Listen, This House Is Not For Sale
Hey you,
I’m going to rant a little here, please permit me. If you did a rough estimate, how many buildings on your street have the popular ‘This House is Not for Sale, Beware of 419,’ words inscribed on them? Roughly 5 here. What does this tell you? Several things, but let’s keep going.
As a child, I constantly heard that the “ember” months were perilous times, riddled with kidnappings and all sort of “spiritual-like” deaths (trying hard not to cringe.) I still hear it: in churches, and even on Twitter. If this was/is true, how do we explain the consistent deaths, missing-people cases, fraudulent activities (especially online) the rest of the year? April has been called evil or bloody on similar grounds, but I’m not yet convinced that any particular month or set of months has/have a monopoly on evil.
What’s Happening? Why you ranting, sis?
I think everything is all wrong, and has been all wrong for the longest time, but living in a bubble can be very convenient (It’s my table I’m shaking, no worries.) I’m mostly triggered by how wicked Nigerians are. A young lady, Adewura Belo was declared missing by her friends and family on social media. She’s been missing for the past 8 days, even though the police is involved, and everyone is doing all they can to help find her. Yet, insensitive people have used this as an opportunity to extort her family members, under the guise of having information about her whereabouts. As if that’s not enough, tons of people on and off the internet are showing support for Naira Marley who was arrested by the EFCC for his alleged connection to advance fee fraud and cyber crime, consequently showing their support for ‘yahoo yahoo’. It’s not even news, this support for ‘yahoo yahoo’. Again, what does this tell you? This is not even a rhetorical question.
Maybe I’m just overreacting. Humans can be lovely. As far as I know, you're sweet, the absolute sweetest. But I’ve concluded that we are often our biggest enemies, our biggest problems. I can assure you, hell might be empty, but not all the devils are here. Heads-up, Shakespeare. And don’t even try to pin it on a certain month. I think that at the very core of it, some of us are wicked, and while I don’t know that this is peculiar to Nigerians, it’s really sad. Perhaps, we are a special breed. I mean, Guardian Nigeria, a newspaper that describes itself as an ‘independent news source’ recently made a misogynistic poll where they asked men if they would marry non virgins as if non virgins become lesser people just because. And Reno, foolish, foolish Reno said that the LGBTQ lifestyle is ‘risky’, using someone’s death as a ‘teachable moment’. Kill me now. Please. (Good time to listen to Jon Bellion's Human if you ask me.)
Enough Ranting. Let’s talk about positivity or...
Negative self-talk is internal dialogue you have with yourself that often limits your ability to believe in yourself, and reach your potential. Oshomah and I had a conversation about it because two different times during the week, we almost succumbed to it. Later, I had the same conversation with Amaka, and also on Twitter with Aisha.
I’ll just share some of what Oshomah said: “I think it is the way we have been conditioned. As kids, we were carefree and full of joy, and this was stripped away by people who ‘love’ us because they felt that living like that could affect the way we were accepted by the world. They assumed that they were protecting us from the world. They also didn’t show us affection. We mostly heard negative words which we internalized. This made/makes us downplay our achievements . When we fuck up, we say, ‘yeah, the usual shit.’”
Possible Solutions? You tell me.
I know people do this thing where they write the many ways they love themselves or other motivational-type quotes or scripture in jars, or on their walls; positive or affirmative words as a reminder on bad days that you’re not all bad, or bad at all. I started doing this too: meditating and constantly reminding myself of the ways in which I am strong, fabulous remarkable, significant and not just wasting my time as that voice often says I am. Hopefully, I can keep up. You can also refer back to the tinyletter on Mothers. Be positive, gworls!
Fiction
I have a good friend Tobi who’s a lazy reader. Everyday, I send him fiction to help him read at least one thing per day and he sends me music. Here’s me extending my generosity (jk!) with some of the fiction we’ve read and discussed: ‘A Family Portrait in Three Weddings’ by Tim is just breathtaking. As is Fope’s ‘This Boy Saw Something in Fire’. And you know how much I love Toni Morrison, so I shared ‘Sweetness’. Anushka Jasraj’s ‘Drawing Lesson’ is such a beautiful read and was a regional winning story for the commonwealth prize in 2017.
In heartbreaking news…
Something horrible happened this week. Binyavanga died. There’s so much I can say, about what his work, his words and his life did for me and tons of other [young people], but I can’t say it all here. To pay my respects, I’m sharing this quote off his One Day I’ll Write About This Place, (read excerpt here) which essentially captures how I feel:
“There is an ache in my chest today, sweet, searching, and painful, like a tongue that is cut and tingles with sweetness and pain after eating a strong pineapple.”
May his soul rest in peace.
Meanwhile, this weekend, please think about my rant, tie up my loose ends, don't ignore me, read about the terrible within and without, words by James Baldwin.
Talk soon!