When the Lights Go Off
Last year my older brother died.
Teddy calls to check in as he often does.
He asks me how I am doing; in that minute, I feel overwhelmed.
I say ‘I’m really struggling’. I have to sort through my brother’s things and I’m having a hard time trying to find a day when one or more of my siblings are available to help. We now have only a week to clear up the apartment.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? Send me the postcode’. I try to protest but he isn’t taking no for an answer. ‘Just send me the friggin postcode!’ In the end, I send him the friggin postcode.
He arrives about an hour later; I open the door. He’s wearing black ripped jeans and a black oversized Nike jumper.
‘You look like a homeless musician and no, it’s not the beard, it’s the clothes’.
Without missing a beat he looks at me and says ‘You don’t look too hot yourself, sunshine’.
‘Yeah, I just lost my brother; what’s your excuse?’ I say without dropping the beat.
‘My best friend just lost her brother; what’s your other excuse?’
I laugh and we hug. He’s brought popcorn, plantain crisps and a big bag of coke bottle Haribos.
‘Your favourite’ he says, pushing the bag of Haribos into my hand.
I usher him upstairs. There are piles. Piles of clothes. Piles of documents. Piles of shoes. Piles of photos. Piles of towels. Piles of bed linnen. Piles of bin bags. All sorts of piles
Where to start.
He looks at me and says ‘Teddy’s here’. I shrug and we quietly get to work.
The mood alternates between sombre; hysterical laughter; and philosophical. We look through old photos. There’s one of Teddy from when we were teenagers.
I say ‘you’ve always had an oversized head, Ted’. It rhymes; it’s a hysterical laughter moment. I laugh so hard, that tears stream down my face.
We keep all the photos. All the shoes go to the charity pile. All the books go into a suitcase for my younger sister. I keep a few blazers for my younger brother. Teddy keeps all the jewellery and cufflinks and says ‘for Drago’.
Drago is my 15 year old son. I can’t imagine why he’d need these. But Teddy is not taking no for an answer as usual.
‘Just put the friggin cufflinks in your bag already!’ I put the ‘friggin’ cufflinks and jewellery in my bag.
We spend the next few minutes working in silence. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the mock fireplace. I look old. Old and exhausted. I see new wrinkles under my eyes which I have never seen before. I am frozen in my thoughts wondering how old my brother felt the last time he looked into this mirror.
Teddy is talking very silently; so silently, I almost miss his voice.
‘So what really happened?’
I am transported back to my present reality of piles of ‘stuff’
I think about Teddy’s question. The official line is that my brother died in a biking accident in Davos. This is not a lie. But we know he rode off a cliff because he was tired. His heart was tired. His soul was tired; and he wanted it all to stop.
I look at Teddy and for a split second, I truly believe he can read my mind. And if he can’t, it’s about time he did! Teddy has been my best friend since we were 5. Surely he is not expecting me to speak the word. But I speak it anyway.
‘Suicide’ I say while reaching for some caramel popcorn. And I soon as I utter it, I feel like the word is running loose in the room; knocking over the piles of stuff and grating my already frazzled nerves. But I feel no compulsion to catch it and cram it back into its imaginary box.
‘I know that; I am asking why he did it’ says Teddy, in his quiet voice.
I imagine for a second that he can read my mind after all. He already read it was suicide before I told him. So maybe I don’t have to talk and re-live the moment again. The moment when we heard the news. The moment when I went to Davos to retrieve his almost empty backpack. The moment when I looked in it and found an empty packet of cigarettes with a note inside it that said ‘sorry’. And then found the entire contents of the pack, all 20 cigarettes, wrapped in his face towel. Just confusing memories that I am still trying to make sense of while willing Teddy to read my mind and not to ask me anymore.
I look up at Teddy, he is not reading my mind. It is clear that he’s waiting for a response to his question. I spit out the popcorn in my mouth because it tastes of sawdust.
‘He decided that he couldn’t live with the stigma anymore’ I respond. I’m speaking my words slowly. That way, I imagine that they are anchored to the ground and can’t be knocked over by the malevolent spirit in the word suicide that is already running riot in the room. It’s warm in the room but I’m freezing.
‘Stigma of being gay?’ Teddy sounds a bit confused
I look up to see Teddy’s puzzled expression. I know this is going to be a long conversation. I point to the couch in the living room that I am already standing in front of, beckoning Teddy to come sit with me. He doesn’t take his eyes off me; he walks towards me and sits down the same time that I do. We need to sit down for this.
‘No, Teddy. The stigma of being HIV positive’
In that moment, the word suicide retreats into its imaginary box and there is a semblance of calm. Calm in my soul, which translates to calm in the room. I break my gaze and look at the hem of my skirt. HIV. HIV. HIV. I exhale with a sense of freedom.
