Even Angels Fall

The Garden of Morning Calm

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 14:20:00 +0000

This is where I sat on the 31st of December 2019 and reflected upon the year I had had. It had been the toughest yet for my career and incredibly challenging financially. It was also the year that found me on a boat at night, watching fireflies dance over the Loboc River as a birthday present thus ticking off the 5th continent in my bucket list of visiting all the continents.

It was also the year I had fallen in love despite my best efforts and (literally) flown across the world to visit the love of my life and to know the country he had called home for the past 5 years.

But here I was, on New Years' eve, alone and without him but still the happiest, getting lost in the myriads of lights, watching overs and families fawn over the magnificence before us, deep in my thoughts, as I sipped my hot chocolate with a slice of cheese bread.

I had grand plans for the year ahead.

Chasing a new job opportunity and a new life in a new continent - and not even the one I was in at the moment. It would mean the long-distance part of our relationship continues, but I had always known this was going to be the case whether I stayed in my home country or not. Before dating, we had discussed for at length if we were ready for a new relationship transversing between timezones. It had taken me months to accept this, but I knew once I said yes, there was no going back. And a thousand yeses I said.

In my 20s, I broke off a 2-year relationship because I could not stand the distance. Now in my 30s, having grown tremendously to the woman I am and evaluated what being in a relationship meant and looked like for me, I kinda enjoy the dynamism distance adds to a relationship. It does get hard, don't get me wrong. Extremely hard. But it's like hiking. It gets tiring, it gets frustrating but it's the trails and hills that make it exciting; that keeps you going back for sweet torture.

The beauty, calmness, wonder, and endless possibilities that I was surrounded by is what I thought my new year would be.

With a secret smile planted firmly on my lips, I left the Garden and took the subway to the city.
The plan was to watch fireworks from the tallest building in this country (and the 6th in the world). I had read that they shot off fireworks with an LED laser show for 7 minutes for the previous New Year and was hoping to catch a similar spectacle.

I got there early and found 1000s of people queuing at the entrance of the Skywalk from where one could watch the fireworks. But to go in one needed to have purchased a ticket beforehand and well, they were sold out. Unfrazzled and in the spirit of making lemonade, I contended to watching them from outside the building.

I picked a quiet corner sat down on the steps of the subway station, removed my book and waited. I do this a lot. The temperatures were in the negatives outside. I would have to sit in the warmth inside and get out some minutes to midnight to the perfect vantage spot I had scouted before. I people watched, read a bit then people watched again.

My sweet spot was waiting when I finally ventured outside, 10 minutes to midnight. And soon, I was surrounded by others with the same idea as me. Actually, everyone who had been inside the station had been waiting like I. And wait we did.

5 minutes to midnight.

A couple walked by and stood in front of me blocking my view. I exchanged looks with the girl next to me. We communicated with our expressions. Up until now, we had just been aware of each other without conversation.

3 minutes.

Exchanged another disgruntled glance. We were both short and the couple in front of us really tall. But then again, when you are five-foot-nothing, everyone above that is really tall. I didn't come all the way from my home far far away, scout a spot, come early, only to have two inconsiderate people block my view. I also felt like I needed to fight for this girl too. This new friend with a shared enemy. One last exchange.

2 minutes.

I channeled all my African ancestors that fought for our rights and freedoms, tapped the woman and asked them to kindly step aside to allow us a view. They moved. Not aside, but all the way away. Another exchange, this time accompanied by a smile of gratitude from her. I realized that if I had not been there, she would have not done anything. She would have accepted that her view of the fireworks, her plan to come earlier to secure her spot, would have all been wasted.

She was alone like I was and suddenly, I felt like her fairy godmother.

1 minute.

No one has started the countdown. She says thank you and looks up at the huge countdown timer projected on the side of the building. Excitement builds around us, phones held high up ready to capture this moment.

30 seconds.

I am now playing around with my camera phone settings, I want to capture them in slow-motion.

10 seconds.

The colors of the lights on the building change.

5 seconds.

I press record.

4..3.. 2..1. Midnight.

Nothing. Just a little smoke from the side of the building with what sounded like a muffled bang.

We cannot see the fireworks. But it looks like they just went off. We wait.

1 minute past midnight.

Nothing. Only at 5 minutes past do we all collectively accept that no fireworks are forthcoming. Except they did do the fireworks, just not in the direction we were watching from - from the side that faces the Han river - for those in the building. Oh well. They paid, we did not. Fair, I guess.

We exchange our disappointment, her in broken English. We then talk about the last trains and walk back into the station. To get home, I need to change trains twice, and somehow, something that has never happened to me in all my years of travel, I get into the wrong train. I realize as it peels out of the station and jump out at the next. But that was the last train on that line. I see there is a bus scheduled to arrive in 54 minutes. It will be late, but I will wait. I decide to ask a kindly looking man closing his shop what time the bus comes around. He says no more buses are coming. I'll walk back, I decide. It's just one station over with well-lit streets. I am also trying to walk 1000kms by the end of the year anyway, might as well start accumulating them, minutes to the new year. There are still people milling about as I reach the station I had just left.

People are saying there is one more train, on the line I need. I lean on a column, take out my book, and wait. A girl comes to stand next to me. She looks like she knows there is a train coming and reassure myself.

Minutes later, I am doubtful and tell myself it doesn't hurt to ask her. But I am not in the mood for a chitchat and do not want to start a conversation at 2AM that includes Google translate. But then again, I do not want to be standing here for hours only to find out that there are no trains. So I ask her in English. She also doesn't know, she is chancing it. She speaks English. We wait a bit. We ask each other if we should ask the other people at the station and laugh. Neither of us wants to go through the hustle that language barrier creates.

We wait even more. A group of loud boys who look local arrives at the station. She asks me if I know Korean. I tell her I can read the alphabet only. She says she doesn't either and then walks to the boys and asks in broken Korean (I don't even know if it's broken because if you do not know a language, how can you tell?) They confirm there is a train coming. We realize we are both changing to Line 6 but heading to different directions. So we agree that we stick together, get off at the same station, and wait with each other for our respective trains.

Train arrives.

We talk and talk all through the 30something minute ride as if we have spent the day together. We get off and the first person we meet is a metro employee who answers before we even ask. No trains on our line. We decide to find a cinema and watch movies till morning. Luckily, we are near a couple of them. We are in Dongdaemun. That's supposed to be the heartbeat of this area. They are all closed. Hasn't anyone ever thought that some people would like to watch late-night movies in a cinema on New years eve? We both agree that we wouldn't mind such a plan. I am hungry. I haven't eaten since morning except for the hot chocolate and bread slice hours ago. Chicken and beer places are open all night, she says. I don't drink, she doesn't want to drink. We hope the first place we find will accept to sell us chicken without the beer. Normally they insist on selling both as a package.

We are in luck.

Two girls who met a couple of hours ago in the middle of the night, both new to the country they are in right now, both alone on New Year's eve talk about everything and nothing. She is in the country for a study abroad program from a neighboring country. Her new friends here wanted to keep drinking, she wanted to go back to her hostel. And that is how she ended up at the station so late and alone. I tell her of my travels in this country we find ourselves in, of my home that she has only ever seen on wildlife TV. She tells me of the experience of being born a girl in a country that wanted boys and her parents' disappointment. I had always read and watched such stories, never sat opposite a person who lives it. I feel privileged for her to choose to share such deep and personal feelings. But she is not seeking sympathy, she is strong, independent, wild, carefree and I love her already.

Since trains start operating at 5.30AM, we will sit in this bar until then. Taxis would be mad expensive for both of us, we reckon, and we can't be bothered to find buses - none of which will be a direct trip for us both. We'd rather not wait at bus stops in this freezing weather. So we talk some more. Just when none of us can stay awake any longer, it is time for the trains. We walk to the station, the trains arrive at the same time. We hug goodbye and promise to keep in touch.

Sitting in the empty train, I think about how crazy the night turned out. How serendipitous the circumstances that led to our meeting, how none of us planned to spend the new year this way. We had laughed at how it could be destiny that our plans did not work out as expected so that we could meet. I couldn't have asked for a better New Year's eve/day and she felt the same way too. We had talked about how this meeting could be the manifestation of how our new year would be. Full of surprises, but beautiful ones like the day we both had just had, albeit separately. We both felt it.

We know we will not meet again. She has exams in the coming week and the weekend she is free is the one my man is coming back home. I don't want to make any plans for that weekend. I have not seen him for over a month. The reason why is another story. She goes back to her home country the week after.

We don't talk again. I leave the country a week after Covid19 hits South Korea. Her country is the source. I never think to text her. But as I write this, exactly 7 months after our meeting, I wonder how she is.

None of my beautiful plans and dreams that I had meticulously planned in the 4 hours I spent walking around The Morning of Golden Calm has panned out. I could not leave Kenya once I got back from Seoul. Borders were closed. I had to stay put and restrategize in the throes of a word pandemic full of uncertainties. Should I rent a house now that I was back home and wait? I had moved out and put my stuff in storage, knowing that after S. Korea, I would head to Europe and settle. But if I was to rent instead of staying at a friend's, how long would it be for? What if just when I settle in my new house, the world returns to normal and I have to pack and leave again? Should I just look for work here and shelve those relocating plans? I was leaving Kenya because I wanted a change in my career. But what if I settled here now that I was stuck, got a new job, would that mean that I don't still pursue my relocation plans? It was maddening trying to work this out.

So I hiked all the hills I could find near my friend's house. I took long drives to places where roads end. I would park the car and keep walking through the bushes until I could walk no more and took beautiful pictures. And when I was done with those hills, I left town and explored even farther away hills. National parks, camping sites, I went to them all. It's how I kept sane, you see. Nairobi was on lockdown and curfewed. I get cabin fever on normal days; a lockdown would drive me insane. While out there, I thought of nothing but the moment.

I will text her today. And hopefully, she has made it out unscathed.

