Not-so Angry Endings
When I started this rant, I had titled it ‘Angry Endings’. I have since edited some of the angry parts out, and part of it may be because I had a conversation today[29/03/2023] that was overdue for ten years, and I feel great.
I have been contemplating endings, and not only because my Netflix subscription was for The Office and now that it’s not there anymore, it feels like a never ending vacuum of my money for shows I can find elsewhere. It may also be paramount to clarify that my thoughts were not of the self-harm kind, in case Kasarani’s upstairs business catches up with me. It is particularly strange when you are thinking of ending a phase you always thought would last for at least a longer while than it did. Maybe the cure is not wishing, because inasmuch as horses are a dream, I am realizing I am not one to ride through the bullshit.
There can only be enough times that you will do something that keeps you down in the dumps before you pull yourself out. And I know, I am sounding a bit over philosophical here. That is the intention.
It pushes you, having to remain at one point, circling. Made to be a hawk in wait for chicks that may never show. It makes you angry, and you try to remain calm, in your spot. But just as you have been placed there, with precision, you must remain. They know what they’re doing. Plus, malice is never an option. No escape. No expectation. You have to be still.
The possibility of being still is foreign for a heart that flies downhill on its feet. I blame Shadow and Bone for all the faux-deep philosophical madness spewing from me. Leigh Bardugo is a white lady ahead of her time. It is absolutely fascinating how good she weaves her worlds together.
It is like barrelling down a highway, as a 1960 Corvette C1 while playing Forza Horizon, but there’s a bus right next to you that’s going just as fast and it accelerates when you do, brakes when you crash and picks it back up, and, get this, it is also not a game you’re playing. Chasing to no end and for no benefit. No endorphins provided with a high score because the finish line is always changing. And you try, your index finger pressing on the accelerate, trying to control everything that keeps falling apart, when all you need to do is release to get back to yourself.
I have no tolerance for adults that choose ignorance. For a friend’s friend who is full of complaints about nothing. For lovers that pretend to know you but choose to not listen. For family that, well, you now know share blood, but not common sense. I have been at a knife’s edge [a safe knife]. The last year has been insane. We have been in a whirlwind of trying to stabilize a career that keeps evolving, chasing dreams of school that are finally working out and moving around looking for meaning. Looking for topics that come fleeting and rarely stay to be anything tangible.
Audrey Niffenegger writes of a time traveler and his wife in her debut novel. Henry DeTamble time travels involuntarily since he was 5 years old. However, inasmuch as his travels take him away from Clare, they also lead him to her, years apart. It is fascinating how a story weaved in the eyes of literal ghosting finds space to be romantic. They both long for each other, while being together in different timelines. We are in an obsessed, can’t put it down, might be my favorite book of the season kind of time.
The curveballs have been plenty. They flooded each corner we tried to hide in, and I am exhausted of hiding. I know it for a fact because it has happened before. It will happen. There will be more shots to pull this heart out of my sleeve. I know this for a fact because it has happened before. At the risk of sounding like Gandalf, be the phoenix, though the fire burned nowhere as bright as 2022.
This note, is an ode to things that we have to exit from. Lack, withdrawal, cowardice, blame games that lead to nothing. I am no masochist. May they end. Amen.
***
Vulnerability is armor too. Sometimes being your authentic self is the best protection you can ever have.
Billy Chapata [@iambrillyant]
From a faux-deep mosquito
You assume I am in hiding
That I find you terrifying
When my mouth can do
More damage than you
Okay, maybe not
But if I get away
With blood on my hands
And lips and stinger
Who’ll be laughing then?