I look up at Teddy’s questioning eyes. ‘I know Ted. It was never my diagnosis to tell you’.
‘But it is not the death sentence it used to be anymore. And he looked well’
‘Ted, I don’t know. He lived with the diagnosis for 5 years, and yes he was well. But he never got passed a stupid sense of shame. Shame and anger’.
Ted and I talk. And talk and talk. And talk some more. I decide it is getting late. And that maybe he should come back tomorrow; I will work on into the night. ‘It’s nearly done’
‘I want to stay. I’m not leaving until it’s done’ Teddy is already finalising the piles. I try to protest. In the end he insists that he is ‘friggin staying’.
We work on until close to midnight. All of a sudden, it’s all done. Teddy starts to vacuum. I’m exhausted. I look at him and mouth the word ‘thank you’
Teddy is shouting over the noise of the bright red vacuum cleaner. Frankly speaking I’m not listening to a word of what he is saying. We finish tidying up and start loading the bags of stuff into mine and Teddy’s cars. We go back into the flat for one last look. It looks so empty and impersonal and cold. But I suddenly feel warm. I feel able to say my last good bye. Tears are streaming down my face. Silently. I turn off the lights but I’m still rooted to the spot in front of the mock fireplace. The mock fireplace and the empty wall above it where there used to be a mirror. Teddy puts his arm around my shoulder.
Without looking in his direction, I hold his hand on my shoulder with both of my hands. ‘Thank you Teddy’
In the darkness, his voice is firm, but kind.
He says ‘No. Thank you to you. I feel relieved that I don’t have to hide either. I’m also HIV positive’
B is for Book
B is for BOOK
Yes Book. Simple.
Whenever I post a book on my status, it’s usually because I’m taking a break and reading that particular book. So this is the book I’m reading. I think it’s hilarious thus far. I’m sooo spoilt now, that I only read things with catchy titles. Anything that can’t grab my attention in the first 5 seconds is a waste of my time.
Ps: loving Nigerian literature. When I worked in Malawi, I read just about every book by every African author imaginable. I read 2 books a week; but I was on Mefloquine…and that really plays with the mind, one day I will explain.
#AlphabetChallenge #LetterB #B
A is for Apprehensive
Mr L puts this in my hand, ‘eat it’
Me: I’m not eating it, it looks like dog food.
Mr L: it’s not. I already ate one.
Me: So what is it? I’m not eating a doggy treat!
Apparently it’s a Sri Lanka lozenge thingie which instantly clears your airways. He got it from his Sri Lankan mate at church. And my airways are clear as crystal now
But I was right to be initially apprehensive, it did look like dog food.
Chai I stubborn shaaaa
😂😂😂😂
#alphabetchallenge #LetterA #A
Enemy or Friend
Enemy or Friend
When Pa Jemine died, we all wondered what to do with his parrot. It was a beautiful African grey with an unusually long red tail and a beak that shone like black marble.
In the end, I decided to take it home with me. No one really knew its name, or if indeed it actually had one; we all called it The Bird. I decided to name it Twister because Pa Jemine taught it two tongue twisters which it recited all the time: Peter Piper and Five Fat French Friars. I also did not know if it was male or female and reckoned at the time that Twister sounded unisex.
Twister settled into my flat very easily but I kept a shackle firmly around its leg and attached the other end of it to its perch. It was allowed as much width to fly as freely as the length of the chain allowed. I felt a renewed sense of purpose when I went out to buy it some grains for food and some recommended bird toys. I also fed it fresh fruit regularly as I had heard that it could live up to 80 years if it was fed a good diet.
In the weeks that followed, Twister became increasingly withdrawn. It stopped flying about, it stopped reciting the tongue twisters, it stopped interacting. I phoned my mother.
‘Mum there’s something wrong with the bird’. I sensed that she heard the panic in my voice which I was trying to hide.
‘Gracie, it’s only a bird; what could possibly be the matter?’ She was also trying to hide the dismissiveness in her voice, but I heard it loud and clear.
I knew that Twister was missing Pa Jemine. It had stopped the nursery rhymes. But instead replaced it with a phrase which I knew was Pa Jemine’s catchword phrase: ‘Enemy or friend?’ Twister said it over and over again. ‘Enemy or friend. Enemy or friend. Enemy or friend’
When Pa Jemine was alive, we all called him ‘Enemy or Friend’ behind his back. In fact, I had nieces and nephews who had no idea what his real name was. They addressed him as Pa or Sir to his face but called him Enemy or Friend as soon as his back was turned. Even my mother, his niece, called him Enemy or Friend.
