Your Parents

 I read an essay about Lagos, and growing up and parents written by a man called Tunde Wey. 

Anyway the essay made me realize what I have been struggling to put a finger on for a long time.

My parents are two very different people who got married, had 3 children and left each other ( well my father left my mother), they are both remarried now.

The older I get the more I am able to look at them through non judgemental lenses, and just see them, and what I see are both flawed people. One who stayed to raise her children because her back was against the wall and she had run out of options.

and one who left because he had never had a chance to practice building the capacity that will be needed for difficult times. So he ran. and keeps running. But slows down long enough to ask for a soft loan- which I always ignore. then he continues to run.

Neither of my parents are bad people, infact both of them are victims of Lagos living. and we all know how vicious Lagos is. If you show a hint of fear Lagos will chew you up and spit you out like it did my Father who now lives in Oshogbo with his wife and two daughters from that marriage.

But if you face Lagos head on, every day, eventually she yields and grants you all the trappings of Lagos living. A day bursting with the potential of a missed flight because traffic or a missing side mirror because another car is doing a high speedchase with law enforcements, all of which you will avoid because you have mopol in your 4x4. The high seats of the 4x4's - which my mother has 3 of, really distances you from the daily potential lagos madness. You can see it, feel it but it can't touch you.

Not in the way Nigeria touches you anyway.

So I love my mother, If I was in her class, I'd be her friend, very casually not too close, mostly for money talk because she had all the spirit of frivolousness beaten out of her by her mother.

But I'd avoid my father like a plague, a man who is filled with nothing but excuses, will never know how to roll up his sleeves and get the job done. And even though I am super lax about making friends, that is the one thing I know I wouldn't have wanted in my inner circle. A mouth full of a excuses and a pocket of empty promises.

My father is 70 now, and my mother is 60. 

My mother who I deeply adore is a living reminder of how much is possible when you just roll up your sleeves and get the work done, not caring who gets the credit. 

My father reminds me of the lifestyle that is possible if you don't responsibility for your actions and habits and eventually your life.

Places you want to visit

 The old and new wonders of the world.

Already seen the colosseum in italy and Christ the redeemer in brazil

, But I'm trying to  see the pyramids this year. Egypt whats really good

Corona come and be going ah.

Also Asia and Sydney so that I can make a video with me in all the places Lagbaja sings about in Africaylpso.

Yeah yeah.

A memory

 Its 1998 and my mother is finally moving us to the new house.

A month earlier she had taken all on a tour to the new place with her then boyfriend who she said helped her furnish the house.

At the time, I didn't understand why he didn't just buy it for her; but also at the time I did not know a lot about men. 

So we look around it is delightful, a four bedroom flat in a block of flats with two doors with no fence vs our old house that was a ground flat in fenced in concrete compound that contributed too much to the scars on my siblings knees from rough play.

Anyway you flipped it, it was an upgrade.

The first night we move in, my cousins ( my late aunt's children), move with us, it is the most delightful sleep over. My cousins are younger and my sister and I teach them all the songs we used to sing in QC during night prep. My sister teaches them some dance steps.

At the time we moved in my mother could not afford bed frames or curtains, so the mattresses are on the floor and mismatched wrappers serve as curtains.

But all of those are minor details. The house felt like heaven. At the old house the people who lived in the next compound could have as well been ghosts because we never saw them, and everytime our ball flew into that compound, we dreaded going to knock for it because the only sounds we ever heard from there was the father of the house beating his kids. One of the girls was named joke.

Anyway almost as if God wanted to restore all the years the canker worm had eaten, we had seven neighbors ( because the block had 8 flats), and one of the families was from northern africa. 

Ahmed Hadiza  Yahaya & Faiza ( who died from a brief illness), all of whom became best friends with each of my siblings.

I loved living in that estate, because even though the  1998 me didn't know it at the time- It was the best of times.

Better times are always ahead, but the memories of the first night in the new house my mother bought shared with my cousins will always be one I cherish. 

Offcourse Nepa took light- but that only made it more fun. 

Because when you have all the people you love around you, Nepa taking light is infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things.

Even the me of 1998 knows this.

Things that make you happy

 I love Fur Elise.

