Wat De Brouhaha?

October 29, 2014October 29, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 38 Comments

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 100^th 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 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.

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A Portrait of Success

October 26, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 47 Comments

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

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

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

Bus 281

October 19, 2014November 22, 2018 ~ livelytwist ~ 70 Comments

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

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

October 8, 2014November 7, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 52 Comments

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!

Once Upon a Time

October 5, 2014October 5, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 66 Comments

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!

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

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.

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

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).

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

What Should I Write About?

September 21, 2014November 22, 2018 ~ livelytwist ~ 75 Comments

This question never leaves me. Suspended in my subconscious, I answer it every moment, every day. The events of my life and yours, past, present, and a future I envision, are being stored somewhere in my brain cells. To write, I start with a title, which provides direction. Developing the story resembles opening a wardrobe and sifting through clothes, pulling one and then another from the rack, admiring, discarding, until you find the perfect outfit for the occasion. Most times, my wardrobe is full, so full that choice is the problem.

Another problem arises from the opinion of others. How many times have you asked someone, what do you think I should wear, and they picked an outfit that was just so not you? Or asked the question that makes the people we love dance around the truth—how do I look?

But, input from external sources also comes without me soliciting for it.

“I definitely think you should write about it,” Toyin said quietly.

“Mmhmmm.”

“This is an issue that touches the heart of the nation. Can you just imagine . . .”

She was right. Newspapers and social media channels brimmed with the controversy over section 29 of the Nigerian Constitution and legitimising child marriage. I had skimmed a few articles but had neither researched the issue nor signed the child-not-bride petition. Like her, I was upset, unlike her, I had not yet reached boiling point. A couple more friends called. I felt the steam from their whistling kettles, so I caved in. Between midnight and 2 a.m., I wrote an opinion piece centred on an imaginary conversation with my daughter in 2025. It had many holes that I could not fill.

That Friday, I stumbled on an elegant piece written by a lawyer. Wading through the tide of emotion, he separated fact from fiction and proposed platforms to channel the wave of mass hysteria. Hearsay and conspiracy theories belong in fiction novels, and so, I was relieved that Sunday was still faraway. I would have sent my article to the recycle bin, but for a few sentences I felt I could use in a future post.

I have not let people convince me to use my “voice” to “talk” for them since then. Although I read political articles, I rarely write about politics because I don’t have the resources to carry out investigative journalism that would result in balanced pieces.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence. – Samuel Butler –

My blog gives me freedom to wear anything I like from my wardrobe. Four criteria guide my choice, inform, entertain, inspire, and provoke thought. Oh, and try to keep it short!

Someone accused me of misleading readers since the tag line of my blog, because life happens to all of us and sometimes we get a second chance, isn’t reflected in the posts I publish. Perhaps he is right, and only I see the redemptive theme woven in my stories or maybe, you see what you want to see depending on the strength of your lenses.

So, what should I write about? Anything that catches my fancy, which I think will add value to you. Including this piece, which on the surface isn’t about redemption, but if you reflect on it, a large chunk focuses on wrestling my voice from peer pressure and speaking a language I understand. Second chances? Maybe, maybe not.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. – Isaac Bashevis Singer –

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Interpreting Silence, Mine and Maybe Yours

September 14, 2014November 29, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 53 Comments

. . . and I began to see that the pen and the words that come from it can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks or helicopters. We were learning how to struggle. And we were learning how powerful we are when we speak.¹

I was at a meeting. The preacher declared, “If you haven’t found what is worth dying for, then you haven’t started living!” In my mind, I said, “But I am living and I enjoy my life although, I don’t know what I would die for.” The preacher reeled off convictions on which he would stake his life. I thought, that’s good for you, my children are still small, my marriage too young.

In my university, when students would gather to protest against government policies, I always left the campus and went to stay at my aunt’s, as I did not fancy being tear-gassed, arrested, or beaten or raped if the protest degenerated to a free-for-all.

Their protests annoyed my middle-class sensibilities. Shielded by my parents, I had never felt the sting of socio-economic or political policies. The more daring the protest, the more likely, that my university would be shut down, so that, instead of graduating at twenty, I would graduate at twenty plus x, x being anything from one to five years. This concerned me because I had mapped my life’s trajectory without the possibility of detours.

And so, Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography interested me, as all biographical material does, but more so because she is a teenager. She’s described as the educational campaigner from Swat Valley, Pakistan, who came to public attention by writing for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. News about her work had floated in and out of my attention in years past, but as I settled to read her book, I shook my head, what was she thinking?

The man was wearing a peaked cap and looked like a college student. He swung himself onto the tailboard at the back and leaned in right over us.

“Who is Malala? He demanded?”

No one said anything, but several of the girls looked at me. I was the only girl with my face not covered.

