Temple

I hope you tell your stories,

the good, funny, quirky, embarrassing, painful,

I hope you tell your stories,

Just as you live and breathe them…not a word more, or a word less.

Talk of the mountains you scaled,

Of the tides that washed you away only to drown you,

Of the waves that made you yearn to catch just one breath…not much, just one.

I hope you welcome your demons into your temple,

That you do not silence them but rather your serenity makes them unwelcome,

That when they seek to drown you, they are drowned and silenced instead.

In your temple, I hope you rise and fall, soar and perch…

I hope you tell your stories,

Not for the world to hear, but for you to finally listen to yourself and be a lot more kinder to yourself, in your temple.

In Between

I look for you in the spaces between my memories and desires,

And sometimes, when the world is alight

I see you, shining.

Waterfall

It all came back to me.

The thing I ought to have done but never did.

I always love the lake, and wandering along the shores gives me serenity,

But today I caught a waterfall,

Then it all came back to me, what I should have done five years ago.

I should have told you that I knew about the lies, that I knew your silence was your inability to see the truth I knew about you.

Like that, the calls and texts stopped, and I looked to the stars,

To the lies I wanted to believe on love and just like that you continued in your journey and I soared in mine, until today…

I caught a waterfall, and just like that, I realized that the saddest thing I ever did then was act like I didn’t know what was going on.

Updates on writing and reading

It is fifteen minutes to three in the afternoon and I’ve had my second cup of coffee.

I woke up with one goal in mind today; to get notebooks and pens from Miniso at Sarit Centre and here’s what I got- 3 writing books, 3 pocket notebooks and 4 pens.

I also passed by the TextBook Centre store and picked two books to read and had to walk out so fast because if I stayed longer I would have spent more money on books and stationery.

I am writing more this week and looking forward to going through the final draft before settling on a publication plan for mid May. Until then, have a great week.

Here and Now

Blossom.

Stardust, I heard a woman say that everything grows where it is given room,

Hate where prejudice thrives,

Love where understanding thrives,

Everything blooms where it is given room,

So I thought of here and now,

Of the words I find it easy to type, of the courage I have behind this keyboard,

Of the silent comfort of tapping away, qwerty- they say, but to me Stardust,

It is the fastest pen I’ve ever held,

My fingers and eyes concur, so wherever you are, bloom.

hissetmehurriyeti at http://www.pexels.com

Red

I wore a red dress today.

I have always wanted to wear one, so…I bought one online and wore it today.

Of all the things I have wanted to do for myself,

It got me thinking of all the things I’ve desired,

of the what if’s that killed my wishes.

I wore a red dress today and I loved it so much I spilled coffee on it while twirling.

Blame it on the music that carried me away.

I wore a red dress today.

It got me thinking of all the things I’ve desired,

and why of all of them, I have never bought myself flowers.

Brigitte Tohm: https://www.pexels.com/@brigitte-tohm-36757/

Quote of the day

How to Get Out of a Writing Slump: The Hard Way

Hi, I’m a Writer. I haven’t written anything constructive since January 27th this year and I finally admit that I am in a slump and need help. So, I’ll start with some of the things I tried to get me focused on completing my novel and maybe you will understand why they all flopped, or better yet point out where I went wrong and could improve on. Shall we do this?

Alright, here’s how to get out of a writing slump- the hard way:

Do not admit that you are in a slump. I mean what’s a slump if not undergoing a prolonged fall or decline in something, like oil prices do, or even the economy…so definitely this does not apply to me.
Do not dare call it something it’s not, especially “Writer’s Block,” who came up with such a thing? You are just not feeling it and that’s okay, so read that book.
Read. Yes, read as many and diverse books as you can. You’ll find that January has slipped into February and before you wrap up that book you are in March and you bought a stack of 10 novels awaiting your attention. I mean, isn’t a Writer a Reader?
Buy stationery; the cuter and brighter, the better. You need new notebooks and pens and highlighters because you have to write fresh ideas on fresh slates, right?
Revise what you’ve written. It’s your first or tenth draft and something is definitely missing, so why not read what you wrote and cherish the characters you got right, frown at the typos and dangling clauses, and kill the characters you don’t want.
Watch Netflix! Come on, they made it easier, brought entertainment and distraction right in your hands and face- with the mobile device subscription. How about watching some K-Drama? Watch not one, or two, but six of them…Gwaenchana?
Listen to music, it’s what makes the world go around. How about that new album by Stray Kids?
Get some work done. You are not a full time Writer, you are in Kenya and you have to make ends meet, to pay bills and all, so get your work done too. You can always right when there’s not a work report hanging over your head.
Visit new places, seek out experiences like eating at that restaurant everyone keeps talking about on Instagram, or walk into that shop you always pass by, try new stuff- you may just have a story to tell and that’s a good thing.
Write. Yes, you haven’t been able to focus on it for almost three months and that’s forever, so why not just sit down and write!

And if these ten things do not get you out of the writing slump, then…well, shall we send a rescue party to remind you of how good you are and of the works you created before, maybe that would boost your confidence and ease the anxiety. Until then…

5 Things I had to Unlearn

A friend sent me a list of questions on personal development and the very first one was “What are 5 things you have had to unlearn?”

Accepting everyone’s expectations of the course of my life. This would often be phrased with questions like ‘aren’t you supposed to be married by now?’ or ‘shouldn’t you be driving a car or having kids?’
Going out of my way to please people. In my line of work when I engage with communities and the government, this often comes in form of trying to get people to work together in peace- and I realized that there is a fine line between cooperation and extreme compromise- and often I would go out of my way to make things right at the cost of my health and well-being.
Being obsessed with body image. Yes, the number of times I have taken up workouts just to sculpt my body into what I think is desirable and then failing or being demotivated two days in- are more than I could count the strands on my hair.
Answering calls 24/7. This is exhausting! So, I made sure to let everyone I engage with that I wouldn’t accept phone calls or respond to work calls and emails past 7:30pm, this way I have more time to reflect on the events of the day, prepare for the next day and get rest. Besides I love going to bed very early.
Trying to offer solutions to people’s problems. Yes, this I learned the hard way because I had a friend whom I would advise and she would do the exact opposite until one day I asked her why she shares her problems with me and she said, ‘because you listen and it’s good to just talk to you about them,’ and since then I learned that it is possible to listen to problems without offering a solution.