I want to find out how she has been. How her family has been coping. But more importantly, I want to find out if she ever thought, as we sat in the dimly lit bar eating mountains of chicken and comparing notes on our favorite K-dramas, that this is the current situation was what the universe had for us. For the whole world. I want to reminisce with her how happy we had been that chilly dawn of the new year, how we looked forward to living the best year yet.

The Garden of Morning Calm might have not been the way to describe what my year has been so far, what the year has been for the rest of the world. But the events of that night certainly did somehow prepare me for what was to come and taught me a few things.

To ride the uncertainty wave, not to fight it, to go with the flow, to find moments of joy in chaos, to be my brother's keeper.

Sound of the River

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 11:24:00 +0000

It's a dark night, and it's raining outside. Gentle rain that sounds like a thousand tiny rasps on the tent, as if requesting me to let it in. I close my eyes. It is day 4; the last day. I am sitting cross-legged, a gentle light illuminating the roomy tent I have owned for the past 6 years. I am warm and fuzzy, both on the outside, and the inside. There is that sweet feeling of...safe, kinda amniotic sac-safe, womblike safe (Need to look that feeling up because I know it has a name)

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Not the loud bang that makes you jolt or your heart quicken; a gentle boom that matches your heartbeat. Just a few feet from my tent is a river, and if I close my eyes hard and concentrate, I can hear the water flow. A bit slow and sluggish as the silt makes it difficult for the water flowing downstream. However, I can tell its level is rising by the change in the sound of the river. And yes, rivers do have sounds.

Is the river in a hurry? A different sound. Is the river full and heavy, burying rocks underneath, or thin and light, curving its way to avoid rocks? Those are two different sounds. You are thinking about it now, aren't you? And you are now smiling at the realization that you knew this info all along without knowing that you actually did. Pretty cool, huh?

See this is why I hike and camp. For the sound of the river. For the sound of the rain begging me to let it in and the light sheet of the tent is the my shield against its incessant cries. The contradiction that's a thin piece of cloth is meant to keep you warm and safe, and it does exactly that. It's the laying here loving this, this being one of my favorite feeling in the world, and knowing that I also do not want this feeling to last.

Because I want to be able to go back home and long for this feeling again. Close my eyes as I lay on my fluffy pillows and comfortable bed and wish I was out here, sleeping outside, on the ground, snuggled in my sleeping bag. I know someone will read this and not understand why on earth I would possibly be sleeping outside, in the wild. And I am not going to try to make you understand. You either do or you don't, and if by now you don't feel it, you are never going to.

Think of something in your life that you feel you can never try to explain what it makes you feel. Something you know is not worth a justification. Something that you love and you don't care if the whole world hates it, you would still love it. That's what this feeling is to me.

I met the family who owns this place. A couple with their three kids and grandma. It's a little heaven in the middle of nowhere. The plan was to cook at the campsite which's also next to their house. But the rain huffed and puffed and we gave in. They let us use their kitchen. We cooked together; them their son's 20th birthday dinner, me our last supper on the last day of our amazing adventure. We talked about the local people who host them and now us, food security, travel, exploration, whether ants eat clothes (a serious conversation by just me and the 6-year-old), and my almost sprained ankle as I moved around the huge open kitchen. Sometimes we are all silent and the sound of pans, frying, stirring, crackling fire are all that fill the kitchen. But its comfortable silence. Were it a scene on playback and we pressed pause, and we each described what we were all feeling? Happy would be the word. At that moment, we loved being here, together, even though we'd just met. We were friends for this moment. We might never meet again, but none of us will forget this night.

As the rain gets more agitated, the begging turns into heavy pounding. And instead of scaring me, it soothes. Normally, I will play this sound on an App to make me sleep. I would visualize this moment. Right now. And that helps me sleep. This time. I am experiencing it; and its a damn great feeling. The river is getting faster, no longer rapping at rocks, but swiftly flowing over them. No longer a gentle stream. I smile. I am exactly where I would rather be.

I

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:47:00 +0000

I
Sat in an air-conditioned , new 4x4, I looked outside in awe. The rugged mountains, sculpted by God on a lazy afternoon. After marveling at the beauty that was Africa he must have decided to finish it off with this heart-wrenchingly beautiful landscape.

I
Fell in love with a man I will never have. But loving him is like a beautiful secret I get to keep. That I will never share with anyone. Infatuation? I don't know. Been a while since a hot man showed any interest in me. And Ethiopia has made me feel so beautiful. Never in my life have I ever felt so desired.

I
Also lost my heart. Not the part that wanted the idea of the man. The part that makes you look at the world and forget yourself. The remotest place on earth, these kids play.
I stare at them as we drive on, like the mountains, disappear through my car window
Will they ever know what the world is. I'd love to hear what they think the rest of the world looks like. Shared borders but could as well be Jupiter.

I
Bared myself to the fact that I am scared of poverty. When my heart aches the people that live with nothing but a sheet on their back, it aches at the knowledge that I get to go back to my good life. As a black person. I feel guilty for having, for experiencing what my fellow race, marginalized and last on the hierarchy of races, would never get to experience.

What makes me better than them?

Eyes that speak

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 14:55:00 +0000

She sits across from me.

Her eyes will occasionally meet mine, then travel. At first, they will look at her feeble fingers wringing on her lap, then to the side as her head cocks as if to listen to a voice far away. Like a weary traveler, those eyes that have seen more than language could ever express, finally rest on the notebook in my hands.

I follow those eyes.

pic source

They beg to be followed. They promise to tell, promise to show. It's a nondescript notebook. But in it holds questions that reduce her life to a series of answers. Suddenly, I want to throw it away. It seems to generate heat, too much. It's a Moleskine. Nothing much. But as I look at it through her eyes, its the window in which her past is displayed. It's the epitome of all things evil, all things inhuman, all things she has been working so hard to forget.

I find my hands putting the moleskine down. I am surprised by this move, more than she is even. We both look at the object of her disdain and my new-found bane.

I have been asking her questions for the past 15 minutes. It feels like we have been talking forever.
Talking insinuates we have been discussing how healthy her goats are, or how fat the chicken are becoming. Talking makes you think we have delicate china in front of us on checkered table cloths with steaming tea and biting on finger sandwiches.

I doubt she even knows how to make finger sandwiches. I doubt she ever owned a china set. Her cups are old cylindrical tins that have hints of the colour they were when she first got them. That is what she offered me tea in.

I do not like tea with little milk. Yet, norms dictate that I never refuse such an offer from a woman such as this one. Now my tea sits on the ground next to my chair, flies covering the rim of the cup. I see them fight for a spot on that rim. I assume that spot is the least hot for them to perch on.

She clears her throat. I look up. Those eyes again. Now they are imploring. Asking me what I am thinking. If I am judging her. I hold her gaze, trying to push back the current thought. Which goes like this - 'I am stupid for shifting my attention to flies, instead of what you are telling me. I am sorry.'

I pick the moleskine again. I have forgotten what my next question is. Shameful really. Because I have been asking the same questions to women in this area for a few days now.

'Are you afraid of dying?' I ask

Stupid question. Who isn't?

Eyes that speak answer me. No.

Why? I ask her.

The cameraman who has been quietly filming this interview interjects.

She did not answer, he says.

I sit up and shift in my seat. Of course she did not. Her eyes did. She has barely moved.

I ask her again.

She bites her lower lip, and chews it slowly.

The woman in front of me is 40 years old. She looks 70. She is frail. Too thin. She is dying of AIDS. Because she was raped and infected during the post-election violence. She has 6 children, all under 15 years. No husband. She is alone. She is all her children have. They have no idea she is dying.

I seek out her eyes. And hold them.

No. She says.

I have been here before, just not here.

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 12:13:00 +0000

I had what most would call a dream job for about 5 months this year. I was excited. I talked about it constantly. It was like being paid to be on holiday. But then it wasn't. I could not grow creatively and I had to make the hard decision to quit. Now that I am trying to unpack what exactly about that job did not work out for me, one thing is hazily manifesting. I need to work with people, I was not doing so on that job. I was not creating. I was processing created content. I create for a living. I weave stories and spin tales. Real human tales mostly. I need it. I cannot live without it.

Barely 3 weeks after saying goodbye to God's playground in the African wilderness, I was on another project. I had no time to regroup and gather my thoughts. What did I want to do? What was my next project?

So I packed my bag again and caught a flight to one of the remotest parts of the country. To tell a story. It's not my story, I am working with a group of filmmakers who conceptualised it. But it could as well be mine, it's the sort of thing I would do. It is my first time here, but not new to such a setting. I have been here before, just not here.

Everything looks the same. One road looks like next road, the trees merge into one. It's sun and sand; and not the holiday type. It is the beach without the ocean. I could take a million pictures and it wouldn't matter where I took them.

There's despair in the air. Pungent. Strong. A feeling of not belonging. For me and for the people I meet. Like we are all drifting. Except I get to leave. I get to live.

I am here to tell a story, one that I don't think I am even qualified to tell. Not professionally, but as a human being. What makes me the right person? As a filmmaker, I struggle with my self appointed duty to tell others' life stories. But its like a drug. I feed off their life challenges to drive me. It's a sick relationship. And yet. I am still here. Doing this. I am telling others' stories. Of things I will never experience, of a life I will never know, of tragedies I will never imagine, even with my overactive imagination.

I have moments of incredible fear. Paralysing. Moments where I feel insignificant, worthless. Moments that I feel like a fraud. Like I deserve no paying attention to. Moments that I want to disappear and hope no one ever notices that I am gone. These moments that I question my purpose; if this - telling stories - is actually my purpose. Moments that I wonder if I am making a difference.

I get to go back home. To my warm house, to snuggling with quilts on the couch and hot chocolate mugs with bits of marshmallows. To a life where my biggest challenge is figuring out whether I want to cook or order take out for dinner. To a life of a fully stocked fridge and claim to have nothing to eat. I sat down under a tree and listened to a girl my age tell me of horrors she has lived through. I was there with her. I was re-living the moments with her. My heart broke. But my broken heart is hardly an issue. That is my problem, not hers. Her heart broke along time ago, she no longer cares about her heart, just her hurt.