That’s when he lifted up a black pistol. I later learned it was a Colt 45. Some of the girls screamed.²

Malala’s story, in my view, traces the journey of her convictions, how they were shaped, how they crystallized, and how she learnt to live and expect to die for them. Her father is central to her story. She interprets her world through his eyes. But I get the sense as I read that even if Malala were translated into another set of circumstances, mine as a youngster, for example, she would still shake the world. Named after the Pashtun heroine, Malalai of Maiwand, when she was born, she popped out kicking and screaming.

Malala gives us a history lesson on her beloved Pakistan and Talibanization. It is a story I recognize: Nigeria before and after British colonization; Nigeria in the age of Boko Haram. Politics never sleeps. Poverty and illiteracy make indoctrination and intimidation potent. But Kalashnikovs and RPGs make the rich and educated flee too.

Her photo on the book cover hides fear and courage, a tension that she draws her readers to share with her family in Taliban-controlled Swat Valley and beyond.

“Are you scared now?” I asked my father.

“At night our fear is strong, Jani,” he told me, “but in the morning, in the light, we find our courage again.”³

She writes that her father hated the fact that most people would not speak up. She knew he was right. He kept a poem by Martin Niemoller in his pocket.

First they came for the communists,

and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

I live in a land where my concerns range from 30% income tax deductions to choosing between Gouda and Maasdammer cheese. Comfort is a familiar place and I do not apologize for it. Privilege comes with responsibility and many are not silent. But I must break my silence and scream with more than sympathy, with my words, my money, my time, and my votes, because Malala proves that one voice can be heard. At a cost, at a cost . . .

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

1. Yousafzai, Malala with Lamb, Christina, I Am Malala (London: Orion Books, 2014), 131.

2. Ibid., 6.

3. Ibid., 115.

The Last Flight

September 7, 2014September 7, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 53 Comments

Days after Malaysian flight MH17 exploded in Ukraine, I board a KLM flight at Schiphol. I read during the long meander on the runway and snooze after take-off. I awake to the sound of a flight attendant asking, “What would you like to drink?” My mouth is dry. I spy my options; coffee, tea, or fruit juice, before he turns my way. When he does, his eyes widen, “Ma’am you’re reading that,” he gestures at my book, “here . . . in this airplane?”

“Yes.”

“In this plane?”

“Um . . . yes?”

“The Last Flight?”

I cringe, as I comprehend the irony. While he serves me tea without milk, I explain that it is a book about the civil war in Nigeria, which took place a long time ago.

“Would you like a sweet or salty snack?”

“Sweet please.”

He rolls his service cart up the aisle. Three rows up, I overhear him say to his colleague, “Zij leest het boek, The Last Flight, in dit vliegtuig!”

He motions with his chin. I tuck the book in the seat pocket. The chair cannot swallow me although I shrink my shoulders and slide lower in my seat.

Seat belts clack, clack, clack, and feet shuffle as soon as the plane taxies to a stop. At the door, he and the captain greet passengers goodbye. A huge Manfield bag, my laptop, and a suitcase that I struggled to fit in the overhead luggage compartment, I am Nigerian after all, are not agents of my discomfiture. I recite in my mind, how I will tell him that I do not have a death wish, that the book was a coincidence in poor taste, maybe joke about it. My fellow travellers’ impatience is contained by the queue in the narrow aisle. Will they forgive my small talk? Blond hair and blue eyes is already looking past me to the passenger behind. Does what a stranger think of me matter? I test the steps with my six-inch wedge. I wobble and steady myself. No more drama, I pray.

On my return trip, although I have not finished reading, The Last Flight, I read a Neil Gaiman novel. I crane in all directions searching for blond hair and blue eyes, as if his approval is penance that secures my redemption. He is not on this flight. I read Neil Gaiman’s title again, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I notice how a ‘P’ could have changed things and think about how one decision can alter events. Nevertheless, I still hide the book in the seat pocket just in case I am missing another irony.

P.s. remembering those who lost someone in a plane crash: Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. – George Eliot –

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Blogging, a Lot Like Running

August 31, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 48 Comments

My running journey provides metaphors for life. At that time of day when my neighbours court sleep and win an hour or two, the wind serves crisp air as I begin jogging. I contemplate my life’s compass until I land on lighter matters like the kinds of personal bloggers I’ve come across and how they resemble the runners who share the four-kilometre boulevard with me.

Hit and Runn-ers

These bloggers resemble that runner whose gear I like but couldn’t find at the mall. I wonder if Nike customised it for her, but swallow my Maggi-size envy before it burgeons. I swear that in a previous life, she was a rare gazelle. Hit and run bloggers excel at their craft, but they only tease us with their brilliance once in a long while, lighting our skies with their fireworks. Where will their gift take them? Some roads don’t take you anywhere and maybe, that’s okay because nowhere is a place where you can start again.

Aveng-ers

Their blogs exist to avenge their enemies. They remind me of the runner whose painful breathing heralds his presence. Punishing his thighs for a crime they did not commit, he nods and grunts as he overtakes me. One kilometre later, I find him sitting on a bench shouting, “Sh*t this, sh*t that, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!” while tying his shoelaces. Determination and ugly are not synonyms. Avenger bloggers name names, places, times, and events, as they roast people on their spit over and over. They blog as frequently as they are offended.