Pa Jemine was a story teller. He used to be a fisherman and regaled us with endless stories about his exploits in the Niger Delta creek. During the Nigerian civil war which started in July of 1967, he was a fisherman in the creeks of the Niger Delta.
Apparently, the Federal army policed the creeks, in an attempt to guard the national oil wells in the delta region. Whenever they encountered fishermen, they questioned them at a distance; sometimes with a tannoy ‘identify yourself, are you an enemy or friend?’ As enemies got executed, he always identified himself as a ‘friend’. In actual fact though, he felt no loyalty either to the federal soldiers nor to the Biafrans. He just wanted the war to be over so that he could spend more time day dreaming in his wooden canoe. He was also growing weary of having to ‘dash’ a portion of his daily catch to the Federal soldiers. In the creeks, he caught crab, crayfish, prawns, fish, West African dwarf crocodile, fish, and periwinkle. To show their allegiance to the Federal soldiers, it was an unspoken rule that the fishermen were required to donate food from their daily catch to them whenever they encountered them.
Pa Jemine told this story a lot more times than I would ever remember; everyone who knew him had heard it from him numerous times too.
‘The bird doesn’t rhyme anymore, it just keeps repeating “enemy or friend” over and over again. And it keeps cocking its head as it says it. What should I do mum?’
‘Either of two things: teach it new rhymes or sing Pa Jemine’s rhymes to it; or you can get rid of the bird. Either way, you need to stop taking it so seriously. It is only a bird!’ I suspected that my mum was exhausted and was trying very hard not to come across as extremely dismissive, even though that was exactly how she felt!
In the days that followed, I tried to sing Pa Jemine’s rhymes to Twister but it seemed to withdraw even more into itself. I’d take off its shackle and encourage it to fly freely in the flat; I’d stroke its head the way Pa Jemine used to but all to no avail. Eventually, it stopped talking in the day time but would say the same phrase over and over again at night time. ‘Enemy or friend, enemy or friend, enemy or friend’. A kind of despondency had descended right into my flat, and there was no way I could shake it off. During the week, I’d stay out as late as possible and during the weekends, I’d look for places to go. Just to avoid being in my flat; to avoid the smell of rotting fruit that lay uneaten. Rotting fruit and the suffocating dark cloud. My mother would often roll her eyes ‘Gracie, get rid of the bird’.
I remembered a song about a grandfather clock that ‘stopped short, never to go again when the old man died’. And I wondered if twister was ever going to speak again now that Pa Jemine had died. I was getting desperate.
It was now nearly a year after Pa Jemine died. Although Twister hadn’t gotten any better, it hadn’t gotten any worse either. I had learnt to live with the dirge; ‘enemy or friend, enemy or friend, enemy or friend’. I had stopped avoiding my flat at weekends. Its feathers were not as shiny as when Pa Jemine was alive; but at least they were no longer falling off. He was eating bird seed although the fruit usually lay untouched still. I also now had a boyfriend called Greg who like me, was rather dedicated to Twister and made a task of coaxing it to talk as all African greys (in his opinion) ought to. The bird was not shackled or caged but it refused to fly or move from its perch. I had given up on trying to work Twister out of its depression, but Greg was willing to give it a try. He started by reciting the tongue twisters that the bird already knew, but Twister seemed to get agitated. It’d cook its head and repeat ‘enemy or friend’ more aggressively. Defiantly even. Greg bought books on bird socialisation, bird keeping, bird behaviour, and surfed the web for information. I didn’t get involved because I felt as though I had tried very hard and had failed so spectacularly to bring Twister out of its melancholy. I’d decided to concentrate on feeding it better in the hope that one day it’d come out of it in due time.
One evening, I had gone out with a group of friends who all came back home with me and camped out in my little living room until the next morning. Very early the next morning, Greg opened the living room window as the living room was both hot and stuffy. As soon as the window was open, Twister began to sing ‘Five Fat French Friars…..’
It was the most random thing ever! We all started laughing, I looked at my mobile phone: 6:21 am Thursday February 15th. A year to the day Pa Jemine died.
Burying Keyser
So I’m sitting here wondering why the room is empty because if people die the way they lived, this hall ought to be filled to the rafters.
Keyser Odongo was a larger than life character. Gregarious, funny, loud and full of zeal for life. He rallied people round for birthdays, christenings, Christmas parties and all sorts of events. If anyone ever needed a crowd to be pulled, Keyser was the man to call. However, he was also an argumentative drunk. No one actually ever knew what Keyser did for a living; no one asked, but everyone wondered. Some turned their noses up at him, others were drawn to him in a bid to discover what put the bounce in his step. Looking round the room, it is becoming somewhat obvious that most of his followers either secretly feared or quite frankly, disliked him; why else would they be absent?
