What If I Was An Island?
I made pancakes today.
They were pretty good. It’s weird how with time, I feel like I am getting better at making them.
Yesterday I had an idea of selling them to people. 10 shillings or 15 depending on the size. That would be an easy way to make some money. Then I could get to buy some things that I know I need in this house.
But then my body is unwilling to move.
I know that I am a very lazy human being. And even if I start making those pancakes to sell, I would eventually stop because maybe I just couldn’t sit up one day. I just lay there all day knowing I would need to be active and make some pancakes, but I will not get up.
I am even more stubborn against myself.
I’ve just finished eating them. My almost 7 year old laptop is right beside me. The chocolate bar I got for my birthday is halfway on it, and a jar of honey is on my right.
I don’t want to do anything, think anything. But my brain is it’s own boss.
What if I was an island?
(Image from Fiji Guide)
What if I could have water all around me and sit still while people vacationed on me?
What if the only thing I had to worry about was how hard the ocean waters could hit and how deep I had to let the trees go before they were old enough.
It’s cold.
What if I was an island?
What if all I had to do was sit on my own, with my other island friends a little too far away for a daily hello.
What if I had my own problems, but couldn’t let my island family know because they would be worried and I don’t want that.
I don’t let people around me get too close because I feel like an island. Like nobody could ever understand the many little things that makes me tick.
Like they seem to have it all figured out and all I have figured out is maybe this chocolate bar doesn’t stay here for long.
Sometimes I don’t like being alone. I get lonely. And being alone then has me thinking of when I wasn’t alone. And that makes me try to find someone who wants to pretend to be with me, till my use for them is due then they leave me to be alone once more.
Sometimes I really like being alone. Because then I can rotate my mind around things that don’t really make sense.
So I can dance around my place in my own weird little way and feel, well not normal really, but me. And feel like me.
Sometimes being alone is my happy place. I don’t have to sit upright or listen to conversations that I might not have had to listen to.
I don’t have to hurt my eyes in the sun (I have a condition: myopic something : I don’t really remember the last part, but my eyes hurt in the sun and I have to wear glasses now, plus I am short sighted). So it literally really hurts to go out.
Maybe I am cursed to be inside the house. Maybe I will always feel like an outsider.
Maybe I really am destined to meet people in the comforts of my home. It would be really cool. If I didn’t need to leave my place and go outside to meet people. That there was a way I could sit at home and still have reasonable conversations with reasonable humans and make meaningful relationships.
Sometimes I am too philosophical for my own mind. I should loosen up a little. But how? Dancing around right now feels weird. I am typing with my phone.
My laptop’s problem is that it is old. I think. It shows movies really slow. It does any and all things while buffering every 3 seconds. So I can’t use it for anything but background noise to my thoughts.
I got it from my uncle after he was done with campus and I was starting.
Sometimes I feel like my thoughts are too compact. Like I need to use more sentences in my thinking and delivery of those same thoughts.
Maybe I can find something to watch on the laptop. There is a really cool series I was watching, “The End Of The Fucking World” it’s about this awkward boy and this awkward girl. And they are perfect together.
Today I’ll have a happy to be alone day. I never know it until about 4 hours from when I wake up.
©Awuor
Millennial Boychild Doomsday (Part 1)
I have wanted to write about the “boychild” phenomena for a while now, but I did not know which angle to take. There are so many ways to look at the male scenario in this age. Especially when you can’t possibly have a conversation with about five guys in a day without at least two of them claiming how “boy child anaumia”.
One time, after such a statement was made to me, I asked what made him say that, and honestly, I did not get a satisfactory answer. All he did was mumble words at random until I opted to change the topic.
This is why, during the last two weeks, in almost all conversations I held, I have almost always ended up asking for views on this “boychild doomsday” that is upon us. I got responses that could fill a novel series, and this actually motivated me to write this.
One friend, a female, said that the boys were “triggered” by Cyprian Nyakundi, blogger turned Boychild activist. Cyprian took to twitter in a series of tweets late last year that ignited the spirit of boys everywhere, reminding them of how discriminated and used they are. Since then, everything has ended up being about how the male gender is being stepped on by the female.
