, selling over 200,000 copies since its release about a week ago3.  Who is buying the ‘demeaning’ song that Fuse ODG, British-Ghanaian rapper, refused to be a part of because he is, “sick of the whole concept of Africa – a resource-rich continent with unbridled potential – always being seen as diseased, infested and poverty-stricken.”4?

It would seem no amount of revising would have made the ‘new’ song acceptable to those condemning it. Only a song by Africans for Africans stands a chance of not being condescending. The Africa Stop Ebola, single, an African initiative that includes well-known musicians such as Tiken Jah Fakoly, Amadou & Mariam, Salif Keita, and Oumou Sangare, was recorded before the release of Band Aid 30’s charity single. It is currently at number seventy-eight on the iTunes download charts. Band Aid 30 is at number one5. Telling isn’t it?

Perhaps frustration arises from fighting something intangible—Geldof still raises millions with his ‘questionable’ lyrics and the African countries in question readily collect financial aid from the sale of lyrics that ‘demean’ them. Remember when the local radio stations in Nigeria played Band Aid’s song over and over and we sang, danced, and clapped (omg, omg! horror of horrors!) to the catchy chorus, feed the world . . . ? Right, that was thirty years ago. But, will the stations play the new version?

The long-term solution for underdeveloped African countries is not charity. There should be more to aid than handing over millions of Pounds6. Okay. But is that Geldof’s job? Really? Should only Bob Geldof be put on trial? Or maybe he should be hung for exploiting human nature.

A man can’t ride your back unless it is bent7. There are many ways to straighten our backs. Using Bob Geldof as target practice is one of them. I get it. Can we now concentrate on other ways of straightening our backs so that Geldof wouldn’t dare resurrect Band Aid 40 in ten years’ time, because not only would our outcry have sensitized public opinion, we would also have perfected African solutions to ‘Afro-global’ problems.

A new generation of Africans wants to tell new African stories. They know that media isn’t 100% objective. It exists to serve the interest of the owners, which include profit and propaganda. Maybe we don’t have to be so defensive about the old stories; they are part of our stories too, no? Those stories will evolve as those societies truly do and the burden of change lies with us.

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

  1. Geldof decided to remake the single after the United Nations contacted him, saying help was urgently needed to prevent the disease from spreading beyond West Africa. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/17/us-health-ebola-geldof-idUSKCN0IZ0GY20141117 
  1. Oxfam, the international aid agency, reports in 2012, that three out of five people polled said they were or had become desensitised to images depicting issues such as hunger, drought and disease. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/12/show-africas-potential-not-just-its-problems-says-oxfam
  1. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/18/band-aid-30-becomes-fastest-selling-single-of-2014 
  1. Anyone who has experienced Africa in a positive way is a citizen of the New Africa and needs to play their part in challenging perceptions– and if I can make chart-topping music that celebrates Africa then surely Band Aid and its extensive network can do the same. – Fuse ODG  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/19/turn-down-band-aid-bob-geldof-africa-fuse-odg  
  1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/20/-sp-africa-stop-ebola-band-aid-alternative 
  1. My quote. For further reading: I don’t know of any country in the world where a bunch of foreigners came and developed the country. I know about countries that developed on trade and innovation and business. – Herman Chinery-Hesse. http://www.povertycure.org/issues/foreign-aid/
  1. Quote by Martin Luther King Jr., “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.”

 

Image Credit:

Map of Africa:  http://all-free-download.com/free-vector/vector-clip-art/africa_clip_art_19737.html

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Let’s Just Agree to Disagree

~ livelytwist ~ 76 Comments

And there it was again at the end of a well-written piece by an African-American about how his trip to Africa changed his worldview; the insults and tacky comments. I did not agree with what in my opinion were romanticized notions of Africa, and I intended to say so. I scanned the piece for points of agreement to acknowledge, so I could begin commenting. However, the vitriol in the comment section from those who agreed and disagreed, whether with the post or the ensuing comments, put me off. It would not be easy to defend myself from people like sixpackpower and beautifulbetsy. Moreover, my gravatar is a photo of me my boss would recognize and my name is Timi Yeseibo.

Is anonymity on the web like mob action? Normal people abandoning good sense to loot, rape, devalue, to the beat of crazy songs sung by thousands high on hysteria like LSD? Does an IP-address unshackle responsibility from freedom?