And not in hiding
Suffering ceases to be suffering when it finds meaning
Viktor Frankl
I watch you in the dark
Yours cannot see me
Your frame, delicious in most parts
Marked with palms that slap
To kill
Kin squished
Blood spilled
Yours, granted
But if I get away
It’s your blood on my hands
Caught In a Candle
What it is, I’m unsure
It flickered, may have lit up
There’s definitely no cure
Trust, I have looked
What it is, I am grateful
For talent, that comes as easy as the sun and moon
What it is, as it flickers
Is definitely not a blast
It is caught in the wax
Sticky, but hard when cold
the blizzard too strong
And it, caught in a candle
Malcolm and Marie; A Rant
Since everyone was talking about Malcolm and Marie, I decided to watch it. No, I lie. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I wanted to see the film since the first trailer was released. I just wanted to watch it after everything was calm. After the film critics had given their takes and the crowd had applauded or condemned it. It is the same reason to my watching Bridgerton this week. I liked the movie from the trailers. It was full of red flags and emotion, two things that go hand in hand.
Malcolm and Marie is an investigation into what makes them work. Into why Marie allows him to insult her while eating her food. Into what makes them such an incompatible pair that they seem like a couple that needed to be together to finally be apart [Do you get that?]
I watched it yesterday, and I would like to bring you into a world I create for them.
Malcolm is young. He writes as a hobby. It is something he wants to do professionally, but he has never been a creative. His brain only lulls. There is no spark begging to be ignited in his writing. He lacks an edge. His writing has no life. No breath.
Marie is full of life. Her insides scream to be released. She has a longing for better times. Where she is, lying on a cardboard box in the alley with no family, she hangs between her longing and facts. Truth allows her to accept that she may die here, or at a similar place. She may be lucky to end up in a hospital bed, dying with antiseptic in the air. She has nothing to live for, and yet everything to live for. She hangs on the balance.
When they meet, Malcolm a self-righteous arsehole and Marie a suicidal mess, they are connected. It may be the same thing that connects the North Pole to the South. The same thing that unites the positive and negative ends of a battery. It may be purely coincidental. But Malcolm lays his eyes on her and knows this is his ticket. Marie looks at him and wonders what kind of death he brings.
They remember this meet. It is a turning point for both parties. For Malcolm, Marie is his muse. The guide to his next masterpiece. The star of his next film [that they come from when we meet them]. To him, she is someone who can help him out of the hole no one actually dug.
For Marie, he is an excuse. A get out of jail free card. Malcolm represents everything she wants to be; clean. She has longed for someone like him to look her way, and finally, FINALLY, he has. He is put together where she falls apart. Intact where she holds her cracks. He is to be her savior. From the alley, the drugs, the upside down life. She sees his greed. His malevolence. She just ignores it. She knows that look. Everyone around her has had it since she was nine years old. A look that suggests she is more than she actually is. That gives her purpose. That provides the validity she needs in her life.
Together, they are perfect. At least at first. They complete parts of each other they didn’t even know they had. They see parts of themselves in the other. Together they are more broken than they were apart.
Malcolm holds Marie’s hand as she gets clean. Through the sweating and the shakes. At one point, she looks at his face and sees genuine concern. He appears to actually care for her. But she also sees the greed. He wants something from her. She is unsure what will happen once he gets it.
As she gets clean, Malcolm sees the potential that Marie represents. He basks in it. Savors it. He knows he must make use of it at some point, but for now, he only wants her clean. Well enough to regale her tale to him. To open up. Tell him her story. Why was she in that alley? Is family involved? Is there anyone else to help him care for her? All he has are questions, and Marie is comfortable enough to answer them in due time.
It takes her a while to open up, but she eventually does. This is something she comes to regret later. Giving him the privilege to tell her story without involving her. Allowing him to cut her out of her own narrative.
Malcolm and Marie starts off with Malcolm in a celebratory mood. A celebration that Marie does not seem to share. He celebrates the success of a movie he based on her. Her life before him. Inside, she wishes she had the chance to tell it herself. She wishes she had the option to say yes and no. To choose things that did not work for her, like the topless scene that takes away the protagonist’s power. All she has left are wishes. That she never told him her story. That she never trusted him. That she could say no or yes to at least one prop. What she got was a chance to review dialogue. To suggest that this or that would best be said is such a manner. That was all. Words that came from her mouth sounded strange in Taylor’s tongue. She will have to live with it.