Today I found about a rapper D smoke, absolutely handsome in the hood way that black American rappers are. Anyway he is in Lagos, but that isn't what made/ makes me happy. I'm scrolling through his Instagram because its 2021 and that is what you do when you are mildly intrigued by a man in 2021.

Check his IG. 

So I'm scrolling his IG and he has a post where with the most beautifully manicured hands is playing a piece of classic music.

The caption endears me to him, but him playing the piano makes me happy.

I love Fur Elise for a lot of reasons, It is the sound that I associate with what is the Nigerian equivalent of the ice-cream truck, and fancy door bells in middle class homes.

And when I say associate, I mean it is the sound the truck played. 

And that is sound that you heard when you pressed the fancy door bells instead of the regular shrill ringing sound that irritates your friends mom, when out of excitement you leaned on the doorbell a little too long, because it's 4pm and you need your friend to come out and play.

It is also the piece of music at the end of my classical music piano book and I can not wait till I get there, I am currently at Tallis' canon.

And today what makes me even more happy, it is the piece Anastasia* was playing when she got arrested.

* She is Alexei Navalny's associate. and he is the crazy guy who the KGB tried to kill, who exiled himself to Germany and then came back and is now arrested.

Describe your personality

Colourful.

But not colourful like a distinct colour that can never be mistaken for another colour.

Colourful in the subtle way when you hold up a painted surface to light it shows you one colour,

and in different light a different colour.

Maybe not a different colour, but hues on a gradient. 

Think iridescent. 

But a firmly in a colour spectrum.

The spectrum is love and kindness, but somehow misses niceness.

So I am the person who will sit hours with you to figure out how to solve a problem that I had no parts in creating and the solving of said problem accrues no benefits to me.

The nature of the kindness my personality possess, is the "just because" kind.

No rhyme or reason.

I am predictable, in the way that the people who know me have a vague idea of how I may react to a situation eg anger/ excitement etc but at the same time unpredictable in that, they have no idea how angry I may get. Will I pour my drink in someone's face or will I walk out in slight annoyance. 

I love to think I am an open book, but apparently I may have mastered the art of saying a lot without saying anything deeply personal. 

So I will tack "slightly mysterious" to my personality descriptors.

But really I just subscribe to the school of, it's not a secret its just not your business.

Overarchingly, my personality is optimistically positive, with a sharp wit that was honed from my ugly duckling years.

I like to tell the men who I met that they come for my looks, but stay for my amazing personality.

Double delight.

If I could change one thing about my personality, It'll be to give people fewer chances.

But  I'm learning to trust my gut more, it has never failed me.

and it wont start now. 

New Year ( and urgh what is this new layout?)

 I love new years because ya girl be making GRAND PLANSSS.

anyway just swinging in to say happy new year and I am super grateful for how 2020 ended and I am looking forward to migrating to my new lifestyle website soon. eek

So exciting... Honestly 2021 is gonna be d bomb!

:)

Hope yall are well and keeping safe etc etc

Its a cold and its a broken hallelujah

 So thankful to see the December 2020. 

I feel like this year has drawn so many hallelujah's from my soul.

Many of which were cold and broken.

But broken crayons still color so Hallelujah for the end of 2020. 

Kai. 

So so thankful.

So so many good things happened to and for me this year most important of all is all the resting I got to do, and let me tell you if there is anything 2020 has taught me it's that, there is no need to do EVERYTHING. 

As someone who did everything, I didn't even realise how little grace I was giving myself to lean into the full rest that was present till 2020 gave me the plate to do nothing and let me tell you.

Less is MORE.

Anyway if you can not tell, I am so happy to see the end of this year and get into some gratitude sprinkling to usher in a fantastic 2021.

I know lots of people are nervous about declaring good things about 2021. 

But NOT I, said the cat. I am going to to speak many good things regarding my 2021 with a voice as big as the sea.

2021 is going to bring myself and my family

 glad tidings,

 great joy, 

success stories, 

shouts of joy, 

two turtle doves 

and a partridge in a pear tree.

So speak good things into your life, you deserve them.

Wishing everyone an uber dramatic (but in a totally good way) December.

Also, not writing here much because gathering content for the new house per my last post. super excited about that as well. Cant wait! eek!