I will tell your story, I thought. And from this, your life will change. But will it? Or will I tell her story to people who only want to see others' pain so that theirs can seem insignificant? Can I look her in the eye and tell her that her opening up to me and to my camera will make her life a little easier? But that is the unspoken promise between a filmmaker and her/ his subject. Tell your story and hopefully, someone somewhere will do something. And I hate to walk away with this promise hanging over my head, knowing that I might never fulfil it.

Coming back home

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 09:36:00 +0000

In more ways than one, I am coming back home. I have been away working in the Maasai Mara as an Assistant Director for a company that does live game drives - a very interesting experience for me but also a huge eye opener. Now that that part of my life is over, home is where I am headed.

This blog had been my where I brought my thoughts for years. From 2005 I think. That is a long time. I was a fledging then, and I guess for you to really know me, you would have to go that far back.

Sometimes I do that, and constantly get awed by how far I have come. How much my life experiences have shaped me, what tenets I have kept and which I have let go. I have realised that what I thought was an unhealthy relationship with this blog, actually kept me grounded. And now, I am coming back.

Home. To this blog.

What a 23 year old me wrote -- Life

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 13:23:00 +0000

Life is what you wish you had but you don't. It is what you see from a far and yearn for, or in some cases, actually pursue it diligently, if only to have a taste of what you think other out there might be enjoying. Life wheezes pass you like that cab that won't stop when you hail, but will not hesitate to splash muddy waters on you on the pavement. And as you watch it speed away, you realize that you have just been dealt a very bad hand, and lady luck has retired, not for the night, but for the decade. Every morning on my way to work, I'm forced to stare outside the car window for long (long is used loosely as this could stand for 2 – 5 minutes) and sometimes, I do actually pay attention. Sometime last week, I observed, really observed. I become aware of a small pickup truck that I meet with at around the same time every day. It's a very nondescript car, and you are likely to ignore it. What made me notice it were the chickens in the back. The owners have constructed a mesh cage and horizontally divided in into two, thus making a double storied kind of cage. They pack chickens – hybrid broilers / or old layers on their way to the slaughters house – that is my assumption – in these two stories. The chickens sit quietly, almost demurely, as if cognisant of what awaits them.

Is this any different from my journey to work? Do the chickens also look at me and feel that fore boarding sense of worry and pity towards me? Do they look at me with their tiny beady eyes and wonder whether I know what awaits me, what the day that the night worked behind the veil of darkness to so deftly craft hold for me? Douglas Adams almost convinced me that mice do run earth. In one of these traffic snarls, my house mate and I got into a conversation, well more of a speculation about Mice and Cockroaches. I will give them first caps as this will somehow recognize their yet-to-be-proved dominance. Cockroaches will be the only surviving living things on the planet when we finally fry ourselves up with UV rays and other cosmic rays and their off springs, radioisotopes. And we wondered, is there a scientific research, maybe in the USA, or Russia or even Japan, to make a replica of the cockroaches shell for humans to wear protectively, when we can no longer make higher SPF's? And Mice actually do run the universe; that every little thing we do, no matter how ingenious is orchestrated by Mice. Which is what got me wondering to my housemate in the car, what of the mice that scientists conduct research on? He thought that those were the prisoners or pariahs of the Mice kingdom, and being subjects of us lowly brained beings is their punishment. I thought he had a point. Imagine the lowest animal you can think of on earth, actually, expand your thinking, in the universe. Now imagine you being condemned to be the subject of its meaningless research.

What I fail to understand is why you would allow yourself to be one of the dirtiest animals on earth, especially if you controlled Earth. I mean, look at all the advancement we have thereof. Even in my pea sized brain (I'm looking at my brain from a Mice Point of view); I would surely want to be a greater animal. It's like God choosing to send Jesus as a pig to rescue the human race. I would call that very bad mathematics. Anyway, he had a point, if far fetched at that! We could be controlled by the lowest form of life without our knowledge. Apparently even dolphins had a revelation of what the world was headed into (notice I said what not where), and have been trying to tell us for years. Can't blame me, and other human forms for not listening. Their language is harder than Danish. And take it from me, Danish is not a language, it's a advanced form of galactic medley of confusion (Sorry Hunny, you can kill me later, you know how best)

Happens that religion can explain most things and hence rest our troubled minds as to why we exist. Science can also do that. Big Bang is where the two meets. They fight to differ, and to me, the harder they fight the more similar they get. Like an old married couple. Think about it, if an old married couple to us is along the lines of 10 years to 60 years (life expectancy limits the bracket), what about centuries, and still forced to co-habit in the same house (read Earth), deal with the same kids (read Humans) century after century? I'm not a fan of religion. I was born into one. And somewhere along the way I felt like a groupie on some really confused rock band. I got the concept of what religion tried to do, but I saw it fail. Then I wondered why I was in the religion I professed to be in. I got one answer; because I was born into it.

When I really thought about it, I decided to get off the bandwagon and watch from the sidelines. I think this is when I should confess that my not so favourite pastime is thinking, and worrying. About things like; are there homeless children in Alaska, whether the ant that I stepped on accidentally this morning knew that it was going to die today, and if so, it say a proper goodbye to its family, (I worry about that with humans too) whether my pal knew her mother would be dead this time last year, and if so, what would she have done differently, whether I will celebrate my 30th birthday...anyway, that was not the line of thought I was going to follow in this blog.

You believe in the religion you believe in because you (your soul, your nature) cannot accept that death is finality. There has to be something more, otherwise, why do we bother living, why not kill ourselves and get over with. Well, I think suicide bombers have got that covered. That is why we go through the motions of life, because we have given ourselves reasons to, because we humans need justifications, reasons and answers in to Why, which when married to How, breeds very naughty children, namely, When, Where, and the twins, What and Who. We then devote our lives to finding answers, fighting about it, and proving the dominant faith and downplaying the rest.

Are the dolphins really that cleaver they might actually have something to say that if we do not heed to, will lead us to dire straits? If we stopped cutting into Mice and just observed them, would we learn something valuable and hence settle the Ultimate Question? I bet if I were to choose an animal, I would pick Ants. Sorry I know they are not animals... for animals I would pick the pig, for its celebrated orgasmic capabilities. But then, I figured that the only thing I have to worry about in this life is living to the ultimate satisfaction in everything I do, as I don't know what awaits me ahead, and if I spent too much time worrying, fighting and arguing about it, I'll lose on the best things.

Busy as I may claim to be enjoying the best of things, I do worry though; I'm still human, no matter how hard I fight it. Do I worry about religion? Yes. Why? Because it was ingrained in me from the day I learnt the difference between the beauty of fire from a far and the beauty of fire on my fingers. And just when I convince myself that I have safely crossed to the other side without the proverbial troll riding and digging deep into my back, it sinks it claws, from whatever end of my body it was hanging on to. But then I have that special innate ability to be stubborn, even unto myself. Don't' forget that other special gift of not being able to concentrate on anything for more than the time my brain will allow. It selective on what it really wants to concentrate on and there is nothing I can do about that, in this case, thankfully!

Making excuses is not my specialty. But I do like listening to them and wondering how best I would have put it, were it left to me. And by gawd, I would have an excuse for everything in the universe, and to me, everything interconnects. By some cosmic power of pulling elements towards the centre of the earth, all things hurtle towards each other, like the Bermuda Triangle, only at a slower pace. Religion, politics, relationships, business, war... all of it. It's all to satisfying so sort of deficient.

A quest by the human race to prove something to each other, to themselves. Unexplainable does not mean inexplicable. Just because something is unexplainable does not mean that paranormal forces must have been involved, only that we haven't found the explanation for it yet. I could start a whole school of thought and argument with true and untrue theories in accordance with that statement, but I'm not that inspired today. Take it as it is, mull over it in your sleep.

Living without knowing what you are here for, what your purpose in life is, where you are headed is frustrating. Which is why we have higher stress levels that any other living organism. That elevated stress level of animals, say a chimp will be to find it's tree cut down, or it's favorite spot occupied by a pride of lions. Why don't you try for a change, just not think about anything? Live today like you don't have another day like this. Actually, you don't. Today is never a continuation of yesterday, and neither will it ever be a prelude to tomorrow. Different entities, like you and your parents or siblings. You are related, but you are not the extension of any of your family, not even your twin. Think of the days septets, their mother being the week they fall in, their father the month. In the end you will have a father that has 4 wives, and each has 7 kids. Now take 11 more families like that and you have a clan called Year. The only relationship they have? Association by marriage, birth, nothing more.

This blog was not about religion, life, etc. It was about nothing really. It was my weird way of trying to prove something. Now as you were busy reading this, you failed to notice that the first words of every paragraph formed a sentence: Life Is What Happens When You Are Busy Making A Living.

Get my drift?

Till Kingdom Come

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 12:21:00 +0000

No, this is not a religious post. That will never happen here. It's the name of the song I have been listening to over and over for couple of days. I love Coldplay. Chris Martin gets me. Corny, right?

So this song is about this guy who will wait for this girl, till kingdom come. He is lost, he does not know himself, but as long as the girl will promise to come and set him free, he knows it will be alright.

Now that is some bullshit that we fall into over and over again.

But then again, isn't this the kind of love we crave for? Other people see love from above, hover above it, assess the surrounding, carefully eliminate dangers and possible heartbreaks, then slowly ease down, guided by the winds of common sense and the agility of levelheadedness. Gently they land in love, no dusting off required, no quickened heartbeats and near-heart attacks.

Me?

I am the one that falls headfirst and braindead into love. I see love, sometimes I see ideas of love, you know, those that could be love but who really knows...and I dive. I come down hurtling, bumping my head into clouds of slow-down-mercy, scrapping my knees onto the storms of recklessness. By the time I hit ground-love, I am a mess of pure ecstasy, dishevelled and glimmering with bittersweet pain that can only be described as suicidal rhapsody.

I feel. With every single pore of my skin. This could be termed as borderline obsession, but not in an 'I'll kill you then end myself' kind of way. I have tried to explain this but all I get are blank stares coupled with a very huge urge to reach for a phone and call help for me.