Observ-ers

An about page and maybe one post make up the contents of their blogs. They hop from blog to blog reading, liking, and commenting. They are like the fishmongers who yell, “Kom op! Hup hup hup!” as I turn the bend, spent, and ready to head home. These perpetual encouragers put a smile on my face and help me gain a second wind. Observer bloggers cheer other bloggers all the way to the finish line.

Reblogg–ers

They are first cousins of Observ-er. An about page and maybe one blog post they actually wrote is the extent of their originality. They have found their niche just like that blond woman in her fifties who walks her three dogs every morning. She waves to every jogger and has the same kind word for those of us slow enough to hear, “Goede morgen! Succes!” Rummaging for content on blogosphere is a reblogg-er’s high. Redistributing wealth they do not possess is an elixir. Their blogs are exotic mosaics of content from essays on Marilyn Monroe to breaking news on CNN. Rebloggers would flatter other bloggers if only not every post on their blogs was a reblog.

Promis-ers

Promis-ers begin the year with the New Year resolution, I swear to blog consistently this year, so help me God! They bring to mind the fast and furious joggers who make the word high-speed redundant. In January, they published eighteen posts, serving essays, satires, how-tos, poems, and short stories. By February, they joined Mr fast and furious on the park bench gulping air and thinking, na who send me work? When Promis-ers woo us next New Year, we will embrace them, yet no one is deceived. Why work so hard to lose credibility?

Slow and Steady-ers

They are neither cheetahs nor tortoises, but pace themselves for longevity. They run like joggers whose even breathing ensure they complete six kilometres in just over an hour. Slow and steady-ers write posts that are boring, exciting, poor, average, or excellent, but their publishing schedule is predictable. They may not win the race, but they will live to run it another day because they understand their clock and resist the pressure to reset.

Because we’re doing life together, these patterns transcend blogging. So, you don’t have to tell me which category you fall in, tell me about other categories I missed.

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Photo credit: Francois Peeters / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

The Lost Art of Conversation

August 24, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 46 Comments

I sat with my friend Toyin to talk about nothing. She mentioned sales at Debenhams. I went on about Monsoon, the clothing brand. She said she wanted to go to the beach. I talked about the three books I left on her coffee table. She pointed to the little boy in wellies splashing in the mud. I reminded her about our childhood, playing in white sand and filling our hair with it.

To me, conversation is pleasurable when we leave judgement at Heaven’s gate and manage to stop the clock from ticking. Multitasking, not to be confused with shared activity that carries conversation from point A to B, and multithinking are the bane of good conversation because if conversation is a way of telling our friends, “Please understand me,” then inattention is their way of saying, “We don’t want to.”

Toyin and I rambled until she checked her phone, “Thirteen notifications!”

I checked mine. “I miss my data coverage, I’m sure I have many notifications as well!”

She looked up and craned north, south, east, and west. “No free Wi-Fi in the park, sorry. Hey look!”

I looked at her phone, at the photo of the man and let my giggles collide with hers. “I’ve seen it before!”

Sometimes her thumbs moved over her keypad with the dexterity of a clerk from an era gone by. Other times her index finger slid across her screen, and she dropped odd bits of information here and there, like a child throwing pieces of bread to ducks at a pond. I kept my phone in my bag. Scrolling through old newsletters from writing, editing, and marketing groups, which caused my inbox to swell to 200 unread mails only made me determined to cancel my subscriptions. I drew circles in the ground with my sneakers.

She sighed and put her phone in her bag. “Why do we do this?”

I knew what she meant, why do we interject our conversations with episodes from social media as if our lives do not sizzle enough?

“Boredom?” I offered.

“No, we were really talking; then I wondered what other people were up to.”

“Curiosity then?”

She saw the twinkle in my eye. “I’m serious! It’s rude.”

“It’s not rude when everyone is doing it. It’s culture.”

“You sef!” She pushed me, but she did not apologise. “It’s possible to do without social media.”

I nodded. She told about how she forgot her phone at the office the weekend that her laptop also crashed. She couldn’t believe she’d survived that weekend without the internet.

“What did you do with all that time?”

“I slept, I read a book,” she shrugged.

We laughed.

Squeals from the family playing Frisbee in the distance caught our attention.

“In this time, we need another kind of fast. Food fasts won’t cut it anymore. We need social media fasts,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because if the purpose of a fast is to eliminate distraction and quieten the mind, then social media provides non-stop stimuli, from one link to the next. My appetite for the internet trumps my appetite for food.”

I nodded. The swings were finally free. I walked over, tugged the chains, and weighed their strength. Then I sat and had a go. She joined me.

“On your marks, get set, go!”

I rose higher and higher. I was winning. Then I thought of all the things that could go wrong. I slowed down and let her triumph.

Another kind of fast? I don’t know. Doesn’t the driver determine the speed of the car? Conversations on social media can be meaningful as well. Whatever the medium, the most expensive thing I can give anyone these days is my full attention.