She could leave and let him look for his next project. She should. But he is nothing without her. His first thought when he wakes up is her. Where is she? What is she doing? If she leaves, he will break. He may possibly get his own movie after all. I don’t think she will, though.
***
Well, kids, this was a little different. I watched this film and so many things swirled in my mind that I HAD to place them somewhere. My first rant of the year.
The Afghan Hound
She hasn’t texted.
It feels like I have so much unfinished business concerning her. The Jacked Up Stranger chick.
Link to it if you are among the few who know not what I am talking about is this: https://notyetadults.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/jacked-up-stranger-the-meet/
Is it right calling ladies chicks? Sometimes people remove the ‘k’ to make it more bearable. But doesn’t that only serve the purpose of enhancing the effect of the word? But this is not a morality piece. This is about she who has not texted.
It sucks, being blue-ticked all this time. I posted the first post about her thinking that it would trigger her texting me back but boy was I wrong. I was expecting a “Why would you post about me?” text or in the rare chance a “Yay, you posted about me!”. But no. Nothing came.
So for all of us who have been sending me messages asking “What happened to the Jacked Up Stranger chick” … I am as much in the dark as you all are. I have the same anxiety to know if Jack still has his heads attached to him or the Medusa in her came alive and gave her the spirit of those Nyerian mamas.
All this unfinished business is frustrating. You and I deserve to put the uncertainty to rest already. So, Stranger, if you are out there, we need you. We need to focus on other things. To write on other things. To read other things.
You fed us well the first time. Gave us hope for a better story only for you to leave us like a forgotten lover. You had our throats flapped open for you as wide as a hippopotamus’ jaw, then you disappeared on us. Please reach out, if only for our sakes.
I am writing this at 4.24 am. Slept early and you know the drill. 6 hours at most. Till yesterday I didn’t know what to write about. I have been crossing fingers and toes wishing that she would text last minute but from where I stand, I have had to face the reality.
She doesn’t care about us. About we who are not yet adults. About you. Only I care about you from now. Believe that. That is why I wake up at ungodly hours to write for you. To explain why I have no continuing story for you, even though I had promised to find her. But how do you find someone who wants to equate themselves to Jason Bourne and disappear? I just hope that, like her mentor Mr. Bourne, she will see it fit to come out of the shadows if for one last time, to reclaim her public life and explain to us the ‘whats’ and ‘whys’ that she left us with.
School is hectic. I am tired all the time. I miss lunches unintentionally. Sometimes even breakfasts! I am in school all day, and if I am home, I am either thinking about the next day’s school or finishing on assignments or thinking of fresh content for the blog.
I feel like a dog that just needs time to have its mouth open so that it can let its tongue out. Just for a few seconds. But I have no time to put my tongue out.Also, I am almost always surrounded by group members in school. I don’t want to be known in school as Mirriam-who-puts-her-tongue-out-in-school. Especially not when I am in forth year with no time to clear my name. These days I don’t even try any more.
People I thought were my friends have recently become the ones who talk behind my back when I’m not looking(I’m just guessing here. They probably talk of how well I articulate my thoughts in words for you)
In high school, they put quotes on little metal placards and perched them in the ground at strategic points all around the compound. There was one placard that went something like:
“Nothing bites like a friend that stabs you in the back”.
Not exactly. It could have been:
“Your friends are the ones who will stab you in the back”
But there was stabbing and there was your back and the two had met with the help of your friend. The verb and the noun made the matrimonial union and your back is stabbed and you feel the stabber-thing, or whatever they used still sticking out from behind there every time you see them and don’t confront them.
I don’t even know where I am going with this anymore!
I recall this specific quote because I would pass by it with my two friends and we would almost always ask each other to not stab each other’s backs. I’m just glad that we have kept that promise that was made with dirty plates in one hand and warm cookies from the school bakery in the other.