Let me try explain it.

It is a feeling that starts from a deep crevice of my heart's heart and spreads slowly into my main heart. It is a slow burning ember that emanates as a flicker of light. As a candle would from a distance. And as you approach it, it glows, becomes brighter, bigger... now imagine that light is a fire that does not burn. It is a warm and gentle blanket, but at the same time, a fire that doesn't consume you in as much as it envelopes you. For me love is a heart orgasm. You know that feeling you get when you climax? Now... imagine that for your heart. Every freaking minute you think, see, feel, touch that person.

I often walk away wounded, bruised and vowing to never fall. Telling myself how I will make myself a love parachute. Until the next time when I see it from above 50,000 feet.

And I dive.

A footballer and a tea leaf

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 10:42:00 +0000

Last night I had a dream.

In it was a man I do not think about outside a green tuff, leather, and very sweaty 22 men. He is tall, dark, and well, never thought of him as handsome. Do not get me wrong. He is not bad on eyes, and he does have a kind of “will grow on you eventually” look. He’s the kind of man that you meet and think, he looks like good people, until he gives you a certain look, a smile - the kind that starts at the corners of his full lips, doesn’t quite completely break and stops as fast as it began. Then you think about those lips. And think again.

So last night I found myself walking in between endless bushes of a luscious tea plantation. With this man on my side. The dream opened like a movie. Of course, how else! Establishment shot, two people, a couple, walking next to each other, surrounded by an endless sea of green. A stretch of the truth here in this dream- the spaces between the bushes allows for a single file. Oh well, it’s a dream. It was not a lovers stroll, more like two friends who have known each other a while, the kind that communicates without saying a word and silence is not lack of words but their abundance that commands it.

Those do exist, by the way.

Move closer, medium shot. She’s all of 5 feet. He’s towering at 6’2. His head cocks ever so slightly to catch what she is saying. She looks towards him, but does not look at him. I am now hovering over myself. And Yaya Toure. Even in my dream I do a double take. Come on! I did not even realize I knew how he looks like that well. We are talking. About a football match. And he is telling me how he’s frustrated and misunderstood. I ask Cakegate? I could not resist the urge. He shakes his head and smirks. It wasn’t about cake; it was about little things that mean something. From friends.

He plucks a tealeaf, places it on my palm. We stop and both look at the leaf. I do not ask, he knows the question, but does not answer it. Yet. He bends and blows it from my palm. As if hesitant, the leaf slides of my palm, hovers between us for the shortest second, then ebbs away. You cannot hold on to things forever Merc. Letting go doesn’t make you weak; it means you have the strength to build again.

I scoff.

I look around. No cameras. I am having a therapy session with a footballer on a very windy day in the middle of a tea plantation in Limuru. My brain has new definition of mindfuck. I am always game. I decide to engage.

That leaf is not building. It’s gone to rot. He smiles. The kind I talked about above. So I think about those lips. And think again. It’s gone to be useful in its rot. Because even at your broken, you are still you. Okay, so maybe he is making sense. Not good grammar, but sense all right. I do not have to be green to be useful. Or beautiful. Even in my rot, I am still me.

Back to him, I ask. Are you at your rot? He laughs. A genuine laughter. He knows I am not going to let him pry into me. I am going to jab back. And hard. It’s getting blusterier, and our voices seem to carry away from us. He pulls his jacket closer to his body. His arms do not go unnoticed as the thin fabric stretches across them. I am not a leaf when I play. Because talent is the whole plant, not part of. The trick is to know when it’s dry, and when you need to water it more. Otherwise it dies completely. And then, there are leaves. Part of the whole.

Too corny; but then again, never thought of life in terms of plants and their components. Your life is your talent, your essence. What you stand for. That is you, the plant. Other aspects of your life may change, read rotten leaves but that does not kill the plant. Only you do.

The first drop of rain hits my forehead. The second my eyelash, forcing me blink. I haven’t been. We are now face-to-face. Well, not really. It's more of face-to-chest. It’s raining. He whispers. Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a regular Sherlock. I whisper back. A man handed his own. He nods, biting his lower lip and chuckles. I join. He grabs my hand and we ran. He is jogging. I am running.

We are not in a tropical climate anymore. The rain has turned into slate. The ground is covered by a blinding white carpet that crunches on our feet as we run. It’s snowing. I stop suddenly, an action that pulls him back. I look up to the sky as a few chilly flakes fall on my face. I want to feel this. I say, almost out of breath. That is what you get for thinking you can run (trot in my case) with an athlete. He pushes strands of my braids from my face and wipes the snow off with a finger. Are you putting out a fire? It’s my turn to laugh. I haven’t heard myself laugh from my soul in a long time. He is watching me, intently. As if trying to read my answer from my thoughts before I can say it. My eyes betray me a lot. He knows he is not going to get a direct answer. We are in sync again. We actually do not need words. But we use them anyway.

I could be piling on the cold. He was expecting this and has a quick rejoinder. Your heart does not know cold. Very matter-of-factly said. I open my mouth to counter him. He does not let me. He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me ever so gently. As if trying to dislodge that thought I had poised for rebuttal and push it over the abyss of my brain. Kill it. Correction. He starts. Your heart knows cold. It has felt it. It just doesn't know how to process it. Cannot even emit it. You're all fire.

My heartbeat quickens. He has pried into my heart. It is uncomfortable. He's right. I only know fire. It's always passionately sweltering, intensely blistering, incredibly consuming, and absolutely sizzling hot inside me. I am fiery ball of fire inside despite the any cool exterior façade I might project. He’s seen me. And I want to hide. He knows this. He feels me shrink. He lets me. Slowly, he pulls me to him and holds me against him. I feel his fire. It’s explosive. His heartbeat is loud and foreign. Heartbeats are not a sharp sound. They are a hum when the heart is at peace, and a gentle comforting thud, like love falling gently on the hearts' surface when restless.

His is neither.

It’s piercing, and scary. I want to look up at him. I want to see this face with the strange heartbeat. He’s looking down at me, with a knowing smile. I am beginning to think, in all the ways I shouldn't. But the sound of his heartbeat is getting louder. He moves his hands from around me to my face. Cups it the way you would an egg.

If you're into that sort of thing.

And I smile, trying hard to ignore his now screeching heartbeat. Because I know what is coming. My eyes in my dream begin to close, the telltale sign of expectancy, as my eyes out of dream begin to open. My alarm is going insane. I fell asleep with my phone next to my pillow.

My mind needed to get my attention. And it used the one thing I have been paying attention to.

I really need to stop watching that much football. And need to start writing more.

Message home. Brain.

The Lake Underneath

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 18:25:00 +0000

Not once, not not twice. So many times I get asked why I am not posting as much. The other day, someone asked me if my muse was gone. Even suggested I go to a coffee shop to get inspiration. Now that is someone who reads me far too much. I do not lack something to say. Heaven knows there is even much more going on inside my mind. It's a whirlwind in there. As I child, someone told me that if you covered a whirlwind with a basin, then uncovered it, a snake would appear. Now I never tried that, mostly because even then, I wondered who was that idle to go covering whirlwinds with basins. But that's my mind. I am scared to cover it up. I do not want to find out what happens then.

I am laying on my bed in my hotel room. Hotel rooms do two things to me. Remind me that I am lonely or give me that serenity that comes from finally being alone, kicking off the jeans and the shoes, getting rid of the bra and just letting the air around me caress my body in ways that only the unseen can. I am looking out through the glass sliding doors, past the tiny porch, and out into the lake. Well, what used to be the lake. I am looking at a marsh of green, big lily-like leaves, too bulky looking to even sway in the gentle evening breeze. It was raining earlier. As I type this, the clouds are parting to let through the sun rays. So bright I have to lower my head to hide my eyes with my laptop.

Marsh.

I cannot see the water. But I think I can hear it. Far, beyond, somewhere deep in my mind. It could be a memory of what I once experienced, or a flashback of a sound I heard somewhere. But, its as real as if I was looking at it. It's a cry, not loud. Not weepy and needy. It's a sniffle, one that accepts helplessness, but does not accept powerlessness.

Started in June 2013. Never to be finished.

Sounds of Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:40:00 +0000

I have been trying to hear myself think for the past one hour. I cannot. Yet I cannot even make out the conversations around me. Coffee shops make me want to write. Because, somehow, I can immerse myself in my world of words and still be present to what is happening around me. And just then, I am in my own little nirvana.

Today, my world of words rejects me, the ability to be present escapes me. It is like the that… that thing… that ability… that essence…. that makes me lost yet very present has been taken away. Now all I am is aware. Aware of the girl next to me whose phone has been fixed firmly on her ear since she walked in, gave me a quick questioning look as to whether she can share my table. See, normally, I would have noted her as she walked into Java. I would have discussed her in my mind, as my fingers flew across my keyboard going on and on about the guy who shared with me his phone charger. If I had written about him I would have told you how he looked like he loves she who does not love him back. She who makes him wait in coffee shops only to claim that she cannot make it. I would have been thinking about how light the vinaigrette they gave me with my chicken strip salad was. I would have been in three places, at the same time. Now i am just in one. Not inside myself, not inside other people's minds. Just aware. Watching, but not really feeling.

As I write this, I am aware of the words I am choosing. I am typing deliberately. This is a foreign feeling. Words fly from that part of the brain they reside to my fingers. I watch them not the screen as you would if you were standing behind me. I am never in control.

Control.

See, I am actually not in control of anything right now. I don't even know how to explain this. To me.

To you.

*Started this post a last week. And couldn't finish. I am not going to finish it.

