Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash. For Young J who stuttered (and still does now and again in moments of overexcitement)… ** Don’t let this be a big thing. Don’t let the tyranny of a lost word hovering just beyond the reach of your tired tongue drag you to the edge of self-immolation. Cherish the bitten lower lip, the lisp when the words - like a pent up flood breaching the edge of a levee - finally come. ...
The less common variant of the “Where are you from” question I get comes from the unconventional way my surname is spelt. Family folklore suggests that my great-grandfather, whether in a fit of pique or an attempt to be contrarian - no one is certain which it is, took his rather mundane Yoruba name, replaced a couple of vowels with consonants, and declared himself unique. To this day when I ‘goggle’ myself, every reference is to someone I know and have met, bar a frankly confusing article that includes TB Joshua, Togo and Canada. Make of that what you will. ...
For The Sunday Muse Prompt #124: ** The King surveys his realm, from his perch high atop a dry, wizened tree. This is what freedom is, to roam without a care and be one with the earth.
Photo by Victor Xok on Unsplash ** One of the non-perks of living at the edge of the world is that everything has to be ferried in, and even the small matter of activating a registration requires a 60km ride into the nearest town. All of these meant that having finally received a critical piece of documentation, I needed a taxi ride for the third time in a week. As it turns out, I got the same chap as I had on the past two trips, my experiences of which varied from merely irritating to downright terrible. The full story is too long to recount but involved a couple of wrong turns and ending up in a different place, which added thirty minutes to what was already a lengthy forty five minute lunchtime dash into town. That ordeal was compounded by a malfunctioning temperature scanner at the gate which required three tries before I was eventually granted access to the office. ...
For The Sunday Muse prompt #123: ** Even in the darkness the beauty of lent light shines through, the golden petals of the sunflowers magnificent as they follow the sun. Beauty, hitherto hidden, is called out by the sharing of the light, the sum of its parts many times more brilliant than when it hides alone.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash ** It was my birthday the other day, and in keeping with what is becoming a tradition of sorts, I spent the morning wading through a flurry of WhatsApp and text messages before a fairly lengthy video call with the niece who I almost share a birthday with. The rest of the day was spent off-grid, which has become one of the more enjoyable parts of the day. I don’t remember when the need to unplug on the day first came to the fore but I am finding that in the aftermath of all of that mental stimulation, some downtime is helpful. As I have reflected on here before, the five weeks between the 8th of July and the 15th of August tend to be emotionally draining ones. Dealing with a move - which is quite frankly a culture shock of sorts - has only added to that this year. ...
For The Sunday Muse prompt #122: ** We have carried our bodies to a far country, the weight of the burden of the duty of sons driving us like a ship heave-hoing in a stormy gale to the place where our kin were brought before. Each day we toil amongst the living to save the ones we hurt by leaving, the labour of our bent backs a libation poured on dry earth, to appease the spirits of the old ones. This is our penance, a prayer sung to the tune of the songs handed down. ...
Photo by Timothy L Brock on Unsplash ** For all S’s protestations to the contrary, it is my contention that there are far worse vices than playing Football Manager. On the odd occasion, when I am caught off-guard, I’ll admit the arguments for this can be tenuous at best but I sincerely believe there is a cachet attached to being this particular brand of a connoisseur. Home, families and when spouses and children will get moved out here are typical subjects of conversation whilst waiting for the bus, which was how I ended up having such a conversation with a fellow commuter a few days ago. Time zones and staying in touch were the twin topics of interest on the day. My two-hour difference is hardly the sort of stuff to sweat over but in his early days, he had an eight-hour time difference to manage, difficult given the need to balance that with getting enough sleep and waking up in time to be on the bus at 6.00 am. Things were a lot simpler for him now he said, thanks to his family’s move back to their home town of Plovdiv. Perhaps my eyes lit up with recognition at the name, but somehow he figured out I recognised the name. I did, of course, thanks to some obscure Football Manager save, in which I ended up taking Brentford from the English Championship to the Champions League group stage via a two-leg qualifier against Botev. Inspired by all the football kicking about of late, I thought I’d reinstall it and have a few turns. The 821 hours I have apparently spent playing the 2015 version was an awakening of sorts (refusing to upgrade is the one act of self-discipline I have allowed myself in this regard). 821 hours seems like a lot of time to spend in a make-believe world of pretending to be Klopp, Nagelsmann or whoever is the latest managerial wunderkind, but on this evidence, some real-world value is there to be had, the geography of weird and wonderful places. ...
For The Sunday Muse prompt #121. After Emily Dickinson. ** Hope is the thing that shimmers in the distance the faint light flickering in the brooding stillness of the afternoon heat, the persistent promise that this thirst, this longing for restoring will be sated by rain. It is the pulse quickening with the lengthening shadows of evening and the return of familiar sights to the eyes. It is home calling the lost son to return to the dangerous duty of tending.
Not a day seems to pass without my having a staring contest with a cat. What has been most intriguing about this is all the very different places I find them: the bus stop at 6 am, outside the main shop at 4 pm, during my evening walk at 9 pm and most recently out in the plant, in the middle of nowhere. Their languid, fearless manner suggests they are as much at home in these spaces as I am, and have probably been for quite some time. There must be a story I am oblivious of, of abandonment perhaps (the French are top of the charts for that apparently), of having outlived their usefulness as rodent control or maybe they are just being cats out and about enjoying the warmth like I am. No doubt with time I’ll get to know the reasons why, but in the interim - cats apart - I have been grateful for the brisk breezes in the morning and the cloud cover that means that the day starts and ends in the low thirties, not the high forties which cause the heat to hang like a wet blanket around one’s head. ...