Hashalla draws the most amazing of Afghan Hounds. I just found out yesterday. Just when I thought that her recipes were the one good thing about her talent she comes up and shtuas us with an amazing drawing of this. (Her easy-step recipe blog is hurshlinda.wordpress.com)
I think it is amazing how young people are coming up with different ways to express themselves in this age.
Considering how messed up our generation is, it is only fair that Kimyong has his dance crew and sends links to their videos each week and Raheel’s Mesisisi head wraps are a bombshell and Patricia just met her one-year natural hair mark and Wabs has her #WednesdaysWithWabs where she gives Wednesday motivation on various issues.
I am a firm supporter of all things creativity and so psyched that I get to be sorrounded by so many people, most of whom I cannot mention by name, who do what they have got to do to make that extra mulla or just simply have FUN.
Breaks into song;
I know I can *2
Be what I wanna be *2
If I work hard in it *2
I’ll be where I wanna be *2
Bloggers are busy with sending links and singers like Lil Vince send their videos to us and Anselm is still the “Funny Introvert” and poets are poeting or poeming and my friends made their first feature film known as “I’m Still There” (P.S there are bloopers) and we are all working at something to bring out the madness that swirls in our heads.
Designing the semester project is so hectic, but the group is so supportive of each and everyone’s effort and there is so much fun in creating The Scroll that I don’t want to stop. We laugh at our frustration when we have not had breakfast because we thought we would have lunch but then when we next look at the time and it is 6.30 pm and now you have to rush home to eat the leftovers you had left for lunch as supper.
The Scroll is a newspaper that focuses on stories from a specific region, meaning the first issue, (the one we are creating), will be of Multimedia University of Kenya and the next is the Coast issue.
It is also the reason that my back aches, my shoulders are tight, my eyes are exhausted and my legs are musclier from all the walking to and fro. ‘Musclier’ has a red line under it, so I’m not sure if the language police want me to use ‘more muscly’, but we’ve come so far with you that I am sure you know what I mean by now right? Spell Checker doesn’t know what we’ve got.
This is why when I came across Hashalla’s drawing, I was immediately drawn to it. (Take a moment to appreciate the word play there)
The drawing is beautiful in the most basic of ways. Black and white but with enough detail to have you frustrated. I texted her for details at 4.32 am but it seems she is among those of godly hours.
The Afghan Hound can at times have facial hair, kind of like a Fu Manchu mustache –Google it– and the mustache is called “mandarins”. Kind of cool especially when we are told that Mandarin is the language of the future and now everyone is learning “Chinese”.
Its temperament can be aloof and dignified according to Puppy Facts, but it is also happy and clownish when she is playing, and I have never met a dog whose character I could identify more to than Hashalla’s Afghan Hound. She does not get along with smaller animals but is a successful competitor in dog agility trials, plus, and listen to this, she can be an intuitive therapy dog and companion. Considering people I don’t know like the Jacked Up Stranger girl vent to me, I consider myself a therapy human too from this day henceforth.
Also, the first cloned dog was an Afghan Hound named Snuppy. Isn’t that a cool name? I’ve been calling to an imaginary Snuppy Puppy in my head all day to get to pet her. I’m so dumb😌
This is where I generally end with some wise words but I think it is best to give you yesterday’s #WednesdaysWithWabs.
She talked of new beginnings, it being a new month and coincidentally her birthday month as well and some of the incredibly insightful posts included the following:
1. Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. –Robin Sharma
2. You’re the author of your life’s story. You can start a new chapter any time you choose.
3. Do things for yourself; in 30 years, nobody is going to remember your choices except for you.
4. So, I close my eyes to old ends. And open my heart to new beginnings. (I particularly liked this one)
Then she ends it with a “So Happy New Month even if it’s all gloomy and raining”
(PS. I know you know I googled most of the facts about Afghan Hounds. You’re so smart)