Blank Page

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:28:00 +0000

I’m a blank page
That’s waiting to be written on
I’m not pure, nor am I clean
But am blank

It’s not that I’ve always been so
It is a state I have chosen
I’m not new, nor am I unique
But I’m blank

I have been written on before
Writings that hurt to the last ink drop
I’m not white, nor am I rare
But am blank

I want a new author to possess me
One with fresh ink and lasting words
I’m not a masterpiece, nor am I artistic
But am blank

I need a new touch and a new story
One of happy endings and sunset rides
I’m not timeless, nor am I ageless
But am blank

I am patient and a patient of life’s art
I need new content scribed on me
I’m not inspiring, nor am I encouraging
But am blank

Wrote this in March 2006

The breath that still flows

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:26:00 +0000

A breath, yours

soft, hot, chilling

the ear, mine

curved - an art on skin

the meeting of both

explodes, a confetti of feelings

a beat becomes a throb

throbbing madness

of that breath that still flows

a begging of hearts

a pleading of souls

begging the emptiness of body

an urging of minds

that breath that still flows

into begging hearts

fills the pleading souls

walls crumble

on soft ground they meet the heart

received, converted into trust

by the breath that still flows

excitement abides

eyes meet and hold

gazes into abysses of longing

a tide covers the belonging

the connection of two hearts at sea

joined by that breath that still flows

into that skin, that art

is but the wind with memory

spun, ebbed, blown, twisted by time

made into dreams fused with reality

the tail of one, the head of the other

its that breath that still flows

Wrote this in Sept 2008

Let my tears flow

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:22:00 +0000

Let my tears flow

for a love that i've lost

and maybe they might with them

take away the feeling of loss

to pave way for a brighter day

Let my tears flow

for it's as certain as the day dawns

that i shan't ever find one like i had

for the gift of love come from deep within

and the rest maybe mere pretence

Let my tears flow

on and on and on, let them pass

the sorrows reside in my heart not in my eyes

if i cannot loose what aches me fervently

I can, maybe, like i just did, loose what i love

Let my tears flow

and wash my eyes from the fog of dismay

i may be able to able see clearly what i just lost

though not sure if i can regain or get an equivalent

at least, let me see what i had and let go

Let my tears flow

they are all i have left to loose

and i honestly don't want to keep them

if i can't keep a love so divine

why keep the tears then?

*Wrote this in March 2006

Empty

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:19:00 +0000

An empty shell

blown away by the winds

distanced from it's familiar shores

desolate, hopeless and lost

unsure of what the future holds...

A dry leaf

detached from the security of the tree

threatened by the harshness of the world

withered, cracky, almost rotten...

A frozen drop

condensed alone in eternal cold

away from the rays so bright and warm

hard, chilly, and frigid

thawing seems foreign a word

A dying flame

left without a hope rekindling

winds blowing, threatening to put it out

dying, dwindling, almost gone

forever perishing in passing smoke

...that is my heart..

*Wrote this in Feb 2006

My heart's Sun - #2 Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:17:00 +0000

I don't even know what i want to say. Which is ironic because there is so much to say. I haven't been able to write. Every time I push open my laptop, open a new page, I cry and shut it down. The last time I blogged was for you. The last post was about you. And that time, you called me immediately after. We talked. We laughed This time, you wont be calling me. We won't talk. We won't laugh.

It's hard to even see this page. Tears cloud the eyes that you called mischievous. I have to do it. Somehow. I let out on this pages. I open my heart on this keyboard. Nothing has ever been this hard to write.

Where do I start? The night I learnt you were gone? What was happening before I learnt you were no more? The long sleepless night we had as we debated whether to come to hospital and check if it was true, or to just sit and wait? How everything mattered not that night. How we forgot everything that had just happened a few hours before and held each other and cried and cried?

Maybe I should start with getting to hospital and trying to sort out paperwork. And how hard it was to keep hearing 'the body'. I wanted to scream. He is not 'the body'. His name is Bakari. I wanted to scream a lot that day. And also on the day we had that gig for you at Vanillas. I hated everyone there at that moment. Everyone that was drinking and having fun and dancing. I spent most of the night away from the bar. Sitting in the parking lot, talking about you with the boys you grew up with. Alternating that with tears. I couldn't stand to be with the people that looked so happy. I couldn't stand look at your picture on the banner outside the pub. The picture of you healthy and smiling. As if you were there, but not there.

I know it was crazy and irrational of me to feel that way. What did I want? People to stand around crying and sad? People to talk about nothing but you? But you get it, right? It felt like life had gone on. Moved on, like it did not care that you were not here anymore.

The painful truth is, life did go on. Life always goes on. But the pain, the pain lives on. Sure, once in a while I forget. Then something will happen, and I will think of you. It's like my tears sit at the edge of my eyes, waiting for that moment.

I have hit depression.

I have never been depressed in my life. Sad part, no one in my life right now understands this. I do not understand this myself. I have been scared of death. I wrote about it a few months ago. How I don't think i will live past my 30th birthday. That's still real. Even more real now. When I met you, it was a breath of life. This happy, courageous, contagiously funny man who made me think that I was stupid for not enjoying my life more. I lived through you. I found a new meaning to life. I did not have to think about the eventuality. I lived for the moment. Like you did. You helped me open my heart up to the possibility of being in love again. Hell, you encouraged me. You told me it was possible. To you, everything was possible. We met at a time in my life where i had given up. Given up on happiness.

It feels like you took away what you gave me when you left. I know the rational thing would be to hold on to that what you gave me, keep your memory alive in my heart by being happy. By taking the bright side of life. But since you left, I can't.

I keep wondering why I met you, for you to show me what could be, only for you to leave. Someone asked me if I was in love with you after the first blog. I laughed. Because they couldn't understand how you got to me the way you did. I loved another. You liked that it was him I was in love with. You said because it meant you'd have me in your life longer. And I told you it didn't matter what happened, you and I would always be friends. You made fun of us. You told me you thought we were meant to be. I loved you. I still love you. I always will. As the best friend anyone could ever ask for. As a brother. As a man who gave selflessly.

I dont know what happens to me now. Because the dark days are back. I can't find joy in anything. I can't be happy. I keep remembering death is cruel and it's stronger than anything I can ever build. Because it takes away in an instant.

It killed me when they lowered you. When they put the cement, I wanted to rush over and pull it apart. Gnaw at it till my fingers bled. How was I going to leave you down there, all by yourself? Wasn't it cold? Lonely? I am very claustrophobic. I was losing breath. It hit me just then. That was it. You were gone. And I was never hearing your voice again.

Then I touched the ring you gave me. I hated rings I told you. You said you didnt care, I had to wear it. And you said if he never gives me a ring, he was stupid for that and at least you did. And if he ever does, then you beat him to it because he took too long. This ring, it hurts as much as it makes me smile. Because the day you gave it, we had the most amazing time. We made crazy bets. That I lost. But you made me promise to take care of him. And you vowed to remind me every chance you got. We had too much nyama choma. I went to Amsterdam, as you called it. We had ice-cream with you and the boys. And that was the last day we spent together out of hospital.

It's like you knew. Now I know you knew. Especially from what we talked about on the last day I visited you. When you asked me to come at lunch hour to be feeding you lunch. Because you wanted to talk to me and evenings were hard time to talk. I never did. Because a few days later, you were taken to ICU. The next time I saw you, they had put you in cabinet in a morgue. And it did not look like you. I know you were there. Because at that moment, looking at you, I felt a calmness. That told me everything was fine. You were not in pain anymore. But that calmness is now gone. Why? Have you left? Are you not here anymore?

I miss you.

My Heart's Sun - #1

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:36:00 +0000

We do not have childhood memories.

Us.

Me and you.

We did not run bare-feet across the corn fields, chasing butterflies. And even if we did, you would deny it, at least the butterflies part. Because you would hate to think that that admission might cost you the smile of that cute girl sitting across from us.

You did not pull my hair and put bugs down my dress as a way of showing me that you liked me. You did not pinch me and ran away, leaving me crying, but inwardly happy that its me you picked to pinch. Twisted, I know. You understand, though, don't you?

We did not sit next to each other in class and steal glances at each other books hoping to catch the answer to the question on the blackboard. We did not even sit in the same class, passing notes, making fun of the teacher, making fun of other students.

We did not walk home together, playing 'It'. Nor did we even race home, the winner gloating for hours.

Our parents did not have a hard time making us do things separately. Nor did they have to make us finish our chores first before we rushed off together to lawd knows where.

We did not fight because when we started dating, we stopped spending time together. I did not hate your new girl because she was more special than me. You did not want to slap me because I was dating an asshole you wished I would just dump.

We have no memories from before.

Yet.

When I met you, something shifted. What we did not have, we somehow did. In a crazy alternate universe. Because everything felt like we'd been there before. Nothing felt foreign.

You joked with me like you'd known me since I was a cat's height. Two minutes after we met, you teased me without caring if I would take offense. I did not not. And you somehow knew I wouldn't.

We knew. We felt it. This was bound to happen. We were destined to meet. To be friends. Forever

You were lying on a hospital bed. That first day. I made fun of you. You laughed. Hard. You looked beat, yet your spirit... It was the spirit of a guy I did not grow up with, but I would definitely be having around for a long time.

We talk. Endlessly. We never run out of things to say. It's been a month. Yet, forever does not even compare.

It kills me, that sometimes I call you and despite the pain, you will pick, just to say thanks for calling, I miss you, I am too much in pain to talk. I hang up and try not to cry. Because you would mock me for crying. And I would feel bad.

And I cry. Just a little. Because my one wish, is to take that pain away. And kick it's stupid behind to the Great Wall of China. And hang it there. Naked. For all to see. Because you know you can see that wall from the moon and that means that the whole universe can laugh at it.

Then I get the text. One word.

'Baby'.

And I smile. Because I know that despite what you are feeling, the pain you are in, you want to talk. And I can't wait to tell you useless things. And complain about the man in my life. Well, the one that used to be in my life.

You patiently listen.

Before I remember, I am going on and on about a silly non-relationship when I should be going on and on about your chemo. And you find ways to change the topic again. To the fact that I 'friendzoned' you. Then I laugh and tell you for the millionth time, you cannot break up with a friend. It's the best zone. And you laugh. And I hear the pain in your laughter.

I am still planning to sneak into your hospital room and hide in the toilet. You know, as we planned. Then play monopoly or some silly game on the iPad till we bore each other to death. Though, I have a feeling you would rat me out just to watch me get in trouble.