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Demystifying Age: So How Young are You?

August 17, 2014March 22, 2023 ~ livelytwist ~ 85 Comments

“Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom.” – Gabriel García Márquez –

I once knew a boy from the village who did not know when he was born. Since he had never attended school, he began primary school when he moved to Port Harcourt. That he was bigger than his classmates did not inspire their respect or fear. They teased and provoked him until he abandoned school. I was in secondary school then.

The years rolled by and his voice deepened. The years rolled by and I completed my university education. I planned my life using age as milestone markers. I wonder now, how he planned his; where did his ruler start and how did he measure off millimetres and centimetres on the graph of his aspirations?

Age is just a number, maybe, but with it, we appraise where you are and where you should be. Your age cannot reveal your heart, bury your enthusiasm, or stop your dream unless you let it.

Conversations about age have dominated my circle recently. Five writers whose ages span from early twenties to mid-fifties have joined the conversation. One theme runs through the narratives: age matters, but you must define why for yourself.

When it comes to age, perhaps women have a lot more to say . . .

The Other “F” Word

Three years ago, I turned forty. I flipped out even though I knew that the negative ideas about women hitting middle age are misogynistic and wrong. At parties, any time the topic of age came up, I’d leave the room to get a drink so I wouldn’t have to cop to my age. After my ex-boyfriend told me that guys on Match dot com were writing me off because I had “40” in my age box, I thought about lying and saying I was “32” instead. I felt as if my age was my expiration date and I’d become a carton of spoiled milk.

Six months into forty, I realized I had a choice to make. I could keep chastising myself for getting older, or I could stop buying into the messed up ideas around aging that I’d internalized. Considering I’d spent most of my thirties waking up to who I really am and what I really want, I certainly didn’t want to fall asleep again under another sexist spell cast by the patriarchy.

At forty-one, I kicked my sugar habit and became the healthiest I’ve ever been. I started writing my first book. I stopped saying yes when I wanted to say no. I began listening to my instincts more and less to what other people think. I also stopped worrying about men who weren’t interested in me and started to pay attention to the men I found interesting. At forty-two, I met the person I want to grow old with. And even though I don’t look twenty-three anymore, or even thirty-three, I love the way I look today at forty-three.

So far, my forties are proving to be—to use another F-word—(pretty damn) fabulous!

Diahann Reyes @ storiesfromthebelly.com Read full article

No Longer Just a Number

For as long as I can remember, age has always been just a number for me. I shared my age comfortably when I introduced myself, and I never hesitated to give out the real number when asked by those who seemed oblivious of or who disregarded the cardinal rule.

In the past two weeks, however, age has become the measure of my womanhood and the number of chimes ringing from my biological clock. After completing my undergraduate studies in Morocco, I hopped on a plane home. In typical Gambian fashion, I received hearty congratulatory messages and varying expressions of pride from family, friends, and acquaintances, swiftly followed by prayers for a good job, bigger accomplishments, and most importantly, a great husband.

It is the natural order of things here. An undergraduate degree is enough for the woman who had chosen to go beyond high school instead of settling down to start a family. They say, “Time is not on your side.” They say, “You might not be able to bring home a husband when you are ready, because all the men would have been taken.” To their prayers, I mumble, “Amen,” and return to weighing my job options.

I find myself drawn to institutions where I feel my youth will not devalue my qualifications and capabilities. I dress to look ‘older’ for meetings and interviews, so my teenage features will not influence my potential employers’ decisions.

Consequently, I have become more conscious of my age. Twenty-four is no longer just a number. It is a detail that one might only encounter on my résumé.

Jama @ linguerebi.wordpress.com

Open Secrets

So is your age a deep secret? Mine isn’t. I celebrated my birthday this year in a blog post, The Lightness of Becoming 55. Since then, I’ve come to realize the post was about embracing my mortality; at eighty-five, my father is dying of cancer. Still, it’s a strange feeling . . . fifty-five. I have a few grey strands that I just gave up plucking! Seriously, fifty-five means I have earned life experience that no one can take away from me.

But, second thoughts creep in: what if people at work discover my age on my blog? What if they start sabotaging me? The reality is that no one cares as much as I do and I would be worrying too much. Besides, over time, that blog post will fade into obscurity as newer posts emerge. As long as I keep exploring my world and I’m open to learning about others, each year of life becomes a gift.

If a much older woman is unwilling to disclose her age, it seems to me that she is afraid of her mortality. Hey, life happens and the years appear suddenly like a breadcrumb trail behind you! More Hollywood actresses are disclosing their ages. This is a good trend or is it just the paparazzi trying to sell news?

Fifty-five equals two high-five hands clapping in jubilation and spontaneity. I’m finding my place in life with my own hands and sharing it with others. To do this, I listen to the best positive timbre of my voice. As I age, that voice becomes more poignant but rich.

Jean @ cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com

None of Your Beeswax!