 

dignity&anonymity

Beyond anonymity as gasoline for cyberthuggery, in a world of six billion people how can we all agree? Someone said, if only everyone were like me. I say no. Biko, do not populate the world with more people like me—do you know how boring I am? Our differences are not to be feared, but harnessed. You stretch my thinking and make me re-examine what I believe. In the end, we may find common ground, or you remain on the right and I on the left, all with respect. Can we just learn how to agree to disagree? Must web discussions on politics, sports, entertainment, religion, in other words, life, bring out the devil in us?

Sadly, some websites promote these kinds of verbal boxing matches and just as in ancient Rome, people troop in for a good fight, to watch gladiators at work. At its worst bystanders careen into the ring and die.

Our challenge is to find the compassion for others that we want them to have for us. That is emotional correctness. – Sally Kohn1

A few days ago, I read an engaging post advocating several candidates for political office in the 2015 Nigerian elections. To broaden my knowledge, I sought out opinions in the comment section. Two brilliant minds with opposing views held my attention. As the comment thread lengthened, their commentary lost substance and devolved into name calling as if their intellect had come to a full stop. When commenter one accused commenter two of shouting in capitals, commenter two defended himself by pointing out that his magnanimity was on behalf of the visually challenged.

 

turn off caps

I laughed until I belly-fulled, then navigated to a less popular political website, where comments are permanently closed, as if to say, “Read, finish, carry your trouble and go!”

 

 

comment moderation

Hieroglyphic symbols may have sufficed eons ago, but since the web is predominantly text-based, our ability to decipher tone, mood, and body language is limited. Emoticons only go so far.

After trading points for a while, a friend and I deadlocked on the value of prayer. He said, “Let’s just agree to disagree.” I nodded although I thought a couple more points would push him to my side and a consensus. His hands, folded across his chest, told a different story.  If he had written, let’s agree to disagree, in the comment section and put a smiley at the end, would I have stopped?

 

 

Let's agree to disagree

 

Having a quick wit and a repertoire of words at my disposal meant as my mother used to say, before you talk one, Timi has talked three, oya, go and study law, that is, winning arguments mattered more than winning hearts. Here’s something I’m learning that has lost me several arguments, but gained me friends or acquaintances and kept the discussion open longer: let the other person save face. Argue passionately for what you believe to be right—strip your “opponent” of logic, but leave his dignity intact. The converse is true, save your own face, don’t comment, even when you are right—walk away with dignity.

Despite our best efforts, we may be misunderstood because people read and process through filters. It helps to first suspend judgement and then seek to understand.

Finally, if you must insult me, if my post or comment inspires your disdain then confound me with your intelligence, charm me with savoir faire. At least do it with style.

 

@frankdefreak

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

1. “Sally Kohn: Let’s try emotional correctness” YouTube video, 4:25, posted by “TedTalks,” on Dec 4, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCJTV5KaJJc

 

Photo credit: © Francis Otuogbai on Twitter: @frankdfreak (used with permission)

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Wat De Brouhaha?

~ livelytwist ~ 38 Comments

100th post

 

After I finished writing, A Portrait of Success, I opted for the WordPress proofreader to scan my post before publishing. It underlined brouhaha in blue because it is a cliché. I didn’t know that, maybe I should have. How else would I have known about such a word if not from reading it a thousand times on the web? Brouhaha, even saying it sounds like a joke.

Okay, because I’m a junior at Grammar Police, because I laugh and laugh and laugh at the (autocorrect) spelling mistakes of friends, a cliché cannot be found on my blog ever! A passive sentence yes, a cliché, nooo!

