nilichoandika

A Toast, to Your Happiness

April 10th, 2016

I knew two things to be true: People lie and lies can be hidden truths. Our meeting was scheduled for midday. I had arrived half an hour earlier and took to assessing the stationery aisle in Uchumi Supermarket. I was tempted to visit the Tile and Carpet store upstairs, but I could not stand being depressed by the price tags of home accessories I would die for. I bought three blue pens, one green gel pen and a dozen pencils.

The cashier smiled and asked, “Are you a teacher?”

“No, why?”

“You always buy a dozen pencils when you come here. I thought maybe they are for your pupils, but sijui, just guessing.”

“I am not a Teacher, I just love pencils.” Even as soon as I had thought of those words, I knew them to be wrong. I do not love pencils. I collect pencils. There is a difference. There is the thrill of twisting a pencil through the sharpener’s blade to reveal a sharp tip. It’s glorious I tell you, makes me wonder why we used ‘Panda’ blades in primary school to sharpen pencils when sharpeners could do such a fine job!

My phone rang as soon as I stepped out of the supermarket, “Hey, am at the Food Court in Tuff-Foam Mall, si we meet there, I will be distracted by the Wi-Fi at Java!”

“Sawa, na come.”

So, I crossed the road, walked from one mall to the other and climbed all the stairs that led me to where she was. She was the client. I was the Consultant, but even as I approached her table I knew that this would end in an emotional war where none of us could win.

First rule of professional service: If it hits close to home, stay away, and get someone to clean up the mess.

I had no one. I had five: two guys, three women, none were well trained to handle her kind of drama, besides she reached out to me. You do not turn away a crying woman. If there are streams on her face, you sit and listen and wipe them clean and ensure she goes back with a smile on her face. I sat opposite her and smiled. She ordered fresh juice for us. Mango for me and Passion for her. She removed her sunglasses and threw them in her black leather bag. I looked at the buildings around us, towers of silence.

“I do not know where to start. I just needed to get away.” I nodded and looked at her lips. She was wearing red lipstick, a first for her. Her colors were purple and brown, nothing bold and bright. She smiled and then leaned forward, her necklace settling on my hand which was on the table. “Promise me that you will not tell anyone about our meeting and even if you see something, please do not speak up. I know you can keep secrets. It’s why I trust you, but please…I don’t know where to start, God! I just wish that things never got this far.”

The Waiter returned with our drinks. He placed the passion before me and the mango before her. She smiled and swapped the drinks before I could dip my straw into the passion juice. She thought I had room in my conscience for another secret. Yes, here is the confidentiality agreement. Sign here, here and here. You will keep a copy and I stay with one, for future reference I mean. Yes, that would work out so well- and you go away smiling and my attic of secrets is open to another one that could destroy our family. Well, thanks but no thanks.

“Hey, are you listening?”

“Yes, I am. Drink up, we’ll talk some more.”

“Thanks, I knew I could count on you.”
Things we took for granted

April 5th, 2016

Spaces.

It is always the spaces where I find myself looking for you. Sometimes I wait and hold my breath counting to ten so you can appear. Sometimes you do, in a blue t-shirt and faded jeans. My mother told me to keep away from men in faded jeans, they are ‘trouble,’ but you said, I am a storm that you never see coming.

I pick you up, fling you high into the air and watch you crash.

Music.

I hear our song everywhere and radio stations love it more than we did. They play it every hour. I cannot listen anymore.

Faces.

I see you every day and the temptation to walk with my eyes closed is growing on me like my second skin. You are in our friends, their friends and in my mutual friends- and their comments and status updates like the disorder everyone is affected by but cannot speak of. They all look like you.

Thoughts.

This is the only place that is mine. You cannot come here because I cannot let you in. One foot in the door and you’d move in.

‘Listen, it’s not what you think.’

‘Let me explain.’

‘Would you hear me out?’

‘So, it’s like that, uh?’

Spaces. Music. Faces. Thoughts…bits and pieces of things we took for granted and there I was sitting on the living room floor as she told me about you. Every tear inflicting a wound on me, but when you cannot take away someone’s pain by your presence, you can always find comfort in words. It is like having a smoke. It amazes me how a smoker knows another smoker, you see them walk up to another and lean in to light their cigarettes! Smokers can also share spit without complaining. You puff and pass on to your fellow smoker and they puff and give it back. Spit.

A touch of the lips. Intimate.

There are things we took for granted my love, like the woman you were leaving me for who still loves you.
My TBR list

April 4th, 2016

Have you read Lucy’s post on Hard Book Habit today?