How old are you? When did the question become as invasive as a stranger asking, “What size is your bra?” I first heard that you don’t ask a lady her age, in Nigeria and then, I imbibed it. Yet in The Netherlands, the receptionist at the Gemeente asks, “Wat is uw geboortedatum?” with the clinical detachment of a gynaecologist examining my cervix, and I respond, no pomp, no pageantry.

One day, I looked at my neighbour’s BMW X5, and wondered what he earned. I did not ask him when he stopped for a chit-chat as he walked his dogs because it was none of my business. I calculated the value of his house, googled what a man in his position would earn, took into consideration that his wife is the daughter of a former diplomat, and that they owned a boat. I knew enough.

How old am I? I sing Davido’s Aye, with my twelve-year-old niece and tell friends in their twenties, “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt thrice, and moved on!” I discuss my blog posts pre-publication with my buddy who is forty-five and debate the existence of God with a sixty-five-year-old atheist. I am as young or as old as I want to be.

But, when I try on those leather-look skinnies in Zara, and turn to the side, then look at my behind, I shake my head as the attendant asks, “Will you be taking this?” I am not as young as the clothes would like me to be.

So, how old am I? None of your beeswax!

Timi @ Livelytwist

Old at 18; Young at 90

I stare into the eyes of my beloved who is in his mid-thirties and wonder if he is in love with me or with the idea of my youth. I have the look of innocence or so I’ve been told. At the restaurant, a waiter asks for my ID to ensure she isn’t serving a minor drinks. I watch the confusion on her face; it surprises me every time. Gisting about celebrity gossip with my friends in their twenties tires me. Listening to the wisdom of my elders intrigues me. I am an old soul in a young body.

Do we discover life and determine our futures when we are young? Maybe. Is age a barometer for our maturity level? No way! Is age a number that convinces our friends and us that we belong to their crowd? Well, yes. Does beauty have an inverse relationship with age? Yes. No. Maybe.

I consider age a means to tell the time as we journey in life, a clock that divides our stories into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Age is only a temporary number invented by human beings. You are as youthful as your mind allows or as old as the elder who gives you advice. I will gladly tell you my age if you just ask it of me.

“Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.” – Yoko Ono

Michelle @ www.facebook.com/ladieleblanc

Not Old Enough

Because I’d recently completed an Art Appreciation class, the church elders believed I had a sophisticated eye for colours and patterns and invited me to the building committee meeting.

“We want to redesign the church building,” the senior pastor started.

“Thank God for our youngest worker here,” quipped the deacon who sat next to the pastor. “We need your expertise,” she smiled at me.

“Since God is holy and white means pure, we shall paint the walls white,” the senior pastor said.

“I agree with you sir. God is also a man of war. We can paint the pillars red to illustrate His fearfulness,” another deacon suggested.

“Wow! The Holy Spirit is at work here. How about we paint the ceilings blue?” the man sitting across from me left his question suspended in the air.

I closed my eyes and thought of rainbows and striped candies.

“What if we outsource this project and have this discussion with a designer present?” I offered.

“Abimbola, what do you mean?” the senior pastor frowned at me.

“Your ideas are lacking in terms of design, responsiveness, color psychology, and so on. Since the logo determines how a brand is remembered, it has to be in harmony with—”

“Look here, how old do you think you are? Since you are privileged to sit in this meeting, you should act your age!” the deacon who had smiled at me hissed.

So I held my peace. The project was doomed, but I kept the knowledge to my young self.

Maggielola @ worshipandswag.com

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Image credits: www.fordesigner.com/maps/15533-0.htm

A Letter in Hindsight

August 10, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 52 Comments

Some people buy a gadget, read the instructions, and then attempt to operate it. I am not one of those people. I read instruction number one, skip to number four, try to use the gadget, and call for help! I have been successful because I watched and did what those who read instructions do; I am a tactile learner. That’s why I think that if someone had given me this letter years ago, I would have breezed through it and rushed off to ‘experience’ my life.

Dear Timi,

You are twenty-one, you have big dreams, you see the horizon, and your heart leaps to find what lies beyond.

You are gathering your first-degree transcripts in hopes of attending The London School of Economics (LSE). You dream of working for the World Bank. What you do not yet know is that a desire to be an influencer on a global platform fuels your dream.

“Oh no,” you protest, “I just want to be a banker like my dad.”

Sssh, I have seen the future. You will not attend LSE. You will fall madly in love, as you will do several times in your life, and give up that dream for love, working for a local bank instead. You will be content building a home and raising a family because living this way has also been a dream of yours ever since you played house at six and declared, “I want to be the mother!”

After many years, the walls of your home will constrict, narrower than your spacious hallway, making your breathing strenuous, as though your lungs were crushed. You will watch the birds migrate in winter and return in spring and long to change the seasons of your life. Heartbreaks will accompany your flight into new territory. After a shaky start, you will soar and break your wing mid-flight. Your recovery will be long because you will consult with doctors who do not understand how to mend your wing until you finally realise that you have power to grow a new wing. You will no longer fear heartbreak because you will know the rhythm of your heart and where its broken pieces fit.