I ran to my trusty friend, Google, and typed, synonyms for brouhaha1, while trying not to laugh. Here’s what I found and my comments.

babel

So, the Tower of Babel still haunts us  . . .

coil

Reminds me of snakes and snakes don’t brouhaha.

commotion

I go to YouTube and listen to Madonna, I’ve got the moves baby, you’ve got the motion, if we got together we’ll be causing a commotion. After reliving my youth, I decide I’m too adult for this synonym. Next please!

conturbation

No way! Even if it’s the last synonym on earth. Tufiakwa! It sounds like – – – – – – – – – – – -.

flutteration

I see. I see butterflies in flutteration. Come on, get real! Even MS Word flags this one and gives me flirtation, floatation, and literation as options.

hubbub

Has an “amazing” 165 synonyms including bobbery, charivari, feery-fary, and shivaree. I think I can write a poem!

jumpiness

Reminds me of sokugo2 in Cyprian Ekwensi’s Burning Grass. Nah, nah, not a good match.

kerfuffle

I think they made this one up. Someone shuffled into the office and to meet the quota, the editor wrote kerfuffle!

moil

Means to work hard. Just had to share, who knows when you might need to moil to write a post. Of course it’s archaic, but some of you are in your mid-eighties!

nerviness

Laughing gas will do that to you!

ruckus

Could have used this, but isn’t it a cliché as well?

tumultuation

Sounds like something they say from the pulpit in church.

turbidity

Water swirling round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round. Are you dizzy yet?

twitter

I read that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction, plus a social media overreaction. What the brouhaha! Figures doesn’t it?

zealousness

The reason Sunday after Sunday I’m still here. Um, I’ll save this one in my brain, thanks!

 

My 100th post, how time flies! I couldn’t have made it without you, and that is no joke. Thank you for flying with me.

 

Take lemons, make life & jump for joy!

 

timi

 

 

 

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

1. Synonyms courtesy of Thesaurasize: http://thesaurasize.com/brouhaha

2. Sokugo: a wandering disease that causes one to undertake a restless journey at its onset. Described by Cyprain Ekwensi in his book, Burning Bush.

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A Portrait of Success

~ livelytwist ~ 47 Comments

 

abstract thought

Open, by Andre Agassi, has been lying on my makeshift mantelpiece bookshelf for over three years. Although I’d monitored the brouhaha that followed its release, the “convenient openness” of Agassi revealing that he’d lied to the Association of Tennis Professionals, ATP, about a failed drug test in which he tested positive for crystal meth, I bought the book because of the good reviews. Thereafter, life happened to me and it ended up in my to-be-read-one-day-I-hope pile.

After I stopped jogging because of a foot injury, I did not think that resuming and gaining momentum would test my resolve. Every day, my body lies to me, but experience tells me the truth—you’ve done this before, and you can do it again. Maybe that’s why the autobiography of a retired star tennis player calls my name.

I start reading in the evening and slip in my bookmark at midnight because my alarm is set for five. Later, I eat lunch with a fork in one hand and the book in the other. Someone asks what it’s about. “Passion, failure, triumph, love, identity,” and as an afterthought I add, “it’s about a former tennis player.” I find, as the New York Post’s praise for Open states, it is, “Much more than a drug confession—Agassi weaves a fascinating tale of professional tennis and personal adversity. . . . His tale shows that success is measured both on and off court.”

The book alerts me to the problems of young success and for one moment, I am wary of success, (the endless practice, to what end?), although I have been chasing it all my life. Neil Gaiman said, “The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder, because nobody warns you about them.1” Perhaps this is how Agassi felt after winning Wimbledon. He writes, “I feel, in fact, as if I’ve been let in on a dirty little secret: winning changes nothing.2”

I could roll my eyes at Agassi and say, “Oh yeah? Hand over all your Grand Slam cheques please!” However, I think about everything I’ve ever wanted, worked hard for, and received or everything I’ve ever wanted that came easy for that matter. How long did the euphoria last? Some say success, is not a destination, but a moving target.

And so, I keep turning pages. I am an umpire in Agassi’s undulating journey, urging him to find his way, as if to reassure me that I too can find my way. Some stories are not ours alone. It is the reason we should not stop telling.

Agassi meets a restaurant manager, Frankie, who makes an impression on him. He arranges a nest egg to help Frankie lighten the burden of educating his kids. Agassi writes, “Helping Frankie provides more satisfaction and makes me feel more connected and alive and myself than anything that happens in 1996. I tell myself: Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting value or meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.”

Oprah Winfrey, Bill and Melinda Gates, and many others, have committed huge sums to their private foundations and other charities. Why? Tax planning benefits and positive branding? Maybe. Maybe not. But, Tutankhamun and other Pharaohs may have reached the afterlife, and looked around in surprise because their treasures still lay in the pyramids of ancient Egypt, waiting for thieves to loot. The moral of the story? Spend your money on earth!