I first met Keyser at a New Year’s Eve house party about twenty years ago. He was wearing a huge Heineken hat and outrageous Father Christmas sunglasses. He also had on a rather baggy black and white jersey top; it must have been extra extra large because Keyser was a big man. He was in the middle of the room speaking a dialect of something that sounded foreign to me. It wasn’t until I stood closer that I realised that he’d been speaking Swahili with a lisp! I thought that his obvious level of inebriation made the lisp a lot worse, but I’d later go on to discover that his lisp was exactly the same when he was stone cold sober.
‘Welcome to sunny Keeenyaaa” he said to me as I walked through the door. Of course we were nowhere near Kenya nor the sun for that matter. It was a particularly cold Christmas Day and we were in a huge Victorian studio flat in Wiltshire, attending a party that was hosted by a Kenyan. I guess it made him nostalgic for his native Uganda. He gave me a bear hug and an awkward welcome kiss which landed on my left ear.
He spent the rest of the night picking his teeth with his fingers and arguing at the top of his voice about African politics. I didn’t particularly mind the political arguments, but I wished someone would offer the man a toothpick! Towards the end of the evening, his mood changed. He wasn’t smiling anymore, rather, his mood darkened and he wore a sinister grin. I am not sure how it started but he was exchanging punches with two other men. I would learn that this was generally how Keyser spent his evenings: drinking, debating loudly about African politics, then fighting.
Everyone seemed oblivious to the fact that this behaviour wasn’t entirely civilised. They all shrugged it off with an ‘Oh he’s just drunk’ and went about their own business. I guess that endorsed this behaviour. In the years that followed, I was sometimes able to engage him in a proper, sober conversation. I learnt that he was a student (I was never sure what of; as he was never forth coming and I felt it was rude to keep prying), he was married to a local Witshire lady, they had two young children, and he loved his beer.
I moved away from Wiltshire about two years after I met Keyser. But in the two years that I was there, we seemed to have the same circle of East African friends even though he was 15 years older than I was. We were very frequently at the same parties, at the same night clubs and at the same Independence Day celebrations. He always seemed in charge of drawing in the crowd, and regaling them with his analyses of various African leaders and the state of their economies. On the outside, he sounded quite intelligent and well read, but after you got passed the lisp and the stale smell of cigarettes and beer, there didn’t seem to be any substance to his tales. In fact, it all sounded very convoluted. Everyone else seemed to agree with my analysis but they all shrugged it off as ‘oh, he’s just drunk’ as usual. They debated with him and always ended up in a physical fight with him at the end of the night. Keyser, though sociable, seemed to have a wall around him. I never attempted to penetrate his wall because I suspected that I, like everyone else, would not be welcomed.
I still visited Wiltshire for a good four years after I’d left. My visits became less and less frequent though. I think I outgrew the crowd. Nothing seemed to change. For years afterwards, it was the same people doing the exact same thing as they’d done for years. Almost like they were stuck. My mother did not send me to the UK with her life savings for me to stay stuck in that mediocrity.
I heard that Keyser’s wife left him and took their children with her; she moved on. But he just kept doing the same thing. Drinking, arguing, fighting. The only thing that changed was the amount of alcohol he drank. He drank progressively more of it; and so much so that he sometimes passed out in various shop doorways until morning. He still said he was a student but never seemed to graduate. New people moved into the town; Ugandan exchange students came and went. Keyser was the self appointed leader of the exchange students; not by virtue of having lived in the town longest, but by virtue of talking his way forward. He was actually a kind man. He offered them help and a full social calendar that would make them less nostalgic. He brought them along to several parties but his friendships never lasted for more than a year. He was a talker. Soon it became apparent that if you didn’t want the entire East African community in Wiltshire to know your business, then you didn’t tell it to Keyser. He was what you’d term a lovable scoundrel though. He wasn’t petty and he genuinely loved interacting with people. Dislike him as much as you wanted, he was always there offering friendship and an argument in the same breath. I too learnt to dismiss his excesses and bad behaviour with an ‘oh he’s just drunk’ shrug. However, I stopped interacting with him deeply, and stopped regarding him as an equal. I was 15 years younger, a Kenyan, and I had dreams and ambitions which were still intact.
I heard that he was found in front of a burger shop in the wee hours one morning; stone cold dead. Gone, just like that. The East African community rallied round and planned a funeral for him. Someone forwarded me his obituary via Facebook Messenger. I read it and I almost wept. I mourned for him not because he was a close friend; he was but a mere acquaintance. Not because his death was any great loss to me and certainly not because I was going to miss him. I mourned because his obituary depicted a man whose life was so full of promise; a man whose life stopped suddenly; a man who had actually stopped living whilst he was still alive.