Only then will you control the thermostat of your happiness. You will fall in love again but this time with yourself and revel in the wonder of who you are. You will stop parroting and start speaking your own words, a talking bird no less, ha! One day you will share your journal with your world and their acceptance will be the impetus to share it with the world. On your saddest days, you will write, not about your sorrow or pain, but about things that make people laugh and share in their laughter. This is how your words will dry your tears.

You will enjoy goodwill and people will help you along the way, only, you must discern where one person’s help stops and another begins. You will burn bridges at first because although you were taught the earth is spherical, you were not taught that life is a circle and a 4 x 100 takes lesser time than a 400m race. If you find yourself in the ring alone or without help or friends, it will be your choice; someone somewhere will always be in your corner.

You will get to your Promised Land if you don’t hedge against making mistakes so much so that you live on the fringes of life, chauffeured in and out of existence by your fears. Your mistakes are semi-colons, you can write an independent clause after the pause. If you do this, you’ll see that nothing is wasted. Although you will not work for the World Bank, you will affect people all over the world, because words too are legal tender.

If you had to write a letter to yourself in hindsight, what would you say?

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Image credits: http://pixabay.com/en/legs-all-star-converse-casual-feet-407196/

The Hunter Games

August 3, 2014November 22, 2018 ~ livelytwist ~ 36 Comments

Once upon a time in faraway Heindenlily, Princess Amera decided that she would go to the Wise One to help her find love.

She pulled the reins so her horse could gallop faster as she left the palace gates behind. Sandwiched between her bodyguards, she felt as if palace life had shielded her. And from what? Foolish princes like Prince Olmeri of Findolgun who’d stuttered when he came for her hand until he all but swallowed his tongue, and the king’s physician had to revive him. Still blue in the face, he’d tried to stutter an apology, but she shushed him by putting her index finger to his lips. What utter nonsense! She would find love on her terms.

When her guards dismounted to cut low-lying branches, paving a way in the forest, she saw how long their shadows were. She had not noticed the sun receding behind the hills of Allaymin. She shivered and drew her cape tighter. In front, the oak trunks leaned in as if to touch them and then, as if to squash them. Meeting her bodyguards’ stares, she masked her fear with her smile. She marvelled that women had lain passive as though waiting for pollen from bumblebees, for years and years. The wind was variable too. Nectar had lost its edge, and the driver’s seat was vacant.

“Fair princess!”

Her bodyguards bumped into one another and struggled to quieten their horses. Princess Amera gasped as the trail widened to reveal a moss-covered hut. The Wise One beckoned to her from the entrance. The rumours were true. His white beard swept the ground like the dust brushes her chamber maidens used to attack cobwebs.

Inside the hut, babies’ skulls lined the walls. He pulled one, dropped something inside it, and offered it to her. Her hands trembled as she collected the skull. The thing inside smelt like cow dung and tasted like honey, so she did not chew.

“So you are tired of waiting for him?”

He did not wait for her answer.

“Choice is a rudder without hindsight. A thing to be desired and yet a thing to be feared,” his voice boomed, and the walls became mirrors.

She smiled when she saw perfection.

“That one,” she pointed.

“The moon will cross Orynimmel Kingdom tonight and tomorrow. You will have one chance.”

He leaned forward, and his beard nicked a bit of the flame from the huge candle on the centre of the table. A quick glow and then fading embers, as the light died in his shaggy bush. He pulled a bow and arrow from under the table and handed it to her.

“Shoot with all your might, and he will be yours.”

“B . . . but . . . what if he doesn’t want me?”

“Isn’t that why you are going after him? To show him what he wants? Sssh, sleep now, in the morning it will all make sense.”

The next morning, she washed her face with the washcloth Wise One gave her. She looked in the stream. He was right. She was even more beautiful. When she turned to hand over the washcloth, the hut had disappeared. Her bodyguards stood at attention as they waited for her.

“Yee haw!” she cried and mounted her horse.

As they journeyed, the oak trunks leaned backwards, making space, so they could ride in an A-formation. Daylight pushed through the mist shrouding the hills of Allaymin. She saw him first as they rounded a bend. The sun’s rays filtering through the long necks of oak trees, circled him like a spotlight. Her horse neighed testing her indecision. Why was he alone?

“Fair princess,” he bowed.

“Prince Zonaltera of Luxamdola.”

She dismounted, clutching her bow and arrow in her right hand.

“Going hunting?”

He smiled at her and then turned to his horses, grooming their manes.

She sat on the grass. Dewy anemones and bluebells teased her ankles. She waited and waited until the sun rose to the middle of the sky.

You will have one chance . . .

“Do you like me?”

“Yes,” turning to face her, he said, “what’s not to like?”

“Then,” she cocked her head, “why have you not asked for my hand?”

“I don’t know. I . . . I have been distracted.”

“I see . . . grooming your horses . . .”