A common thread weaves through the interviews I’ve read of successful people in their twilight years. While success has conferred many advantages and brought satisfaction, greater fulfilment has come from investing in others.

As I return Open to the bookshelf, I am convinced of what I already instinctively know—this kind of success is not to be feared, it is to be understood.

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

  1. Neil Gaiman: Keynote Address 2012, The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. http://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-keynote-address-2012
  2. Agassi, Andre, Open, An Autobiography (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), 167.
  3. Ibid., 230.

Image Credit: Ty Carlson @CreationSwap: http://www.creationswap.com/media/1553

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Bus 281

~ livelytwist ~ 70 Comments

Bus 281

The bus driver did not look at me when I entered the bus. I spared him a glance as he sped away from the bus stop and grabbed a red pole to steady myself before I flopped into my seat.

“Sorry,” I apologized to the man on the window seat when I regained my balance and saw what my lipstick had done to his sleeve.

He shrugged and smiled.

Whenever we approached a bus stop, we lurched forward as the driver braked, and we fell backwards as he accelerated again. No one got on the bus.

At the intersection between Park and Jacob Street, a grey Toyota on the opposite lane anxious to beat the red light, navigated a left turn. But it was caught in the middle of the road, in the path of our angry bus. The bus driver brought the bus within scratching distance of the Toyota. The Toyota driver inched further left. The bus growled and heaved. I felt the faltering bravery of the Toyota driver. Chatter climbed a few decibels.

Vroom, vroom, vroom! The bus driver’s impatience bellowed from the engine.

“Go! Go! Go!” the passengers cheered and clapped, with necks extended.

The lights turned green, and the Toyota rolled into Jacob Street just as the bus charged forward. I fell back in my seat and began to breathe again.

Five hundred metres before my stop, I pressed the button. The buzz pierced the chatter and the display flashed, STOP, in the monitor overhead. Moments later, I stood and held a red pole to brace myself, but the driver rode past the bus stop.

The passenger sitting beside me called out, “Chauffeur!”

More passengers called, “Chauffeur!” and then chanted, “Chauffeur! Chauffeur! Chauffeur!” stamping their feet to match the two syllables in the word.

Eventually the driver swerved towards the kerb. Passengers rose and shambled to the door like zombies. The driver lowered the belly of the bus, and the door puffed before opening. Twilight had bowed to a moonless night, and we were in the middle of nowhere.

“The world is full of crazy people. Get out while you can,” called the driver.

My feet developed roots, and I watched all the passengers except the man I sat beside, file out of the bus. They wore pale blue tops and trousers. He nudged me, and we got off together.

The passengers in pale blue led the way. Their voices floated and filled the night. In the absence of buildings and street lamps, the tree branches were monsters looking on. Reprieve from the darkness came from a dim signpost where the passengers melted into the shadows. I read the sign, National Psychiatric Hospital, and we quickened our pace. His presence by my side, kept me from running. The next bus stop was still ahead.

The bus stop, a pole with a twisted metal sign, offered no protection from the night. I checked my phone. The battery was dead.

“Mine too,” he shrugged.

Darkness stretched time like fitted sheets that are too small. I stifled the urge to pee. The wind whistled through the leaves.

“Did you hear?”

“What?” I replied.

“I thought I heard my name,” he turned in a semi-circle.

“Me t . . . t . . .  too.”

We huddled closer. Then he started singing, “Love is like two dreamers dreamin the exact same dream . . .”

“Nightmoves, Michael Franks,” I mumbled.

“Marry me,” he whispered.

The leaves answered the wind, “Whooosh!” and fell to the ground.

But the wind whistled back in hot pursuit gathering leaves in its arms and spinning them round and round. Some leaves broke free and circled our feet. Something in the pit of my stomach churned.

“The music begins and the titles fade in, starrin’ you and me. The hero is struggling to say that his lady is far away in her prison of wishes . . . ,” he continued singing.

Headlights appeared in the distance. I moved as far out to the edge of the road as I dared and waved.

“Marry me!” his voice was urgent.

The thing in my stomach grew. My chest rose and threatened to pop the buttons of my blouse. I darted to the middle of the road and waved my hands with all my might.