Something along the lines of Get a Move On!

It inspired me to clean out my library, to delve into memories and pages and dust as though I was looking for treasure. No book wants to be in the TBR list, which simply means To Be Read, but I am not a book, rather I am a Writer- and it would kill me to know someone bought my book and has been keeping it in this list.

So, here’s the deal, if you have written any of these books I will do them justice. I have read some chapters of these books, all but The Honeymoon by Justin Haythe, which I am reading again just cause I want to. They have officially moved from my TBR list to my bedside table pile-and they have already caused my younger sister some pain on her knee, but no worries.

Thanks Lucy for sharing your post today!
Colors and Lessos

April 3rd, 2016

Green.

I love how it brings out your essence. A woman at ease with herself. You wear it as a scarf. It is looped twice around your neck.

Once for the shame. Twice for the fame.

Blue.

I love how it demands my attention. Look at me, way up here like the sky. You cannot touch me. But I can, and I stretch out my hand and meet yours. Bony fingers, the long, slender kind that are a sight to behold when you eat chapati…slowly, shredding it to pieces, layer by layer. Let’s move on to better colors, shall we?

Pink.

Go change that lesso into a mat. It does not suit you! It screams of bubblegum and we both know how quick those Gomba gums run out of sugar!

Purple.

Demure. Bold, sexy and something like the silence at a funeral when the spouse is going to give an eulogy. It is the beginning of us. It is the end of you. It is nothing infinite, but everything finite. Take it off, please, you are giving me a headache.

Brown.

Strong. Understanding just like the earth, you take in everything without complaining. I see you. You think you see me. Close your eyes and I’ll write you a song, carve it in your soul, release it to the world, make you a star.

Black.

There are no black lessos, but you can pretend you are wearing one and take slow sultry steps towards me. I will play you a song, get you to dance to my beat. Black. Black. Black. Remove the ‘B’ and tell me what you lack.

White.

You see what I did there, after telling me what you lack I showed you something White. Come on, go get dressed, tie this white lesso around your 33 waist and 39 hips and go for a swim.

You do not have to tell me you hate it. Show me. Whatever you do, do not tear my lessos, they are gifts.

They tease and please.

The give and receive. They are mine.

Maybe, you too are…mine, just like the colors and patterns weave a story on lessos.
A Return to Love

March 30th, 2016

The journey to awareness is like mist, sometimes it clears up, sometimes it thickens into a fog. Most people desire to be happy in life. When you ask what happiness is to them, some can describe it as the feeling they get when things work in their favor, others see it wrapped up in a box of chocolate. Some, like my friend, Bill, find happiness in standing beside a maize vendor waiting for a roasted cob of maize after it’s rained. But, is happiness a state? If so, is it constant? If it’s not constant then what happens when we cannot feel it or embrace it?

It is because of this that I experienced the foggy part of awareness. I thought I had everything figured out in a relationship so much so that I could tell when he was about to ask me something about the English Premier League standings, or just how my day was. His laugh was soft like a three month old baby’s chuckle, sometimes it sounded like carrots being grated or coconuts being grated. His scent was neither musk nor mild but lime. He hated lemons but loved the scent of lime. His colors were grey, sky blue or white. Black was too common and unbearable in this heat. His shoes had to be leather, black or brown but nothing else. His jeans dark blue and he could not stand skinny jeans. His hopes well, that is where I started to see him as ‘was’ instead of ‘is.’

But, love is _____________________________. I don’t know.

I cannot precisely define love because I’m in a fog and 75% of me does not want to leave here. It is like being hurt and playing the victim. A sweet relief to a selfish person like me, and I am enjoying this moment because very soon it will clear up and I will find myself crying and then changing my wardrobe and moving on and blah blah blah.

What is love? How much do I owe the people who love me, and why should I pay? How much do they owe me and why should they pay? What is happiness? Is it clocking into the internet everywhere you go?

At — drinking Iced Coffee 🙂

At —having lunch with — #bae #relationshipgoals #muchlove

Feeling —-at —- with—-

Always informing the internet and the world at large of your every move more than you call or text your own parents and spouses, a thrill for Private Investigators and Serial Killers…they simply sit and follow the breadcrumbs you leave for them online. Is that happiness? It is. It is not. I don’t know, but to end this game, I’ll say that happiness is relative.

So, I woke up at 3:18am to make sense of a dream I had, and then returned to sleep because it was too dark to think and I wanted to know why I kept calling some guy Triton and why I had twins! Twins! Cut me some slack! Worse off, why we lived under the sea! I can’t even swim…(Someone conjure up Sigmund Freud)

When I opened my eyes at six and checked my phone, I saw thirteen missed calls and thirteen text messages all from him, the first one asking what I could not answer, “How can you walk away just like that?”