She stood, raised her bow and arrow, and aimed at his heart. He ducked and then ran deeper into the forest. Her hair danced in the wind as she pursued. Darting and ducking, brown trunks and green leaves embraced them in a fuzzy camouflage. The ground sucked their footfalls as squirrels and weasels skipped away.

“Stop!”

She spun around and around ears on alert. A creeping vine curled around his left sleeve, pinning him to the spot. He placed his free hand on his knee as he sucked in air, turning red. Overhead, jackdaws abandoned their nest holes and flew away, unamused by the lovers’ game.

“Please,” he said, twisting this way and that, “if you chase me, you will catch me.”

A thrill she had not known before made her skin tingle and her pupils dilate; she tasted power.

“I’m tired of hunting. The prey you want gets away too many times.”

He pulled his hand free, ripping his sleeve and sending tiny leaves in the air.

“Perhaps you lack skill.”

“Sometimes the prey runs too fast and then too slow, confusing your aim. Hunting can be exhausting!”

He sunk to the ground, massaging his arm.

“Wimp!” she scoffed. “I know what I want.”

She raised her bow.

“Wait, wait! How will you know I really want you, if you trap me?”

“Do you want me?”

“Yes . . . but give me a chance to—”

She raised her bow and released the arrow into his heart. Then she left him there for the magic to do its work. One month later, they were married. Her happiness was a rainbow that all came to behold and point at. Ten months after, he began to shrink. Smaller and smaller, smaller than a stump in the ground.

“What is happening?”

Her tears could no longer hide behind her eyes, which were twin mirrors through which he saw not only himself but also how she saw him. He longed to lick her tears, but she no longer ached for him, letting his name escape from her lips, softly, softly, softly. He began to cry too.

“Evolution?”

“I tried to warn you.”

“If we were born a thousand years from today, it would no longer matter who hunted and who got caught. If we could time travel . . . I mean, what kind of woman loses a slipper at midnight and doesn’t go back to find it before one idiot consigns it to the lost-and-found dump?”

She carried her frog and placed him on the golden pouch on her nightstand. She missed the strength of his arms.

In the distance, the stars twinkled over the hills of Allaymin. The moon would cross Orynimmel Kingdom tomorrow night and next. She still had the bow and arrow.

You will have one chance.

Time had snatched her rainbow, but nirvana was still within reach.

“Good night my love.”

“Croak, croak, croak,” he replied.

Image credits: http://www.disney.co.uk/brave/downloads/?d=downloads-merida

Returning, Blogorophobia, and the Gourd of Friendship

July 23, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 49 Comments

July. The month rolls in gently. I trace my footprints from last July until now. Small, hesitant, and then larger and bolder. Yours criss-cross with mine. I smile and laugh. I cry, but not for long. I cannot tell my story without telling yours too. This is what blogging has meant to me. So, what next? I narrow my choices, but refuse to sign the dotted line. Fear? Maybe. Hope? Maybe. Fluid like water, I look at the sky. In the meaning of the shape of the clouds, my answers are there. Tell me, how have you been?

My first weekend away from blogging, I was attacked by intense “blogorophobia”— the fear that you’ll lose your readers because you’re not blogging. While others slept, I stared at my monitor. Insecurity and desperation have only produced compromise in my life.

***

Rewind plot to earlier in the week, to that conversation with a friend.

“When will you start blogging again, so I can read your blog?”

“Oh, in about three weeks, but I’m reblogging stuff I like, you should read those.”

“The reason I drop by your blog is to read your stuff.”

“Really?”

“Whatever, don’t stay away too long. You know how fickle internet relationships are.”

Did I know?

Two more people shared similar sentiments that same week and I felt like the mother who on dropping her child at day care for the first time, experiences severe separation anxiety.

***

I went to bed without writing. Anything of value, that is. I remembered that when I left my son at day care for the first time, his cries followed me all the way to work. That as I immersed myself in reports and meetings, his voice could not compete. And when I returned to get him, his tiny arms clung to me and mine to him, as if our being apart had taught us to spell together differently. Thereafter, our parting became easier as we learnt to trust.

My stats did not nosedive. You visited and left comments. I visited you and sometimes I left comments. Internet relationships can be fickle, but you, yes you, you’ve hung around longer than most. It seems fitting then that I leave you with a poem by Richard Ntiru¹.

The Gourd of Friendship

Where is the curiosity we’ve lost in discovery?

Where is the discovery we’ve lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we’ve lost in communication?

Where is the communication we’ve lost in mass media?

Where is the message we’ve lost in the medium?

And where is the community we’ve lost in all these?

It is easy to go to the moon:

There, there are no people.

It is easier to count the stars:

They will not complain.

But the road to your neighbour’s heart –

Who has surveyed it?

The formula to your brother’s head –

Who has devised it?

The gourd that doesn’t spill friendship-

In whose garden has it ever grown?

You never know despair

Until you’ve lost hope;

You never know your aspiration

Until you’ve seen others’ disillusionment.

Peace resides in the hearts of men

Not in conference tables and delegates’ signatures

True friendship never dies-

It grows stronger the more it is tested.