You see a post where a girl was taken out to eat.
In the pictures that she took with the guy, she put emojis on his face when posting. And the boychild is in a rage! You see a gentleman tying the laces of a girl’s shoes and the almost all male millenials are tweeting and commenting while saying how they are discriminated.
Here are the type 1 thoughts on this: (most of these responses are from girls, however, some boys also had this type of thought)
1. Complain without basis
It is believed out here that most of these comments were claiming that the boychild is raging on and complaining without any strong support of the argument. That the boys need to remember there was a time that girls had nothing to hold on to and were not taken to school just to be married at an early age, and it was acceptable.
2. Exxageration
Some people feel that boys have taken this male empowerment thing a little too far. That they bring up the issue of discrimination even in situations that do not warrant such kind of “empowerment”
3. “Online empowerment ”
Boys tend to fill comments online about how they are being discriminated. That they only go to online sites like twitter and Facebook to add comments and do nothing else to help their case. That they should grow a pair and that if, their arguments that they are being undermined are substantial, they should do something to empower themselves. Not to only go online, leave a comment under a “Boychild Injustice” post and leave it at that.
In general, this group of people says that if the boys truly believe that there is a problem, then they should stand up for themselves. Because otherwise, all we see is comments online and hear you cry endlessly without any affirmative action against said undermining.
“Boy child haumii; anataka tu kubembelezwa” Agnes Nyambura
Stabbed Students, Robbed Citizens
If you have not heard of this already, here are the facts.
1. 35 students from Jamhuri High School in Ngara, Nairobi ,were injured using knives they had last night in an overnight confrontation.
2. Four students are admitted at the Kenyatta National Hospital and one with stab wounds was admitted at Guru Nanak
3. The main reason for this is an allegation that there is religious discrimination in the school by the school head.
4. Nairobi Police are carrying out investigations
There are various reactions on social media about this.
Now, there are a few concerns with this matter.
Why would there be religious discrimination in a school that has proven to be comfortable with all religion, particularly Muslim and Christianity?
Why would the school head, who is supposed to maintain unity and be a symbol of stability allegedly favor one religion compared to another?
How were students between the ages of 13 and 18 be able to get knives to use against their peers? Are they allowed to bring knives to school? Were the knives made available to the students?
How could students attack each other overnight and later in the morning without any authorities being involved? Aren’t there security measures in these schools?
There are so many questions that arise with this unfortunate incident, together with the insecurity issue in Nairobi’s CBD at the moment, where a gang is said to rob people in broad daylight.
In this, the gang of 10 or so is situated in various places, the information is found on this spreading Whatsapp message.
The gang attacks unsuspecting individuals and rob them of their belongings.
Hopefully, the required authorities will get to deal with these issues before they become a nationwide matter.
©Awuor
TWO REASONS
I have always wanted to write about you
Tonight I think I’ll come up with two
Two reasons to why I wake up
Two reasons that bring me back
The first has to be those eyes
To wake and be bathed in their glory
The last has to be that skin
To sleep after touching the heavens
©Awuor
PLETHORIC THOUGHTS
Do you know what I think about?
As an introverted insomniac?
Sometimes I myself can’t tell
But the few times I have
I still thought of being alone
Of food, deliciously tasty
Of strangers that will become friends
And friends that are now strangers
I build so many castles in the air Disney should hire me
Then I think of war
And of strands of hair
Of innocent little beings
And of weather so cold it causes frost bite
I think of nothing and all things
And I don’t know when or how I think it all
©Awuor
A Poisoned Family
We were given an anecdote in class today. The lecturer told us of a typical family that is served food everyday by the same house help. One evening, the said house help purposely poisoned the family’s supper, and everyone got sick and was rushed to hospital. Luckily, the effects were not severe and they all got treated and were back home to go on with their lives.