Truth is, we were married before we thought we were in love. I was the ideal girlfriend who had his parents confidence and affection and it was all good for a while, but for the sake of drama- I walked away, not desiring his commitment or affection, but desiring my own.

I became us and forgot all about me.

I became the definition of him because wherever he went his friends and family expected to see me by his side. I was his right leg, he was my left. I became a couple and slowly forgot about my dreams and he let me sink. He let me do what I could to please him while denying myself and when I saw how selfish and inconsiderate that was- I left.

I am looking to return to love. My love.
I think

March 29th, 2016

It’s too hot, what do you think?

This restaurant is too expensive, what do you think?

People can be so rude, what do you think?

Blue shirt or the purple one, what do you think?

We should go to Mombasa, what do you think?

Jaymo’s business idea is good, what do you think?

Sweetheart.

Honey.

Love, are you there?

Have you been reading the whole time?

Did you hear what I said?

You know what? Just forget it!

We should spend more time together, what do you think?

Honey…

*walks out of the room*

I think…
The perks of writing

March 26th, 2016

I am listening to Sam Smith’s “Lay me down,” which features John Legend hoping to hear that final rendition that gives me the shivers. It is soaring to 31 degrees outside and the open window guarantees a humid breeze.

I have had two cups of tea and filled out a job application for the next research project I would love to engage in just to avoid writing this article, but you know what they say about writers- we are forever churning up words even in our sleep. Gosh! People can be clueless at times, but it’s beautiful.

Writers have the best company, words. With this delightful company comes a villain, the need to rearrange and do away with some to create the best story.

Have you ever been to an open air market?

Okay, in Kisumu, there’s this big open air market, we call it Kibuye. It is pronounced as kee-boo-yeh. I think. There are plenty of hawkers and goods and you have to bend and go through piles of clothes until you get what fits you. It is like digging through a pile of laundry which reeks of storage, to get the perfect second-hand outfit which you’ll wash, rinse in fabric softener, and iron and you’d look like a goddess. The process of getting that item is stressful. Writing is like that.

Well, it feels like that to me, but this is not about me, not yet.

Now, let’s get back to me, thank you. The final version of Earth was delightfully emailed to my Mentor/Editor this morning- during my first cup of tea moment. One hundred or so pages of words that he would slash and underline or comment on using green fonts for the sake of originality. He called immediately to ask, ‘how do you feel?’

I wanted to say, ‘hot’ because of the tea I had swallowed in a hurry but resorted to saying ‘fine, thanks.’ He added, ‘you should be excited, you know the advantages of writing and so far it has been a great journey for you, eh?’

He hung up. I looked at my phone halfway between rage and joy. It’s a hard place to be in because rage shakes you to your core and joy is like a volcano that’s working its way to an eruption. Writing has advantages? Really?

Now that I think about it, it does: not everyone delights in the company of words or rearranges them to create a story. I mean, even liars cannot stick to a story for long.

So, if you are writing, or finding your way around words and it seems like nothing good or praise is coming out of it, just know it takes time. Yes, everything takes time, but with writing you have to keep the words flowing out of you. Let them flow and sometimes force them out of you. Purge on that blank screen.

The greatest perk of writing to me is the fact that it came out of me- not you, him, her, or someone else, but the words come out of me-and that in itself is the most glorious creation.
Why I’ll never look at people’s walls again

March 22nd, 2016

Do you ever wonder why your eyes travel across the walls of people’s living rooms when you visit them?

You are ushered into the room and as soon as you sit, you start looking around seeing the pictures on the walls, the color of the wall, where they place the wall clock, and their calendar and you stop only you when you meet their eyes.

It’s odd what your eyes make you do.

I have been struggling with a throat infection partly due to my reluctance to give up anything sweet, so I went to visit a friend yesterday. She welcomed me into their house. It’s a big three bedroom house with a front porch that’s to die for-and tall glass windows that remind me of those penthouses you see in action packed films. Seriously, why do the fights involve someone being thrown through a glass door or window that had nothing to do with the fight in the first place? I digress.