In his obituary, I read about how he was the president of his drama club in secondary school; of how he was voted ‘most likely to succeed’ when he graduated from secondary school; of how he had single-handedly produced, starred in and directed an adaptation of a play by Ngugi wa Thiong’o despite his lisp; of how he was the president of the literary and debating society for 3 years during secondary school. He was talented.
However all of his achievements stopped over 30 years ago (so at least 10 years before I met him). When it came to his achievements in the last 30 years, there was a gaping abyss of nothing. He had not done anything solid or worth mentioning in his latter life. This was the saddest part of the funeral. Not because his wife and children did not attend, not even because the East African community whom he loved was so conspicuously scant, but because his obituary stopped 30 years ago.
Sitting here in the church hall, I cannot help but feel that whoever compiled this obituary did it out of spite. I try to think about Keyser and about his achievements 20-10 years ago. I’m trying to be more objective and less judgmental. I cannot help but wonder why his list of achievements stopped 30 years ago. Maybe our East African definition of success is only linked to academia and the Arts. After all, Keyser did befriend legions of exchange students and help make their stay in Wiltshire easier. Yes, even if he fought with them at the end of each evening (I would like to think of the fights as part of the learning experience). I am actually taken aback by his creativity in his ‘past’ life. The richness of his mind, his supposed great acting skill. Why did he let it die?
It seems like he settled for less than he knew he was worth. Maybe as an immigrant, he embraced the mindset that he was a foreigner and hence, could never be as great as he was in his homeland. Instead, he settled for mediocrity, and a routine which made him feel like he had some sort of control and a sense of self-importance: his apparent air of superiority during his political arguments, the tours he organised through town showing exchange students where to shop, how to use a phone box, and how to buy bus tickets. As I sit here, I am getting flashbacks and I know that this obituary is incomplete.
Just then, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I am being ushered forward to give the eulogy at his funeral. I stand up, rip the notes that I have prepared earlier and walk to the podium.
‘Good afternoon all, thanks for coming. My name is Lorena, my mother is Kenyan and I found out 25 years ago that Keyser Odongo was my biological father……’
14 things I discovered that made my life in 2017 just that bit easier (in no particular order)
1. Lidl: because no one is paying £3 at Tesco for a pack of prawns that you can get for £1 plus
2. Alpro yoghurt: because I developed primary lactose intolerance, but still love to put yoghurt in my smoothies
3. Soya and Almond milk: Because I never appreciated it when my mum made soya milk for me as a child….but I can still get my vitamin D and calcium despite the fact that I don’t consume dairy (see 2)
4. Allergy tablets before my run on cold day after I’ve fallen off the wagon: because of the increased blood flow during running, blood capillaries closest to your skin collapse (when you have fallen off the wagon) and your brain interprets this as an allergic reaction and causes an itch. I cheat this by popping a pill 20 minutes before my run especially when it’s cold.
5. My daughter’s 100% warm FireTrap coat: because she didn’t want it so I took it. Its a total windbreaker; It’s a size 10 so fits me properly. Winter has never felt warmer!
6. Calvin Klein Curvy girl jeans: because I have an African backside and my figure doesn’t always conform to regular jeans….these ones are marvellous for the typical African backside….
7. Moisturising my hair with body cream: because I saw this on a YouTube video. The lady said she did it as a student. I tried it and it was an instant pass! Means I only need to pack one type of moisturiser in my holiday bag!
8. Bulgur Wheat: because we are tired of couscous
9. OluOlu plantain crisps: because we need fast food and these are low in salt and sugar and not high in saturated fat either. Plus they are super duper tasty. Buy a box of 24 for 14 squids and thank me later!
10. Food Smart App: because you’ve gotta know how much salt, sugar and Satfat your food contains. It’s so easy to use; just scan the barcode!
11. Netflix: because there are loadsa things to watch. I have the app on my mobile phone too. Please don’t judge!
12. 8Fit App: because high intensity interval training is where it’s at. Quick calorie burn and effective cardio in 8-20 minutes right from your living room
13. Fresh parsley: because I only used it for fishpies but discovered that I could use them in my salads and smoothies. It adds a certain freshness to food!
14. DeepHeat: because when those aches and pains set in, there’s no shame in my game. A good massage with this banishes all aches and pains. Smelling like a grandma never felt so sexy! It’s the new sexy!
One For Ladies Only: Mirena And Houseflies
When I was a child, I learnt a nursery rhyme about an old lady who swallowed a fly. No one knew why she swallowed a fly, but then she swallowed a spider to catch the fly. Then she had to swallow a bird to catch the spider because she didn’t like how the spider ‘wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her’. She swallowed a whole catalogue of animals to catch the previous animal before it. In the end, she swallowed a horse and the writer of the rhyme declared ‘….she’s dead of course’.