On getting back, the wife wanted to let the help go but the husband was reluctant. His excuse: The wife has had a number of house helps prior to this one and keeps letting them go. The husband claimed he was good enough to let all the previous ones go but “Not this time” he said. The wife was clearly going out of her way to put all their house helps out of work. Plus… He continued, where would they get a house help who understood the kids and knew exactly what to do without being told?
Now, if you have heard this story before, good for you. If not, it’s still okay. If you were in my class and you heard the story differently, yes, I changed bits of it, but still kept the main theme going.
The challenge here is, there is an intermediary that handles a very significant factor in the family, and one part is ready to fix it, but the other remains reluctant in choosing what is best for the family.
All in all, let us hope that the family will still be united in the end. Because if not, trouble within any family is never good. Dirty laundry may start getting aired out.
PS. Understand at your own will.
SCHUDDER’S LESSON
There is this piece, by Samuel Schudder. “Take This Fish And Look At It”. I read it in class last semester and it did seem farmiliar, but I just could not place it. A few days ago, however, before I wrote “Looking At The Drapes” I remembered where I had first seen it. I was thirteen years old, and in my final year in primary school. The head mistress had called me to her office, and as I waited on her, I saw it on a seat placed outside her office.
The reason I recall this particular piece is because of a number of things. The story itself is one. It tells of a young man studying to be a scientist. He goes to this class and the professor basically gives him a fish specimen in a jar. Over time, the professor asks what the young man saw while looking at the fish, and every time, the student, though struggling, manages to come up with an observation. He tries so hard to look at it that at one point he draws the fish down on paper.
Schudder’s article reminds me of a number of things. Persistence in our endeavors, hard work, humility, love for what we do, together with lots and lots of patience. These are things that we often forget as we go on with life. At least I know that at one point I get too lazy to see something through and this piece is actually more for me than for you. It is to remind me that no matter what, we need to get up, dust ourselves off and take one more step. One more look at the fish, because you do not know what you might just learn unless you look more closely.
JULIA’S LETTER 003
Hello Jesse
I am going to phrase my disappointment in as few words as possible. I am amazed with you. I would never have thought that you could sink to levels of being that petty.
Yes, I know I was not the best or easiest person to be with, but considering you professed your love for me on that bridge by the botanical garden, I thought I meant something to you. But your letter, long as it was, proves to me how much regard you had for me.
I am sorry if it was me that drove you to such an unmanly state. Truly, I am.
I am so disappointed by you. You blame it all on me. As if you didn’t take part in anything. But Jesse, it’s alright. I accept the blame. If only to stop you from becoming the child you are forming yourself into.
I am sorry about my first letter. I know I started us off down this journey. I just did not realize how much it would change you. How much you would become so engrossed in pointing fingers that you would shift all the blame. Forgive me Jesse.
I do miss you. But not the you that is portrayed in your previous letter. I miss the real you. The Jesse that would hold my hand and look into my eyes to understand my soul. So yes, you were right. I miss you. But not the being that you have become.
And I promised this would be short. So, goodbye my love, whichever tiny bit of you that has remained.
Love,
Julia.
LOOKING AT THE DRAPES
I’m looking at the drapes
So thick and full of life
Do they also have hopes?
Even as they block out the light?
Do they know what beauty they block out?
Like a layer used to paint the face.
Do they realize they are just but a barrier?
And inside is a cage of rage
A caged beast lacking an outlet
A beast forced to forget
Her mind is still clear
She knows she lives a lie
She knows the drapes hang because of her mistakes
But she has to be in with the crowd
Doesn’t want to be the subject of a frown
She is concealed in a hypothetical world that misunderstands her
Barred by the chains of knowing the trends that she forgets she is a masterpiece
So she pretends to be less than she actually is
Pretends she is living a life of bliss
Yet inside the hell fire that burns is as intense as her own soul
She needs a being that understands her
One who will allow the drapes to be pulled back
She needs someone to give her a hand
To help brush off the dust
Because she knows which arrows to follow
Even as her heart remains hollow
She is a lioness crammed up in a cage so lonely
And all this I see when I look at the drapes
And at the paint upon her face
@Awuor_M