i hate dusk
it’s like the light can’t be bothered to fight anymore
my mind feels like that sometimes
and i could not be bothered
but to let the darkness roll in
When I read my confessionals
So a crazy thing happens… I first have to brace myself. I think it’s because I am never quite sure how reading what I wrote is going to make me feel.
Sometimes I shock myself and sometimes I feel shame. Shock – because of how much I reveal. Shame – because of how much I reveal. Most of it is mixed admiration and the early makings of an emotional hangover… probably because I am often surprised at what I am willing to admit when I am writing. How vulnerable I truly am.
I also read in between the intention of wanting to be clever… and perhaps, some trace subtext of relief… and just a tinge of satisfaction at being able to write it all.
I often say, many times like an old grandpa with repetitive jokes, that I think the best version of myself is the writer. I allow myself so many freedoms when I am in this space. I give myself lots of room to just be… and this is a gift I seldom give myself when I consider all the other versions of me that are running around.
I like the idea of re-reading what I have written because I have the courage not to be dishonest with myself. In this confessional, I think I am assured of at least one place where I can reflect my truths back. This is not all a bad thing.
I am mustering the courage
to run towards
the life I think I deserve
my step wobbles every so often
when I think of the million ways in which
I fall short and
feel small
I am mustering the courage
to love you in the way that your soul deserves
and my heart weeps to do
I falter ever so often
when I think of the million ways in which
I have failed to love me and
how I could possibly love you enough
I am mustering the courage
to run towards me
so that I can find a sure way to step away
from the hiding behind old habits
that make things faster but short lived
I want to love me
so that I can allow you to love me
so that I can love you
and possibly, maybe…
love us together
Crossroads Morbidity
The big blue bus with the rusted, dented front – brown and mangled – was headed for me. In a rush to get across the road, I had bent my ankle over my four-inch high heel, promptly landed on my bum in the middle of the road. Somehow, the shock of it all wiped out any reaction time I had. My head turned to the left, all I could see was blue, brown dents. The world was rather quiet too – I think there might have been some people screaming or shouting, waving hands. This guy, the driver of the blue-brown mass of tetanus potential couldn’t see me.
They say life flashes before your eyes moments before you face death. I am not sure that there’s much to see in my eyes. Life was just beginning for me. Finished school. Great job. Paying down my credit cards. I was standing outside my sorry deer-in-headlights arrested body, waiting for a colorful death.
Impact. Blood everywhere.
I think I felt shooting pain everywhere as the mass of liquids and squishes that I am was splattered across the black tarmac. Hot, melting, rusty bloody smells.
Looking behind me, the shock on the woman’s face – the lady in red holding a young baby in her arms, shielding her eyes. The gentleman in a suit who might have been running to pull me from the road, finally registering that I was not able to move. I felt the life suck out of me, ooze as the outside me was pulled to the dead me.
Zip. I was back and I was dying… blood was dripping from my eyes like tears.
What a painful, painful death.
Crossing roads have a weird effect on me.
I am approaching the road and these images flood my mind. I wonder if this morbidity is a sign of silent suicidal thoughts. I am crossing the road. Safe on the other side. I guess I didn’t die today.
Pictures of the Nairobi Book Fair
So this is my first test of creating an image collage… these are some of the beautiful pictures of the Booth that we took at the Nairobi Book Fair 2019
Of Book Fairs and reprises
So one of the gushy experiences I had during the Nairobi Book Fair was having my friends visit the Ema Tinje Booth. There was much celebration and talk about my love affair with writing and how it all led to the Book and the Booth.
As we were chatting, *nostalgically* about my early dabbling with short stories, one of my sister friends reminded me of one of her favs of my short stories. I laughed because I wrote this piece while trying to figure out what kind of writer I am… so I went hunting for it in the archives to present it here.
I must say that I am amused by the style and the premise of the story… it’s a short flash fiction piece… here have a read:
Naked Flashes
I moved to this particular gated apartment complex for the love of space, light and hardwood floors. The living room sprawled for what seemed like miles with awesome windows letting the light in from everywhere.The sun in the morning streaked in at dawn and stayed. It was the light that got me. You see, I love windows on principal. Dark rooms depress me. I am pretty sure it has something to do with
the four years I spent in a narrow, windowless office while I finished two excruciating masters’ degrees.In any case, the windows had me at hallo.
I also love being naked in rooms filled with light. I hate it that nakedness is considered some sort of taboo in most African cultures. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate being connected to the earth and at least ten years behind postmodernism (which is just a major trip down depression). But I just long for the freedom to just be – no protocol, zero traditions that dictate behavior etc. And my little rebellion to the structure of my culture is to walk around naked in my house. It helps that I also live alone.
But my nakedness is secret so it’s all the more exciting.
I have to say that I don’t have a conventionally enviable body and well, most people wouldn’t expect a girl like me to be happy naked. But it is bliss. I like my short neck (that’s new for you too, right?)… I enjoy how my breasts fall over me, the bulge of my stomach, the dimple before… I like my tattoos (another symbol of my inner liberation)… I love the curve of hips, my strong thighs, and what I think are the sexiest legs. For a short person, I think my legs are rather long… I love my back, the smooth expanse of dark that dips into my waist and mushrooms into my ass. I have a nice bum. I have a tattoo above it, a lotus flower – a symbol of the life that I hold center. Yes, I know it’s rather cliché to have a tattoo right above my bum but I had so much fun getting it.