Two yellow eyes flashed twice, cutting through the darkness. The sound of the engine grew louder. I ran to the side just as the bus screeched to a stop, lowered her belly, and the doors swung open. I clambered in and willed the driver to read my eyes.

“Close the door!” I screamed.

“Aha, the world is full of crazy people, get in while you can,” he smiled and sped away.

I turned and watched the passenger singing and dancing as his pale blue form retreated into the darkness, then flopped into my seat. I closed my eyes and opened them when I started breathing through my nose again, grateful for street lamps. By now, the bus was ambling over the cobblestones of the deserted shopping district. I saw our reflection on the floor-to-ceiling windows and squinted to read the inscription on the side of the bus, Bus 281: Property of The National Psychiatric Hospital.

“Honey, just marry the idiot already. One of these days he’s gonna tire of the game and find someone else,” the bus driver caught my eye in the rearview mirror and winked.

I looked at his shirt, pale blue. I looked down at my blouse, pale blue. I fainted.

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

——–

Michael Franks, Nightmoves, from the album, The Art of Tea.

Image credit: illustrations from Microsoft

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Picture Your Story

~ livelytwist ~ 73 Comments

picture your story

Ever noticed how newspapers use photographs of public figures? If Obama scores a big one, we get smiling Obama, maybe with a fist pump. When the roof caves in, we get tight-lipped, greying, worry lines Obama. All underneath screaming headlines. If the paper has integrity, we are not disappointed with the text that follows, our minds having been conditioned for it. They say we see with our eyes and we see with our minds.

And yet after I left primary school, my books, whether novels or textbooks, were devoid of images except for academic (boring), charts, graphs, drawings, and photos illustrating the concept being taught, as if to say, now that you’ve mastered comprehension, you don’t need visual aids or we want you to concentrate, no mucking around!

The web changed everything. Of course, it had to since everyone became a (potential) content provider. The downside of information overload is digital ADD. Mixing text with pictures and videos means we might win the scramble for eight seconds of surfing attention. However, beyond this, I integrate photos with text because it breaks monotony and can say what words cannot, helping to build emotional connections. Moreover, we decipher meaning from images, adding to the reading experience.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it might not tell the whole story. Perhaps that’s why on the web, text continues to dominate information exchange and videos, which combine visuals and words, are on the rise.

Visual art and writing don’t exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can’t do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating. – William S. Burroughs –

After writing an article, I hunt for images that complement it. During my search, I encounter photos that have nothing to do with the text, which haunt me and inspire me to manufacture a story, like this one.

Boy by Greyerbaby

The right story hasn’t come along for this image yet, but I can’t wait any longer. Let’s find the story together. You don’t need to be a writer, just human. Tell what the photo evokes in you. There is no right or wrong, because we see the sun at different times. Day for me may be night for you. You can write your headline (title) in sentence caps and/or a few lines of the story. Indulge me, please? I’ll start.

 

The Boy Who Stole Tomorrow

Truth did not have consequences when we were young, so we exchanged it freely as though playing Ping-Pong. Some days you won. Other days I won. We did not keep score but maintained equilibrium until she came. Then, you made me lose more than I should have.

————–

P.s. Like seriously? Of course there’s no prize, I’m not Oprah! Alright then, just comment on how multimedia content enhances online interaction. See? Told ya! The story option is easier 😉

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

Photo credit: Photo credit: ©Lisa Runnels/www.pixabay.com (used with permission)

http://pixabay.com/en/boy-walking-teddy-bear-child-walk-447701/

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For Coloured Girls Only? No, I think not . . .

~ livelytwist ~ 52 Comments

 

Hair hair

I refused to get into the natural hair “debate” because, because, hmmm . . . , because, the fear of backlash for unnatural hair is the beginning of wisdom! Moreover, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, is still lying on my bookshelf unread. What can I add to the conversation biko?

My friend wears her hair natural. I wear weaves and extensions on top my relaxed bone-straight hair, but you figured that out already. When we meet,  she oohs over my hair-do and calls me, hot mama. I look at her kinky-do, and say, “You’re gonna kill someone today!” Then we share what we’re doing in our respective spheres to change the world, buying and selling in serious currency—ideas. We talk about the kids, our men, and all the things that went wrong in Grey’s Anatomy. In other words, we revel in our friendship.