See you Sunday?

Take lemons, make life, and then jump for joy!

Ntiru, Richard, The Gourd of Friendship, Poems of Black Africa, ed. Soyinka Wole (London: Heinemann/AWS, 1975), 169.

Image credit: tattoo ink painting by Mina van Berkum

The Lightness of Being 55 by Jean Chong and Cycle Write Blog

July 20, 2014July 20, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 35 Comments

Jean and I hit it off when we bantered in the comment section of my post, On Getting Older. Responding to my reluctance to tell my age, she said, “Well, one day you’ll feel great to reveal your age. Seriously, it is earning life experience that no one can take away from you.” I dunno, I’m still a Naija girl and we hide our age in a room locked with steel chains.

Mark Twain said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” To me, Jean echoes this sentiment in her post. While I’m not racing into my fifties, I’m not dragging my feet either. I want to enter my later years having established healthy and sustainable lifestyle choices as Jean has done. I hope she’ll inspire you to be “light” at fifty-five and beyond. Hear her:

The Lightness of Becoming 55

It’s a special age of symmetry for anyone: it’s 2 open hands that are smacking double high “fives” with hands of other birthday well-wishers.

55 means I’ll just hopefully go for a bike ride around my birthday. No, it won’t be a 55 km. ride since my birthday falls on a winter work day this month. Our evenings are still dark early and there may be icy pavements. We’ve had several winter days that have plunged below -31 degrees C. with a howling snowstorm.

Still, it’s a strange feeling …55. Continue here

Why Revolution, Occupy Movements, Terrorists And All Sorts Of Anti-Establishment Things Are Good For Capitalism

July 13, 2014July 13, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 6 Comments

By his own admission, Charles Onyangbo-Obbo’s blog is a (sometimes) irreverent take on all things African – and non-African. So, who benefits from the “protest”? While in my view, grey areas encroach upon black and white territory; his piece reminds me of comments about Boko Haram’s ideology: western education is bad, although it gave Boko Haram guns, TV, internet, and cell phones . . . hmmm.

NAKED CHIEFS

I have been studying photos of the Sunni jihadist group, Islamic State of Iraq, those these militants who are trying to establish a caliphate in Iraq and Syria – to begin with.

On June 10 last week, they made some mind-blowing military gains, capturing Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and most of the surrounding province of Nineveh. Buoyed by their victory, they headed south towards Baghdad, the capital, taking several towns on the way.

Some 30,000 of Iraq’s US-trained soldiers just dropped their guns and uniforms, and took off for the desert. How many ISIS insurgents were they faced with? Just 800!

The virulently anti-western ISIS is so extreme and violent, even Al Qaeda distances itself from it. However, they were carrying AK 47s, and wearing sneakers. The people benefitting from the sale of the AK 47s are actually some infidels and aetheists in the west and Russia.

And American…

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Marinochka by Samuel Okopi

July 6, 2014November 22, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 7 Comments

Lace

Faded pink

Rose-embossed writing paper

The scent of Old Spice

Handwritten love-letters before email & Google

Postcards and postage stamps

That’s what Samuel Okopi’s story reminds me of. And he’s clever too with personification, making me wonder if “Shostakovich” is a chair or a person. From Russia with love, what say you?

I am sad these days, Luke. Shostakovich doesn’t smile anymore. His hands are always cold. On the harsh nights when I snuggle into his embrace, warmth does not find me. Only a matching cold. Maybe it is because the night winds blowing from Nicolayevskaya into my little apartment here in Krasnoyarsk have become colder. The large familiar shadows cast by our samovar set have now shrunk to that of the wooden figure of St. Stolobensky, standing on the dining table. Maybe I feel sad because he was Zoya’s favourite saint. But the orange flames that float on the candles at night are as bright as they have always been. Maybe they want Shostakovich and me to be happy? Like forget the memory of the weird laughter of Zoya that scared us and amused us at the same time? I am sorry Luke for the silence. Really sorry. Continue here . . .

Image Credits:

Antique Jewel Box Victorian Pearls Lace Old Silver by JamesDeMers

http://pixabay.com/en/antique-jewel-box-victorian-pearls-72414/

Taking Stock and Resting

July 2, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 27 Comments

The first six months of 2014 on WordPress have been good. I’ve grown as a writer and you’ve helped me along the way, thank you so much. Now, it’s time to take stock. So, I’m taking a break from posting my stuff. I’m going to rest, but I’ll introduce you to some writers and blogs I enjoy starting this Sunday. I hope you’ll stay and show my friends the same regard you do me. I’ll be around in the comments, and you can reach me via my contact form.

Connecting with people is one of the high points of blogging for me. Lately I’ve had many likes and follows, and I haven’t been able to connect with my new blogger friends. I’ll use my break to meet you and catch up with old friends on blogosphere. I’m also going to (finally) read the books lying on my coffee table and enjoy the sun.

See you on Sunday.

Take lemons, make life, and then jump for joy!