I miss you, bad.

You see those memories we did not have up there? I plan on having them. No you cannot pull my hair, but you can help me undo braids. Yeah, that's what friends do! You cannot put bugs down my dress, but you can refuse to kill a bug just to watch me pout. And you know how I am the queen of pout.

I plan on bringing my kids over to yours to play with yours. That is me telling you to get married quickly. Which remind me, you must be the only one who gets that many women visitors. No way you have convinced the nurses they are all family.

I hate it that I can't see you. Because you.... you are my heart's sun. And it's kinda hard for me to see that sun now that you have it hidden in some room in some hospital that won't even let us in.

Time for me to call you, Bakari.

The mantises in my life.

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:11:00 +0000

I have been here before. Writing about rain. And always, my rain goes with tears. Not today. Today it rains outside, it pours like a punishment to earth. The soil cringe and dread the next rain drop. It prays that the next one will not hurt as bad, will be a tad bit gentle. Yet, it hurts more. And as it pours, helplessly the soil is taken away, to lands unknown.

That has been my life for a while. I have not been in control of what my life has turned out to be. The raindrops have unhinged me, carried me away. Not anymore.

Today, from a coffee shop, I watch the rain. And do not identify that feeling. Instead, I see the beauty, the clearness of colours that seems to appear after the rains. The earth has been washed a new. And so has my heart. I am content.

I have made mistakes. Those that have made me question my sanity. Because I walked into them eyes wide open. Even peptalked myself as I headed deep into them. Then I cried. Then I hurt. Depressed. Stressed.

There is this praying mantis that loved hanging out at the door to my laundry room. This mantis is so huge, I was convinced it was either a drone or a Martian. Or a Martian drone. I can never bring myself to kill bugs, no matter how much I hate them. My solution has always been to pick them up with a stick or toilet paper. Throw it into the toilet, then flush. This is where you're allowed to form an opinion into the kind of mother I will make. Because I shall give birth to bugs. Moving on...

For some reason, I think that's less painful. Like, the flushing happens to fast, they have no time to contemplate whats about to happen to them. I guess that's how I'd like to die myself. I only extend that to them bugs.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, this mantis. I did not want to kill it. I took pictures of it. I posted them on Twitter. I complained about it. But every morning, I went there to look for it. There was another bug hanging around. No idea what breed that is. But it was always close to the mantis. For a week. These two bugs camped at my door. There were remnants of what looked like food. Or it could have been an accumulation of dirt. But it looked like very tiny dead leaves and ants heads etc., I chose to assume it was the food these two were eating.

One day I go downstairs to the laundry room to check on them. This is becoming an obsession. An unhealthy one. The mantis is gone. The other bug is still there. I search. Imagine walking up to me at that time and asking me what it is I am looking for. Nowhere to be seen. There are no green spiky and spindly legs remains to give an indication that Bug#2 ate the mantis. Or maybe it did, its a just a very clean eater.

I am kind of disappointed. I kinda liked the mantis.

Following day, I go to check. Bug#2 still there. Day three, bug is lying on the ground. I am not a pathologist, but I can tell when a bug is dead. And this one is pretty much so.

I choose to go with a romantic story as to why it died. It could not live without the mantis. The mantis upped and left. And instead of Bug #2 living on, going out and enjoying bug life, discovering more doors in my house, it chose to stay there. And die.

There I was. That was me. I am afraid of being alone. I either always have people around me, or the TV, or something. Anything to keep from being with myself. I am a relationship addict. I love being in love. I love having someone.

Then it hit me.

I am that bug. I will die, if I do not learn to live and be okay without the mantises in my life.

But the bleeding, it does stop.

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 11:35:00 +0000

It's early. Too early. But isn't it always?

I park my car and get out. It's the middle of nowhere. The sun has just risen over the hills, the thorny bushes just beginning to stir. I have always wondered if thorns go to sleep. Like, do the sharp edges soften with the cool air and the rising of the moon and the twinkling of the stars. Do the tips get caressed by the soft evening breeze, gently coaxed into acceptance? That sometimes, just sometimes, it doesn't hurt to be soft.

I want to touch that thorn before the sun hits it. Before it has had a chance to remember that it is a thorn. So I walk towards a bush. I spread my fingers and let a couple of them graze the palm of my hands. They prick. I lift my hand to a neat cut that is now bleeding. I fell the pain. I bite my lip. I asked for it. I wanted to test it, I wanted to know.

Now I am bleeding. Now I am in pain. Now I know.

As I watch the blood trickle, I gasp. At the similarity between this moment and my life. Especially the past few weeks. I do not wipe the blood. I do not wince. I welcome it. I hate pain. I avoid pain. This time, I sit on the a stone and watch as my blood decides its not worth wasting itself and the bleeding stops. It does stop, eventually. The bleeding.

I wanted to experience . I was told, like the thorn, it will always have its sharp edges. But the thorn, oh the painful pleasure I longed for. I touched, I experienced. It pricked. I touched some more. I bled. I watched the bleeding, and hoped that the thorn would soften one day. That the touch of my hand, the gentle kiss of my lips, would convince it to, if only for a moment, not hurt.

But i loved the hurt that came with the pleasure. I loved that it hurt as much as it made me happy. Until my hand had no places left to poke. Until my hand was the picture of Dorian Grey. A shameful representation that was my careless abandon and shameless indulgence. My hand cried out to my heart. To stop. The heart experienced more fulfillment as my hand hurt. My mind? It was torn. Both such beautiful experiences, both so ineffably sublime. One more destructive.

The thorn had to go. It did not become soft with the evening breeze. Or I had to walk away. Walk away I did.

With my bleeding hand. The thorn, still as majestic. Still luring. Who gets lured by a thorn? Me, that's who. I see the whole in ashes. I see the the beauty in destroyed. I see the flower that was the thorn. And that's the softness i try to coax out.

And my hand, it still bleeds. But the bleeding, it does stop.

Tears in the Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:12:00 +0000

It's 3:47 am. It's dead silent. Dead. I never think of death as silent. It's always violent. Excruciating. Painful. Rarely is death calm. Peaceful. Like silence. The silence tonight.

The silence resides only but outside. A concept my heart cannot grasp. Oh, I do have a good understanding of silence. I lived there. I took it all in. Locked it up. In silence. The epitome of calm, blissful, happy. That is me. I smile. I am told my smile does things. Lights up rooms, infectious. Like a virus. Been told its naughty too. Like I am hiding something. How true. I do hide. Behind my eyes. My eyes and my smile.

When I cannot sleep, which is far too often, I play rain sounds. My friends make fun of me. But it works. Today I chose Rain in Forest. I close my eyes.

I am there

I am in that forest. Its' raining. I am lost. Every tree looks like the last one. The crunch of the leaves under my feet is too loud. Like an annoying ringing in my ears that just won't quit. Every dead leaf I step on is every dream, every plan I had that is now dead. I walk on the carcasses of what I saw my life to be when I played in this same forest.

Then, sunshine permeated through the trees, to shine just the right amount of light, to give just the right amount of warmth. And when it rained, I lifted up my face, and caught with my curious tongue, the raindrops infused with sunshine. I cried. And when my tears mixed with the rain, I saw rainbows. I chased them. I never caught any, but the chase was the fuel that my life ran on.

Now the rain mixes with my tears and it stings. I reach out. I need to reach out. I touch, fleetingly. I grab a tree. I hug it. The wind wants to tear my feet off the ground. I need an anchor. If only for a minute. The tree snaps. Next to me it collapses. Joins my dreams, as they get swept away by the waters that have now formed beneath my feet. I want to be my dead dreams. I want to be the shell that was my hopes. I want to be swept away. I want the rainwaters to carry me away, far away towards the oceans.

I want to drown.

I want to never want to come up for air. I want to be intoxicated by the ocean. I want to gasp, fight for air, so that when I get it, I will treasure it. Savor every inhale. Then dip my head back again...into the ocean of forgetfulness.

I want meaning.

I want every tree to stand for something. I want that majestic tree that looks like it has been in this forest forever to stand for the love I have had. Not the one I have lost. That is that other tree with the torn bark, the decaying leaves, the sagging branches. I want that majestic tree to bend its branches ever so slightly towards me. Such that a leaf will brush my cheek, and I will feel its life, its strength go through me, like a bolt of lightening. I want to sit at its foot, caress the roots that tell me of hardships, of survival, of endurance. I want to feel the pain with it, to taste the richness of the soil that feeds it, with my fingertips. I want to hear of the pain of growth, the pain of letting go of it leaves, every season, and the joy of growing others, and how it reconciles the pain of letting go and the ecstasy of getting new. And the freedom that comes with that.

I want freedom

Like that tree that rises above all others. The tree that knows that with being above all others also means the heat is stronger, the rain is harder. And yet, defiantly, it still rises. I want to speak with it of confidence. Of faith. Of believing in things not seen. The assurance of things hoped for. The conviction beyond a doubt of things dreamt of. And their ability to come true.

I want to believe

I look up. The rain beats harder. The forest is still dark. Eyes stare at me in the darkness. And trees, well, they are just trees. Moving as the wind dictates, the weight of the rain threatening to break them.

I want to cry

Not that the tears will get me out of here. But with them, they can take away the pain. The pain will mix with the rain, fall down on my dead dreams and unfulfilled plans. And together, they can flow to the place I can only hope my new dreams will one day take me.

Shred and Discard: Tales of A Coffee Shop

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 06:41:00 +0000

I woke up grumpy. Now this is not news to anyone who has to deal with me soon after my feet have touched the ground. My grouchiness is such that it annoys me. I will be angry that I am angry. Yeah, go figure. I have found out that two Redbulls will wrestle to the ground that feeling.

Someone told me I ought to get my thyroid checked. And given that the other health issues that plague me do have something to do with that gland, maybe I should. Chances are I will never. People tell me too many things.