Okay, so, their house is one of those destination homes that are the kryptonite to travelers like me. Once inside, I found myself doing what I’ve always done since I was four and that’s looking around. You can tell a lot about people, like in campus I knew my crush was an Arsenal fan because of the pictures of Arsenal players and not the mat or the duvet, but it was enough to warrant a ‘let’s be friends,’ conversation. You can guess how many people are there in that family, or how many graduated if they have endless pictures of graduation photos, and if they love art or not. But, what I was not prepared for was a painting next to the picture of Jesus – you know the blue eyed, slicked back long black hair, red robe, red lips, and a heart surrounded by thorns.

This was a painting of an African man sitting on a three legged stool, smoking from a pipe. His hair was white, way beyond grey, and he had his genitalia and scrotum hanging out as he sat on that stool- and I was tempted to ask, ‘Lord are you seeing this?’

But, my friend came back with soda and she found me staring and I was forced to ask about the painting. “It’s my dad’s painting, he used to paint years ago before he joined the Ministry, he calls it, ‘Man.’ Everyone who comes here is always shocked by it.”

“Yeah, they would, the man is displaying his goods right beside Jesus!”

“And Jesus is displaying his heart, it is weird indeed, but I always tell people not to look.”

“How can they do that when the painting has already left an impression?”

“I mean people should not look around, they might be disappointed by what they see in people’s homes.”

I took a sip of my soda but for the next four hours my eyes kept going back to the Man and Jesus, back and forth, like a sniper training her eyes on a target, and when I left there, I ran into an old man by the road with white hair, sitting on a bench, and God help me, I swore never to look at people’s walls.
Raindrops and Roses

March 19th, 2016

I made something of myself.

You called yesterday.

It was a rainy day.

I made something of myself,

You wanted me all to yourself.

‘Congratulations, always knew you could do it.’

The phone was in my ear,

It’s been two years.

I made something of myself,

and you wanted me all to yourself.

How’s your wife?

How is your business?

Let’s talk about your career, hard work puts food on the table not words on paper.

Who wants to read about love when they are hungry?

Get a real job, use the education you have.

I made something of myself.

Now you want me all to yourself.

No thanks, I still write. These words will one day host a party,

like raindrops on roses.
The guests have arrived, Kenyan style

March 16th, 2016
Having guests in Kenya is throwing a feast.

If someone drops by to say hello, then you share what you have but if the visit was announced in advance, then it is a state function.

Growing up, my Mom, entertained guests and they came in three groups: widows group, estate fellowship and just guests. Now when it came to preparation and ensuring the best service was delivered they ranked as follows:
1. Widows group
2. Estate fellowship
3. Other guests.
This order changed only when one person was scheduled to visit and mom would prepare the best tilapia fish stew using milk. This person was: The Reverend/Canon of our Church.

We lived for these days to end because we would prepare the food, arrange the dishes, serve the guests and then do the worst of tasks by doing dishes. I am not a fan of doing the dishes especially Mom’s imported dinnerware dipped in a basin of soapy water with the tendency to slip through my dainty fingers like a fish out of water.

Back then, the preparation would start at 7am. We would wake up and clean the house, dust our rooms and we could only use the toilet before the guests arrived. Mom did not want anyone going for a long call only to stink up the house while guests were around, so we snacked and used the toilet before the guests started arriving. It was courtesy to mom, but torture to us. The other room that was out of bounds for us was the sitting room. I used to clean this room because Mom said it was the first place that any visitor saw before they saw the whole house. I dusted and mopped and ensured all the seats were ready with matching crotchet vitambaas- I don’t know how to say that in English. They were white. No one was allowed to enter this room, not even to watch an episode of our favorite program like Escava Esaura (please tell me that’s how you spell it) or Sinbad! KBC had repeats of Sinbad on Sunday afternoons and any adventure in the high seas was welcome, but mom stood her ground. She only looked at us and that was enough to know we’d suffer a quick painful death by even touching the doorknob.

But if there was one thing I learned was that it is good to entertain guests. Mom would always say that you treat people like the royalty they are when they take time to come and visit, especially when they arrive safe and wish you well. It was through these guests that I discovered my love for cooking and loathe for dish-washing. Everyone had their specialty: my cousins Jackie and Leah could make a mean beef stew each taking turns to check in of the progress of their delicacy. I could make some amazing rice and fry just about anything, including paw paw (ask my sister, Chez, she was always the first to taste any new invention and suffer in silence, like the time I roasted green peas).

We were an army of ants every time we had guests and we would go to bed like logs. I just visited a friend this morning, they are having guests from home- her aunts and uncles and she told me, “we will have a few snacks and some tea at four as we wait for supper.” I was working my way to the perfect tantrum but she smiled and said, “it’s no big deal, they are sleeping only for one night, so why bother?”

Why bother? Chica allow me to introduce you to my Mother…