I found myself in a similar sort of conundrum recently. I have always been a shameless pill popper. If there is a pill to fix my headache, I take the pill. No questions asked. I cannot understand people whose stance is to ‘wait for the body to wake up and do its thing’ when there is a fully licensed pill that can stop whatever ails them a lot quicker. Especially when no one is handing out medals for bravery or longsuffering!
I visited my doctor sometime ago as I wanted to review my method of contraception. I got sold the idea of a Mirena coil. Which sounded fantastic. Almost too good to be true (as they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is). Once inserted, it lasts for 5 years. In the five years, your periods become incredibly light (a plus), and sometimes, they could stop altogether (plus plus). I was told that I would experience some irregular bleeding until the coil ‘settled’. The leaflet that came with it said that a small percentage of women experienced prolonged, irregular spotting. Turns out that I was one of that ‘small percentage’. Mine was prolonged alright. 8 months worth of ‘prolonged’. And not strictly irregular either. It was more like every single day.
I went to see my doctor, I went for a scan. Nothing was wrong. She felt I had a hormonal imbalance and put me on the combined oral contraceptive pill for a month and a half to balance out my hormones. Which would have been fine; but the combined pill also had some side effects. A small percentage of women also suffer nausea with the combined pill. Yours truly also happened to be in that small percentage! What are the chances, ey?
I went back to my doctor. And of course there is a pill that can also counteract the effect of the nausea. I began to feel like the old lady who swallowed a fly. But I put my foot down. I could keep popping the pills like the old lady swallowing her various animals. In the rhyme, she swallowed a cat to catch the bird, then a dog to catch the cat, then a goat to catch the dog. The writer of the rhyme gasps in horror ‘what a throat to swallow a goat’. It seemed that as she swallowed more and more animals, the original issue of swallowing a teeny weeny little fly got lost in the increasing size and complexities of the new animals she swallowed.
I think that as our lives get more and more complex, we grow new issues and develop new ways of dealing with them; and often times, the new ways come with their own challenges and a brand new facet of issues.
I decided to draw the line. There is no magic cure and there is no need popping pill after pill to counteract effects of the previous pill. Science says ‘You have a headache? Here take paracetamol for it. But not too much or your liver will suffer’
I think in truth, my decision from the beginning should have been to get rid of the Mirena and to explore other options instead of trying to plug new holes in my leaking bucket! Why did I opt for Mirena? Perhaps I need to fix that. Whatever I do, I am determined not to be the archetypal old lady who swallowed a fly….
Embracing My Vanity
Almost 20 years ago, my friend came visiting with her older cousin. We had a great time talking, eating, and laughing until tears streamed down our faces. Her cousin Em, had great stories, and told them with such humour! Cousin Em was a lot older than us. She was in her forties, very well traveled, very well spoken and extremely down to earth. She felt at home in our student flat and ate whatever we gave her in our chipped mismatched student plates and enjoyed it too! It was such a shame when she had to go home; we wanted to freeze the moment and keep her with us forever! We asked her to spend the night. See, in my student days my flat was the flat to which everyone came and went and spent endless nights. I was so sure that it was a given that my friend’s cousin would spend the night.
But she turned us down: ‘I have all sorts of soaps and potions for different parts of my body. I couldn’t possibly spend the night away from home without my various soaps, potions and elixirs’
That was her reason. It was funny and we all laughed. I wanted to offer her my cocoa butter and Superdrug brand face wash, but suddenly, I knew they were inadequate. It was a shame to see her leave in the wee hours of the morning, but still, we have the memories.
Fast forward to twenty years later. Me.
This morning as I get ready for work, I’m startled by my rich array of creams and potions. The bathroom counter is spilling over with all sorts: hair creams, hair sprays, body creams, face creams, blemish removal creams, hair removal creams, hair growth creams….all sorts! I have never really classed myself as vain, but recently I bought a cream that promised to rid me of the stretch marks that I acquired in my teen years. I have no idea why I bought it because I never believed for a second that it could do what it promised to do on the jar. But I guess I thought I had nothing to lose. The magic ingredient in this particular potion is snail slime. Yes, I know.
Whatever you think, trust me when I say that my mother’s voice in my head has said it to me; not once, not twice. And it has also said worse. Snail slime. And I really ought to know better too. And I promise that I do know better. But, I bought it, so I am using it. It has an accompanying soap. Yes it’s made out of snail slime as well, but surprisingly they smell really good. The soap has a really rich lather and is actually quite refreshing. The body cream is not heavy; it is kind of light for a moisturiser but I mix it with other thicker moisturisers.
These snail slime products claim to heal all: wrinkles, stretch marks and all sorts of blemishes; well, unless you’re allergic to snail slime and then you’re really buggered!