I am sitting at Java. With my MacBookPro and a cup of tea masala. How bourgeoisie. How very 'I am a creative who gets inspiration from sitting in coffee houses and looking too busy to notice that you're watching me pretend to type something important'. I am as pretentious as all of these people in here. With their suits and newspapers and blackberries and tabs and Caran Dache fountain pen imitations that they never use because no one writes shit anymore.

Sip

This one woman, at 12 o'clock has been sitting here for a while. She found me here, still typing. From the corner of my eye, I saw her trying to hide the fact that she is asking the waitress what I was having. Why do we do that? Why can't we just point at the food on the next table and shamelessly say we want the same because it looks so darn good? Good manners, we think. But we are full of it. We apply manners depending on where we are. Who we think might be watching. He will shove you at a bus stop with his suit and briefcase that probably just carries photocopies of his waterbill. He will politely ask you to pass the salt at this coffee shop. Because out there, you are not important. You are having breakfast with an iPod touch in your ears and a MacbookPro infront of you? He will lower his voice and smile. Pretentious little *censored*

Sip

Back to Woman.

She decides against the full java breakfast I am having and settles for toast and eggs. She oscillates between her fork and her phone. Signs of a person uncomfortable being alone in a restaurant. Another thing that irks me. Why do we get or give, funny looks to people who just want to have a meal by themselves? We think they have no friends. We feel bad for them. We are the ones who deserve that pity. The ability to be by yourself is a gift. You are not trying to hide behind fake laughter at a dry joke your colleague just made. You are not trying to disguise your loneliness.

Sip.

She is done with her toast and eggs. She did not order a drink. I wonder if that little detail will bother me all day today. Why did the woman at the cafe not order a drink? Because bigger questions I would rather avoid. I will dwell on the mundane.

Look around the cafe. This guy behind me. Why is he reading the obituary page? I will get back to him. One day.

Sip

Back to woman

Woman just left. Even before I finished analyzing her. Oh well.

Sip.

Cup empty. Now they will clear away the cup and leave my table devoid of any proof that I purchased anything. People who walk in will look at me and think I came here for the WiFi and cannot afford a cup of anything. The vapid things we worry about.They don't even have WiFi.

This day. I am stuck in traffic. I look out. Watch people. As I always do. One day, I will get arrested for it. This street guy. Pacing up and down on that middle section that divides a one way highway. I am sure there is a word for that. I am sure I am not interested in knowing what it is. He walks about 100 meters. Comes back. Walks again. He is crazy. I think. Because according to my cultured mind, only a crazy person would do that. Judgmental little thing I am. So are you. Comes back. Picks a piece of paper. Looks like a page out of magazine. It could be Forbes top 100. Who cares.

Glance around coffee shop. It's 9:25am. It's emptying out. Where do people go? I should follow one person one day.

He looks at the piece of paper. Intently. Gives the illusion of reading. He drops it. He walks. Comes back to it. Walks again. Traffic moves an inch. I don't. What difference does moving an inch make? I will move when there is space enough to actually move the equivalent of my car's length. Someone will hoot at me. I will ignore with indignation. I am that petty.

The sun is out. But its the sort of sun that is just bright without the warmth. I could write a whole post about that. Warmth-less sun. Like most relationships. How lucky I found parking right in front of the cafe! Every now and then, I get to look at my car.

He comes back. He stops. Glances at the paper again. With great annoyance, he picks it. Shreds the piece of paper. With such vigor and purpose, it shocks me. I want to roll down my window and grab the pieces. Save them from scattering on the road and disappearing forever. Like catching tears of a loved one. I swear I can see his pain with every tear he makes. Tear the paper. Catch them like tears. Tear. Tears.

These two Caucasian women have just walked in. Each with an African baby. Go ahead Dark Angel. judge them. Next time. Too busy. They put the babies down. One starts screaming and running around the cafe.

He walks away. Resolutely. And doesn't come back. The pieces are now scattered all over the road. Discarded. Punished.

I should probably order water. I want a Redbull. I need to go buy shoes for a dinner coming soon.

What was in that piece of paper? What was the pull to it? Maybe, I think, it represented to him what was wrong with his world. It was bothering him. By how it was just sitting there. With no care in the world. While his fell apart. Something needed to take the blame. That paper. That was the culprit.

But why didn't he just walk away from it the first time? Because that's what we do? We keep going back to the source our problems?

Or maybe, because, he is crazy.

I have to pay the bill.

Of tadpoles, sharks, fish, honeypots, gutter and androids

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:42:00 +0000

Head and tail. That's what makes them. The epitome of non-complexity. The exact opposite of what our lives are. What we have made them to be. Tadpoles. The beginning, is what they symbolize.
Our beginnings. Simple, unmoved by the shark that is life. Head and tail. The beginning and the end. That simple. Yet it never is. The head calls for eyes. Eyes want to explore. See. Visions need to be processed.

Interpreted.

Thus starts the decline of the simple. Into questions, rationalizations, explanations. Wanting to know more. Wanting that more explained, examined. Always more. The need to touch, to feel. Because the eyes cannot convince the head. It need the fingers to touch.

The tail always being chased. By ourselves. By others that are within ourselves. The demons are that us, that we have made into sharks we always swim away from. Chasing our tails, scared of ourselves.

Like fish out of water.

We gasp for air, for a bubble that will burst to release that precious oxygen. The head will turn, the tail will flip. A communication. You are running away from me, screams the tail. I am saving you, shouts the head. I am you, interjects the shark.

The sweetness. That comes from knowing that you can always outlast, outswim the shark. Like a pot full of honey. Your fingers dipping. Feeling the warmth, the slickness, the smoothness. That warmth. Envelopes you, consumes you. The texture. Like a tadpole. Swimming round and round. Looking for that spot. That with a bit a roughness, yet smooth. Like velvet. Dark velvet. With secrets. That place that is home, but so elusive. That place that is your heaven, and your hell. Because the existence of one creates the other. The darkness and the light. The head warns the finger. But the finger knows. It's been to the gutter. The filth of it is the reason it appreciates the honey.

Darkness has not given way to the light. Darkness has mixed with light and their union is the sweetness. The tail flips. Shark is chasing. Again. Head and tail. Head no longer warning. The fingers have convinced. The warmth is real. The shark is chasing. Tail stops. Time slows. Everything in motion. All at once. The realization that the shark might be real. The shock, the the pleasure, the awakening.

Almost robotic.

Dance of the Fly and the Twig

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 01:00:00 +0000

The Fly:

She skirted around, her light feathers gently teased by the breeze. It loved to tease her, that breeze. Blowing with just the right amount of strength. Not too strong, but not too feeble. Enough to caress her. She focused on the twig. Brown. Signified defiance. Of elements. Seasons had come and gone, the sun had shone, burnt it, and given up. It had retired dejectedly. Each morning it rose, determined to burn off the twig. Each morning the twig bowed, took the challenge. Each evening, the dance came to an end. The twig smirked. The sun darkened.

The Twig:

Many rested upon his head. Many moved on, many hang around, hoping to get more of him. He was not looking to be owned. He loved the games the sun played with him. Everyday, he shook dew off his head and smiled. Another day for a game of death. Then he spotted her. He had spotted many of her kind. The kind that loved to hop without purpose. The kind that flirted. The wind was playing havoc with her delicate wings. Ever so slightly, her body shivered. Yet she fluttered on. At a distance. He sought her face. He loved faces. Eyes especially. Hers, he couldn't read. See, that is how his kind communicated. Eyes.

The Fly:

She had been watching him. She was intrigued. He consumed her. This defiant twig. He was looking at her. He was bent towards her. She wanted to assume that was the wind. The wind here was bewitched. It made her do things sometimes. Like now. She felt a tremor. Started as a tiny shiver at her antennae, and grew gradually stronger as it moved to her chest and down to her thorax. Cursed wind! He was wise. You can tell. By the harsh lines on his face. The remnants of leaves that hang loosely by his side. The pride, the glory, the pain, the victory, the loving, the losing. All in lines like blood veins on a muscular hand. She edged closer. Intoxicating.

The Twig:

He wasn't sure he wanted her close. She looked like the type of fly that attracted trouble. The one that made birds swoop and grab. The kind that made men approach with weapons. Beautiful trouble. She was not like the rest. She was…what was that word? Captivating. Yes, that was it. He forgot the sun. Forgot that it was near midday, when the sun called for reinforcement. He was exposed. He felt the heat was coming. And for a moment, he basked in that heat. Something felt different. The heat was not from the sun. He looked up. She was right on top of him. Her heat was stronger than that of the sun. More potent.

The Fly:

She had lost the will to fight it. He beckoned. His very being summoned her. That need to connect. She was hovering. He was yearning. She wanted. He craved. She longed. He desired. Her wings became weightless. In her mind, the world collapsed into a heap on the ground next to her. How was that possible? If the world had just collapsed, what ground did it land on? Nothing made sense. Only the pull towards him existed.

The Dance of the Fly and the Twig:

She landed. He buckled. Not at her weight. At the feeling. She was home. He was complete. She belonged there. And as the sun got hotter, and he begun to wither, his life seeped out of him into her.

They were one.

Why "Even Angels Fall"

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:35:00 +0000

This is not just a title I pulled out of my black behind. It's was not at the back of a Christmas catalogue or a Watchtower magazine. I'm a dark person. With darkness so dark the light is scared washing it away. The thoughts that run through my mind give me shivers, literally. I look at myself in the mirror, and sometimes I want to remove that person from me. But the realisation that that is truly me is what makes it even more scary. That dark person has created the angel, so that to be able to live with herself. A darkness that is you and yet it scares you is blood-chilling. When you want to run away from yourself and there is no where to run. Because as cold as it inside, it's the place you spend most of you life in - inside yourself.

Do I love? I don't know that yet. I once told an ex that sometimes I look at him and I feel nothing. That scared him. Let me explain 'nothing'. It is when you look at a stone on the sidewalk. You don't hate it, you do not fear it, you do not love it. There is no emotion. The only thing more dangerous than hate is the absence of emotion. When you love something, you want to do good things to/ with that thing...or person. When you hate it, you want to get rid, hurt, dispose of...in other words, in both of these emotions, there is the being prompted to action. Acting on something means you care about that thing to want it either in and out of your life. Not caring means it is irrelevant to you what happens to that person / object. I do not choose this state. It comes in tidal waves. When someone will say something to me and my mind goes blank as to who they are in my life, why I have them sitting next to me, talking to me. It's like coming to the realisation that you have a dead branch in your hand. The obvious reaction would not be to debate the advantages of keeping it, but to discard it.

