You asked about a star, yet I heard a galaxy. I could not tell myself a lie, because it’s taken me years to get this far, my absolute favorite and very necessary thing to do is:
sleep
Then right next to it, I love to do the following:
write
read (currently loving Home coming by Luan Goldie)
listen to music
clean the house
For the love of body art, I’d love to know a thing or two about henna and draw some beautiful flower designs on my hand.
I love sunshine and smiles and just like that I find joy in:
I am a daughter of the Lake.
History says that my tribe, the Luo, who speak Dholuo, are River-Lake Nilotes and as such we are drawn to, revere, and reside along Nam Lolwe or Lake Victoria as the world knows it.
I love the flow and depth of Dholuo as a language, because there are many names of the same thing-for example a cat is not just a cat, it is: mbura, paka, ong’er mesa, pusi…
I love the way we revere nature and seasons, and for every birth our children are named in honor of the time and season they come into the world.
Don’t get me started on the food-especially the vegetables and how we make them…
It is beautiful how we live in a world of superlatives. You are good, but you can be better, or if you think you can do better, how about your best…and then who is the best, who is most successful among your group of friends.
What could you do more of?
Well, I could do less of:
Live your life.
No matter how hard it gets, just live. And just like that, I remember those three words “live your life,” because they were uttered to me at a time when I even the act of breathing in felt like drowning-and it hit me how sometimes what’s deemed as the best advice, could also be the worst or least impactful.
“Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free.”- Bill Richardson
I am in constant awe of the systems and institutions that we create as humans, and would like to know among many things:
Once I thought how alike the 12th Zodiac sign- Pisces and the Ouroboros are, an endless cycle of creation and destruction, never disappearing but always changing form.
And just like that I know I would feel empty without music. For music has been my companion when I walk- to shut out the world, the tsk tsk from strangers when I walk, the reminder to walk in step to a beat, a friend to fill the silence of awkwardness at parties, peace when my mind is chaotic.
Tens days to October and here’s what’s up with me in September.
Reading: I have read some awesome books this month-specifically in the past week. I would definitely recommend No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib– it broke my heart!
Writing: There has been quite a lot of talk around NanoWrimo and I have good friends who are participating this year encouraging me to join them and give it a shot. I’ll be starting from scratch because I haven’t gotten a clue at the moment on what kind of story I want to tell.
3 Things I want to do this week!
Until then…have an awesome week
I am drawn to mist, not fog- just a little bit of grey, of uncertainty, enough to make you slow down and watch out.
And like everything granted to me, in this realm, at this time, in this body, this form I take; I am learning and wish I learned earlier in life that everything I experienced would pass. For as long as I kept moving, kept hoping, working- getting up and facing another day- that everything, the pain, uncertainty, bliss, people, places, songs, trends, food, events, clothes…everything would come and go, only I would remain.
nilichoandika 