The next question on your mind of course is ‘how do you know if you’re allergic to snail slime?’ I mean it’s not like people routinely find snails and rub their slime on their bodies….your guess is as good as mine!
Well, I’ve been using it for about 3 weeks now. And of course the marks are still there. But I’m still shovelling it onto my skin and smelling like it everywhere I go. On the train this morning, a guy attempted to flirt and said ‘you smell nice’. I had to bite my tongue because I almost replied ‘Yes, it’s snail slime’. He was lucky I was wearing my snakeskin shoes instead of my snake hair oil. Because if he thought snail slime smelt nice, he would have been bagging a real winner with snake oil! I mean, he’d have been mesmerised. He was as slimy as actual snail slime too, so instead, I smiled and kept walking down the platform. Wouldn’t want him to have smelt the macadamia oil in my hair, because that actually smells pretty good!
I am not sure what compels me to buy this stuff. Most of it doesn’t even work. But I am guessing that it is the human spirit of hope. We all need hope just to get out of bed and look at ourselves in the mirror each morning. I know that my hope is being geared towards having perfect skin (which in reality will never really happen), but it is hope nevertheless.
I celebrate my vanity, I celebrate my hope, I celebrate getting older….and I celebrate the fact that I will be saving a few pennies when I stop looking for the magic potion when I’m 200.
The truth is, I don’t necessarily want to live until I’m 200; but if I do, I’d rather not look like it!
Hazel Eyes From Beyond the Veil
It is a hot summer afternoon in London. The kind of heat that keeps your throat perpetually dry. I am not sure if it is just the heat or the heat combined with the high pollen count that has zapped my last shreds of energy, but I am feeling more than mildly irritated because I am also stuck southbound on the A12 trying desperately to leave London via the Blackwall tunnel.
London is one of the cities that seems to suck you in and refuses to spit you out. It always seems to take twice as long trying to get out of the city than commuting around it. I am trying to go to Kent but have opted to go via the A12 and then the A2, rather than the M25 orbital.
I am in my black Mini Cooper listening to Pharrell Williams’ song, Happy. I’m nodding my head and willing myself desperately to feel the sentiment of the song but I’m hot and frustrated. Not happy. Still, they say that if you repeat something enough times, your brain starts to believe it and then it eventually becomes true. For instance, if you fake a smile, your brain can be fooled into believing that you are happy so that it eventually produces feel good chemicals that actually make you smile for real. Well, it doesn’t seem to be working today because I’m still thirsty, hot, and frustrated. I switch off the air conditioning and open up the window because I feel that the air filter in my car is clogged with pollen and petrol fumes.
‘This city is going to kill me one day’. I say out loud. Then I notice something from the corner of my eye: it is insignificant at first. An old plain blue, Honda Prelude with an ‘I love Bradford’ sticker on the lower right corner of the back windscreen.
‘Bradford? Really?’ I think. ‘Still, I suppose there are worse places to love; after all I have been in this city for twenty years!’ I laugh out loudly as I realise that I have now become a true Londoner who views other cities with disdain. As I laugh at myself, it occurs to me that perhaps Pharrell Williams’ song actually is working.
I level up with the Bradford Prelude. We are both going the same direction on the A12. I’m on the inner lane but going just as slowly. The traffic news comes on. There are emergency road repairs on the A12 which means that journeys are taking almost three times as long. It looks like we are going nowhere fast. A Robbie Williams song comes on and I’m wondering why the DJ is playing Millenium when this is 2014! I think I’m grumpy as well, and back to being frustrated and hot. I wind up my window and turn the air conditioning on again. I’m going to die of something one of these days, if it’s from hayfever or asthma brought on by London traffic fumes, at least I will die in relative comfort. It is better to be cool and frustrated than hot and frustrated.
I feel like I’m being watched. Not the same kind of feeling of being perpetually watched that you get living in London. I mean really being watched. Scrutinised even. I look to my left. And then I see her.
A pair of strong hazel eyes piercing through my skin from underneath a niqab. The glare is so strong that I temporarily take leave of my senses and almost forget where I am. I am mesmerised for a moment and I forget that the eyes belong to an actual human being. The car behind me honks and I immediately come to and step on the accelerator to move my car another three feet before I am forced to stop by the solid traffic. She is temporarily out of my gaze, but then the Bradford Prelude reappears as it catches up and is side by side with my Mini and I can see her again. She’s still looking at me. The driver of the Bradford Prelude looks at me, then looks at her, and she immediately lowers her gaze and looks into her hands. He glares back at me with irritation. The spell is broken again temporarily. I inhale sharply and try to assess the bizarreness of the situation. The Bradford Prelude driver is an Asian male from the Indian subcontinent. From the looks of it, he is a devout Sunni Muslim. He has a full beard and is wearing a white kaftan and a white circular cap. The front seat passenger with hazel eyes is looking at me again. She has jet black skin. The kind of skin that my West African friends refer to as five-to-midnight. Five-to-midnight because that is presumably the darkest part of the night. I cannot see her features but from what I do see, she is African in origin. Like me, only much darker. I can see the bridge of her nose; it is wide. I can make out the outline of her nostrils from underneath the niqab; it is wide. She is definitely African.