Most mornings, after a shower, I drag my near sheer curtains open and let the sun in. I bask naked in awe of the glorious light and let it seep into my soul, it seems. Then the window glass magnifies the open rays and my breasts heat up; there’s nothing like the sun.
Unselfconsciously, I opened my closed eyes only to find the daytime gate guard, mouth open, eyes wide, unable to move.
Earlier today, I felt eyes on my breasts in addition to the sun. I could feel them boring into me in awe.
My instinct was to scream, scream, scream, scream.
Instead, I drew the curtains, sat on my bed, and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
I am definitely liberal now; my nakedness is no longer my own.
Still no urge to put on clothes though!
This still makes me giggle… there were so many questions I got on whether its really did happen. But alas! it did not. I just have a crazy imagination.
Brave little steps and gold stars
Okay. So I wrote a book. I published it. And now I am on the journey of selling it. I am committed to doing this author thing well because my dream is to write full time… a privilege I was once told is not common for many African writers. Still, I want it.
But it is a journey of small little brave steps. The vulnerability of writing a book cannot compare to the intensity of asking someone to read your book… let alone buy it. I thought the exposure of being a writer was in the baring of my soul — of granting open access to the thoughts that run around my head. But it turns out, I am more afraid to disappoint my readers than I am to expose them to my imagination.
Like many people, I am so text book in wanting love and affection. I want approval. I love my gold stars. And I can’t tell you how it lights up my insides when someone actually likes a story I wrote. I know that as I grow into my craft, I will have hits and misses… but it’s the hits that I enjoy the most.
So you can imagine that it took me a while to accept that the book won’t sell itself. I had a hard time figuring out that I actually need to ask people to buy the book. It was a little tough to accept that this writer’s journey is incomplete, if the book remains with me (… like literally in my office where some 400 odd copies are boxed waiting to be sold…)
But I think I finally got it.
I took another brave step today. I reached out to my friends and asked them to buy the book, to visit this website where I have been squirreling away my daily writing habit with no viewers, and actually posted the location of my modest social media footprint.
I am so exhausted from it all. And the flu that is haunting me at the moment.
But in a way, I am glad I learned something about myself. I am a simple chic at the end of the day… brave little steps and gold stars… that’s my process.
So. Now I am a published author and about to become a killer book salesman.
I love the idea of you and me.
You fit in places I did not know were missing pieces and parts.
I love the idea of you and me.
But thoughts and fantasies of you scare me back to reality.
I love the idea of you and me.
Your mind whispers to my imagination especially when you are unaware.
I love the idea of you and me.
My mind’s version of you might be better than who you really are.
I love the idea of you and me.
What would be better is if I had a chance to find out.
Love Letters
I was thinking about love letters and remembered how much I enjoy them… how much they say about humanity. Then, I remembered that I had written once about how much I enjoy love letters. I decided to retrieve my musings on this wonderfully romantic topic. I dusted it up and decided to re-post it here… Didn’t change much, I’m afraid — still feel the same way.
It turns out that on the day I wrote this note that I was seated in an airport lounge supposed to be working but instead found myself day dreaming… imagine, I still do this — let my mind wander off, lost in some fantasy.
I am reading instead what I love the most in the world – some fiction novel that’s a cross between romance and chic lit. I am loving the character – Valentina: 34; single; in love with a man who lives far away. And she just received a letter from said man. It got me thinking – I can’t remember when I last received a love letter. Damn it… I just realized that I really really want a love letter… Valentina’s could be a model:
“… I wondered if it could be true, that you might reciprocate the feelings I had, and turn my longing to kisses. Now, I hope. Do you feel as I do?”
Do people talk like this anymore?
I suppose that in the 19th Century and back it was more common… any 21st Century takers?
Do people, even write letters any more? I am not talking about hot, steamy emails or text messages. I mean real, live, par avion covered letters, scripted in pen.
I would imagine that they are a novelty. I can also see how they could be an exercise in frustration – it took me about 2 months once to receive a wedding invitation through Kenya Post.
But you know, I remember, once when I was in love, around 10 years ago, receiving about six or seven love letters in about six weeks of summer. I looked forward to those envelopes, dotted with cologne spots and the most tender words I have ever had the pleasure of reading. For me… and not by me. I was so eager to hear what my love’s heart wanted to say. It was so so silly romantic but I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Unabashedly soaked it all in.
Sometimes I wonder if I have outgrown such indulgence as really and truly believing in the value of a love letter. Mmmmhhh. It seems that I might be a little sentimental. Must be residual from having my heart awakened and having attended the most beautiful wedding last Friday. Seriously, though, do modern and post modern mentalities even debate these things? Is it possible to be too sophisticated so that love letters are so yesterday’s news?
Forget the musings… I just really want a love letter.
I am so amused by how consistent I am in my longings… I still feel the same way.
I think, for me, it would be quite in order to receive a love letter and for it to be as priceless as diamond ring. I guess that’s really not odd — writers love words, hear words, and believe words.
Nope. Not odd at all.