I have this desire to save. People, mostly. I even date to save. How twisted. I hate failure. And sometimes, when a relationship end, the ex will always confuse my angst with a feeling of rejection. I do fear rejection yes, but mostly, its the feeling of failure that haunts me. Failure to keep the relationship, failure to keep the person in my life.

Back to saving.

I told someone I do not see my life past 30. That is true. I have envisioned my life since I was a kid, right until 30 years old. Beyond that darkness. I am selfless to a fault. I give too much. But I discard too. Completely close some people out.

I was a happy child. Too happy. With time, this happiness has developed into shelves that I can only access at some points in my life. I will access those shelves and stay there a while. Sometimes, my mind moves those shelves. And there is a vacuum where they used to be. That is when I grab on to the darkness. Because my mind needs to larch on to something. I do not despise those moments, despite how much they scare me. I draw from them, like a thirsty man drinking dirty water at a creek. Knowing the full implications of his action, but the need to quest his thirst being greater than his worry for disease. Quench the thirst, even if it kills you.

And that is how this angel fell.

A walk with my thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Even Angels Fall) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:30:00 +0000

Thought #1 - The cold bites.

It's too early to be awake. It's insane that the cold thinks its okay to bite this hard. The cafe is full. The warmth of the bodies mixed with the chatter envelopes our table. It's a gentle hum, one that could put you to sleep.

It's me and a girl I just met. A girl whose earrings I noticed before I noticed the colour of her hair. She has this questioning look. A learning look. It's the 'observe and learn' one. I like her. We will get along just fine. Meet Kari.

He walks in. His hair; it's the first thing you notice. I know that hair. I have worn it a couple of times. It's a statement. Judge me from it, if you are that shallow. He is in a hoodie, grey. Like the weather outside. He has that face. The kind that you want to look at twice. He hides a lot. Shows a lot too. You want to sit him down and give him a paper. Tell him to write the first thing that comes to his mind. But he doesn't do words. He speaks in pictures. He is Karue.

I know her. From a long time ago. She is defiantly pretty. Her smile is infectious. There is always one playing at the corner of her lips. Daring you to extract it. Once in a while, she drifts of. She is a writer, you see. They do such things. Ignore you, disappear into that beautiful hell that is their minds. You cannot get angry at her though. She springs right back. Before you notice she was gone. I get up and hug her. We have not seen each other in a while. Hello Serah.

She reminds me of a cat. Lean and lithe. She is fiery this one. Feisty even. We know each other too. Her features are hard to ignore. The kind you want to capture in a photograph. The kind you know there will always be something hidden underneath. I suspect she is the never unending onion. Nini is her name.

He is restless. You would be, if you had six people to take care of. He is cheerful. Has this voice you do not forget soon. He would be a charmer too. If he tried. I wonder if he does. He is trying to relax. But he will not, until his crew is comfortable. Have you met Kevin? (Fender as he is often called)

He is tall, dark and handsome. He has those eyes. The ones that look like they are brewing a storm. He is ramrod straight. Does not slouch to hide his height. He is a man comfortable in who he is. He has a fleeting handshake though. Maybe its the cold. He has worked hard to warm those hands, I think. He likes to take charge, you can tell. John, he says, looking straight at me.

He is sitting helping us load the bags into the car. He looks like someone's beloved uncle. The one that entertains at family gatherings. The one likely to get into Santa's costume. He has stories to tell. Of journeys, adventures. Mbogori is our driver.

Thought #2 - We can meat here

It is easy to walk past Kamaki's Palace. Because it doesn't have a moat and a draw bridge. They do meat. And meat we eat. It's our first pit stop. It's on the Eastern Bypass near Ruiru. It's supple, succulent. The meat, that is. I miss out on lots of it. I am always on my phone. Bad habit. I learn how not to get my fingers burnt by hot ugali. Always check out the toilets. There are behind the establishment. No toilet rolls, but passably clean. The sitting area is spacious. Service is quick. You will have to wrestle a fly or two as your fingers move the meat from the plate to your mouth. But if you win that fight, it is worth it.

Thought #3 - You bar-come your beer.

He was a writer. And an avid fisherman. I would have loved to know why a tavern tucked away in Embu bears his name. Izaak Walton is who I am talking about. Toilet stop for the girls. Top up fuel. We do not get into the main Inn. We have no time. Plus, we cannot afford it. This on their website confuses me "Although the Inn was built in 1930s, it did not accept its first paying customer until 1924." Go figure. This trip is not for spoilt travellers. Explorers. We settle for the Tavern at Kenol; Izaak Walton. This pub has a multiple personality disorder. It feels like it was grabbed from an old English village and dumped there. You half except them to offer you blood pudding. It's interior is full of patrons photos, taken with their favourite drinks. Mostly beer. Interesting how the beer on the table on those pictures look like their owners. How they belong to the drinker.

Thought #4 - Do not even reply.

We are a lively bunch. We laugh a lot. I introduce a website to the group. That has us laughing uncontrollably. The road is perfect. You know how good a road is by how well you can read a sentence on an iPad. We are going to cook for ourselves.We will be staying in a self-catering guest house. Nakumatt Meru is the obvious stop. Nakumatt's are like churches. Once you've seen one, you've seen all. I volunteer to cook. Dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. We shop. The boys are awesome at this. They will make some women happy someday. Some already are. It is fun watching 7 people shop, without a shopping list. We pull it off. The chemistry between us is awesome. This will be a fun trip. We thought we were close. A few more hours, the driver says. We get worried. Maybe we should have eaten that meat faster. Maybe.

Thought #5 - Oh My Self!

It's night when we drive through the gates of Meru National Park, our destination. Takes a while to figure out our accommodation. Even the happy do get tired, and that we are. The boys sort out the mix-up as the girls sit in the car and compares notes on how we are better at planning than our boyfriends. Accommodation sorted, Kina Guest House it is. Chopping starts. Cooking washes all exhaustion from my body. There is a relaxing feeling that sweeps over me when I turn bland into edible. Chicken in Oyster Sauce, Rice and steamed veggies. Dinner is served. Like a family reunion, we sit at the dining table and talk. Oh, talk we do! And laugh. Fueled by herbs. Lots of herbs. I regret not going out of the house that night. I missed the night noises. A hyena in the distance. An owl trying not to seek attention. Crickets mocking it for being too naive. The house has 3 en-suite bedrooms, each with a bed enough to fit four if you decided on a slumber party. Two small bedrooms with single beds share the bathroom with the 3 giant rooms. There is a self-contained room outside the main house. And a fully furnished kitchen. As the night wear on, our eyes grow weary. The table was growing quiet. I was watching a time-lapse. Where in a movie, the people start to disappear. I was the last girl standing though. And that day, I walked with with my thoughts.

Thought #6 - Kenya believe it?

A pearl hidden from prying eyes is the only way to describe Meru National Park. I will skip the parts where we had scrumptious breakfast and awesome Spaghetti Bolognese (If I do say so myself) for lunch. There is something about cooking your own food in the wild. Fast forward to late afternoon. A lot of antelopes and antelope family animals , many many birds later, we ended up at Hippo Pool. We wanted lion. We saw elephants. We yearned for a cheetah, we saw buffaloes. We wished for a rhino. Zebras crossed. Shy, these animals of this park. That, or our timing. We saw their noses. Lifted them up at us and blew streams of water and air. Mocking us. In good stride, we took it, and kept driving. Remember John? The tall, dark... you definitely do. He was on kitchen duty. Boy, does he take his duties seriously. Chicken drumsticks, rice and whatever he did to those veggies! We were tired. A game drive will do that to you. Less laughter, but still good cheer. Power is alternated between Solar and Generator. Solar for when we want to charge phones and light the room. Generator for water kettles and hot showers. We went to bed early.

Thought #7 - If a Zebra falls in the forest...

Morning game drive because we wanted to see more. We saw paw prints. Follow them we did. Find nothing we did. Then this Zebra. She ( I choose to make it female) sat in the middle of the road. We stopped a distance away because we did not want to scare it. We thought her cool and daring, sitting there all by her lonely self. Until we inched closer and she made to stand up. Then we saw it. He back left leg was gone. Well, it was still there, but hang lifeless. She had been thought a fight, one for her life. She had escaped with it. But now, it was slowly ebbing away. 'Does she realise she is dying? Can she feel it?' I asked Karue. 'She knows, he said, pausing from his picture taking. 'She knows she is game right now ' 'That not what I mean,' I insisted. ' Like, does she understand the concept of death?' He leaned back on the seat and looked at the limping Zebra. I never got an answer. We discussed her fate. We hang around, feeling sorry. And secretly wishing a predator would appear just about now. I felt guilty for that thought. We decided to drive around then come back. And hopefully find a pride of lions devouring her. I know, I know. She was still there. I swear I saw the sad look. Her life was seeping between her mangled hoof. We drove off.

Thought #8 - Facts Please

The caretaker of the guest house is a lovely chap who loves to help. He keeps the place pristine. I am hating myself for not remembering his name. Info on booking the Guest house is on the KWS website. For those with deeper pockets, check the website for other options. If you love a place with history, you'll be delighted to find out you can stay at the location where the movie 'Born Free' was inspired, Elsa's Kopje. There are various camping grounds, all info on the KWS website to. Call to book in advance though. Note: Meru National Park is heaven for birdwatchers. You cannot get enough! There is a birdbath outside the Kina Guest House. Breakfast is more interesting if you are watching them groom and drink.

Thought #9 - More than 1000 words.

John and Karue took amazing photos. So amazing I couldn't bear to mix them up with words. So they get their own blogpost. Next. Except John is yet to share his.