She is looking at me again. There is something in her eyes that I’m trying to read. She’s not gazing into my eyes. She is looking into my life. She’s looking at my car, at my clothes, at my hands on the wheel. She is gazing into my life; a snap shot of my life. The Bradford Prelude driver looks at her again and catches her staring. He jabs her sharply with his left elbow. She lowers her gaze and stares down at her palms on her lap. I cannot make out any rings or henna, just really jet-black skin from the back of her hands and lower right arm.
The traffic is moving again and the Bradford Prelude driver is indicating right. I allow him move into the gap ahead of me, then I indicate left and move left so that I am where he used to be and he is now in my space. It also means that I can get a better view of his passenger with hazel eyes.
I’m now side by side with the Bradford Prelude and side by side with Hazel Eyes. Traffic is at a standstill again. She’s looking into my eyes and looking straight into my soul. For a split second, I feel sadness in her heart, it seems to be asking me ‘when could I ever be like you?’
I’m staring back at her and willing her to telepathically speak to me.
‘Who are you? Where are you going? What is your story?’
Beads of sweat are forming on her forehead. I’m not sure if a tear is forming in her left eye or if I’m having a sensation of swimming in it!
The Bradford Prelude driver catches her staring. But this time, she does not avert her gaze. She keeps looking at me. I see what looks like a smile. It is hard to tell under her niqab, but I think it is a smile. I smile back. The Bradford Prelude driver is saying something, he’s straining his voice but I cannot hear what he is saying as their windows are wound all the way up. He’s jabbing her but she’s still looking at me. I have no idea if she speaks English or not, but I mouth the words ‘Be strong, follow your dreams’, and smile again. The Bradford Prelude driver is getting more and more animated as he shouts. He’s not jabbing her anymore. He raises his left hand as if to slap her but traffic is moving again and the man behind him is honking his horn loudly, so he is forced to lower his hand and change gears in order to move. He glares at me and immediately starts indicating left.
I have been within 2 miles of the tunnel for the last hour and a half. Traffic is moving faster now. I think we may have passed the bottleneck. A song by The Spice Girls is playing on the radio.
‘Not today!’ I say out loud as I switch the radio off.
The Bradford Prelude driver is still side by side with me and still indicating. I can see the entrance to the tunnel. I’m having mixed emotions. I am happy to be escaping the traffic, but I’m also left feeling heavy about Hazel Eyes. I allow The Bradford Prelude driver to pull up ahead of me, then I gently manoeuvre my Mini into the right lane. I know what he is doing, and he knows what I’m doing too. He immediately starts to indicate right but we are at the entrance of the tunnel. This is my city, I know that everyone stays in their lanes in traffic congestion inside the tunnel. He will have to drive side by side with me for the approximately four thousand feet we would need to cover to clear the tunnel. I smile contentedly. It looks like he is cursing. Hazel eyes is no longer looking up. She’s looking at her hands. Her shoulders are hunched and she has that resigned look on her face. It’s the same kind of look that I had when I was shouted down by my boss. It’s not pretty. I’m feeling hot again but I switch off the air conditioning and keep my windows wound up because I’m now in the tunnel and my paranoia of breathing gas fumes from the tunnel is more compelling than the heat I’m feeling.
I drive side by side with the Bradford Prelude through the tunnel. I neither look at Hazel eyes nor the driver and I don’t feel the burn of Hazel eyes’ glare on my skin anymore.
Just as we are exiting the tunnel, the Bradford Prelude accelerates. In a split second, Hazel Eyes looks up at me, smiles and waves her left hand, and the Bradford Prelude is gone. It disappears just as suddenly as it appeared. I’m not hot anymore, nor am I irritated; I’m driving my mini almost transfixed in the moment. I have more questions than answers but what burns strongest at the forefront of my mind are those hazel eyes and a simple question: who is she?
I look at the prayer beads hanging on my rear view mirror, pull my scarf down over my ears and say a prayer for her: Bismillahir rahmanir rahim……
Waiting For The Bus To Truro
I sigh loudly and sniff into my daisy handkerchief. The receptionist looks up at me then quickly picks up the phone. I can hear her trying not to sound exasperated even though she is almost as frustrated as I am.
Beau Rikefe 
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