I wish this were true with all my natural-hair friendships. With some of them, after “the sermon,” I want to say, “I am not less of an African woman for choosing Brazilian, Indian, Peruvian, or synthetic hair, and I have nothing to prove or disprove. Touch my hair and I’ll touch yours. Oya, let’s be friends who agree to disagree.” But I keep mum. If age has conferred any wisdom on me, it is this: choose your battles wisely; hair may fall or may grow, turn brown or turn grey, but relationships transcend it all.

Nkem Ivara captures some of my sentiments. I won’t reinvent the wheel, I will just hide behind her natural hair . . .

I read a post on one of the natural hair forums on Facebook yesterday. The lady posted some photos of her hair and claimed she had been natural for 36 months. Turns out she started transitioning in September 2012.

Now I realise Maths is not my strong suit but even I noticed the numbers didn’t add up. My first thought was to point out that she has actually been natural for just 24 not 36 months and I was going to say as much when I stopped myself. I stopped because I had visions of all the comments that would follow. Comments that would accuse of me of not being supportive of a fellow natural. Continue here . . .  

So, while I’m at it, I might as well share this: I am tired of this hair, hair, everywhere.

 

Take lemons, make life & jump for joy!

timi

 

 

 

Once Upon a Time

~ livelytwist ~ 66 Comments

have a story to tell

We carry stories with us. As a child, my nanny told me that if I looked at the mirror at night, I would see ghosts. Then she shared ghost stories, which cemented fear in my heart. I would spend the next several years sleep walking into the bathroom at night with my right hand averting my face, my eyes, from ghosts floating on the mirror. The myth shattered at eighteen. But, every night since then, I pause at the mirror before I sleep. Stories can intervene in myriad ways.

Storytelling has been enjoying a public renaissance; it’s a buzzword that makes me smile. Consultants are teaching CEOs how to embed business data and technical information in a good story to keep audiences from yawning. Ha, I know what my next job should be!

 

abcs storytelling

 

So what have we discovered about storytelling that my great great great great grandmother didn’t know? That when we read, listen to, or watch the right stories our brains light up with cortisol, which focuses our attention, and oxytocin, which causes us to care and connect. That the right stories follow Gustav Freytag’s analysis of dramatic structure, aka, the dramatic arc.1

 

dramatic arc

 

Speaking on UCF’s On the Issues, author Chris Abani said, “Everything we need to know about ourselves is already contained in literature. Most of us writers today, we’re sort of clever plagiarists. If you think about[sic] in many ways, all of the holy books from the Bhagavad Gita to the Bible, have covered all the stories that need to be told.”2 It would seem there are no new plots just deviations from the originals.

Why then, since we know the science and art of storytelling, do we lean forward in our seats, with one hand frozen in the popcorn carton and lips parted in an O, the shape left by the straw we abandoned? Why do our hearts race as if Tom Cruise has ever died in a movie? Because a story is an unwritten promise by the storyteller that he’ll take you there and make you care, in the end.

 

leading actor never dies

 

If story mirrors life and life mirrors story, then our lives play out this way as well, scene after scene, chapter by chapter: a beginning, which comprises exposition and rising action, a middle where conflicts peak, and an ending with falling action and dénouement. Each story that captivates us leaves us wondering and longing and hoping that the end will be good, so we can interpret the omens of our lives favourably.

History is a compilation yesterday’s stories. The best stories from the past make me desire transcendence since my life is a search for my own story. If I find it, my storytelling becomes the vehicle to transport you into my world so you can experiment with the possibility that your world can shift to accommodate mine. Someone said that the test of a great story is what people remember about you when you stop talking. If you want me to learn something quickly, wrap it in a story.

——–

P.s. What do you remember? No, don’t reread, for crying aloud, this is not an exam just an experiment without compensation! Please comment on what you remember. Or never mind . . .

 

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

 

  1. Zak, Paul J. How Stories Change the Brain. The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_stories_change_brain, (accessed October 5, 2014).

 

  1. “On The Issue – Author Chris Abani,” YouTube video, 6:05, posted by “UCF,” January 27, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eg4XmK4k6A

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.