DOWN THE AISLE

My friend Stella (no, it’s not her real name) got married on Saturday and I was one of the bride’s maids, yet again. I’m not complaining oh! I had a great deal of fun. Besides, someone once said, when people around you get blessed, it’s evidence that God is in your neighborhood and might knock on your door soon. This sage didn’t tell me how long it will take for God to get to me though, so I’d just be patient and keep busy by shopping around for a gorgeous wedding gown.

Speaking of gowns, some days before the wedding my BF and I were talking about wedding disasters and wondering what things could possibly go wrong on a wedding day asides d cliché abandonment at the altar. I joked about someone stumbling into the wedding cake or someone mistakenly stepping on and tearing the Bride’s train. Of course we dint mean that any of these would happen to Stella, but something did happen; something that did not cross my mind as we joked around. Stella’s wedding dress did not fit! No, it was not too big (that would have been manageable) it was too tight! In the months between the time Stella bought her dress and the wedding day, my friend gained some weight. I’d never know how she did it because I was of the opinion that the stress of planning a wedding was a tried and trusted weight-lose regiment. So I was really thrown off balance when we tried to Lace Stella up and the sides of her gown refused to meet.

The faithfulness of God prevailed; we managed to get and keep her in the dress. Her wedding was wonderful. I have never seen a bride dance as Stella did. Now she has me afraid for myself because she’d always be a reference point that I’d never be able to match. But who knows, maybe that kind of joy comes with the anointing to dance like Stella and David (the one in the bible, not her husband). Whether I wiggle like a salted worm or stump around like a Zulu warrior, what really matters is that the wedding day be the beginning of many happy and fruitful days. That’s my prayer for Stella. If you’re reading this Stella, congrats once again. We are mighty proud of you. A-Town!

HERO

I’ve always heard tales of people being swept away by fiery tides on our Nigerian beaches but I never dreamed that I’d ever experience or witness it firsthand- and I’ve had my fair portion of nightmares. This nightmare material crawled out of someone’s dark dreams and landed squarely before me on Friday, November 27th 2009 at The Kuramo Beach.
The day at the beach started out pretty regular with the gathering of everything edible in my party’s path. On arriving at the waterfront, we picked the cleanest patch of sand to sit and devour our booty while we debated whether or not to venture into the water. Hardly had we sat to our first conquest of suya when we noticed commotion nearby. Following the pointing fingers and stares of the crowd, we discovered the cause of the commotion; someone was being swept away by the beach water. My first thought was that it was probably one of those show-offs at the beach, who had come to make me feel bad about not learning to swim earlier in life. This misconception was quickly corrected by a few seconds of watching whoever it was trash desperately in the water. As the horror of the situation dawned on me, I saw a guy dash past with a floater and dive into the water after the guy in the distance.
With our jaws slack, we watched as Mr. Life Guard (I think) struggled to reach Mr. Swept-Away and heaved a unified sigh when he eventually managed to throw the floater around him and steered him safely to shore. I hate to exaggerate situations so I told myself it must have been a minor accident. That was until the rescuer dragged an unconscious young man of about 20 years unto the sand.

I was horrified. I just cannot lie about that. I kept pondering how the slightest adjustments in Fate could have placed me in the shoes of the unconscious young man; after all my best underwater technique is a short glide which wouldn’t save me if I were drowning in a bathtub. I tried to imagine the terror that must have gripped the guy and just couldn’t. Of all ways to die, I guess drowning couldn’t have been anywhere on his list. Scratch that… he couldn’t have planned to die at all! And then for this to happen out of the blues! I wondered what his thoughts were as he struggled in the water in vain… “Lord, help me!” “Lord, forgive my many many sins!” or “Oh, my poor Mother!”.
Word got around much later that the young man lived with his mother and had come to the beach without her knowledge and just that caused a fresh wave of goose pimples to break out on my skin as I imagined the agony she would have suffered as she wondered what had happened to her son, never mind a man on the scene who thought the mother was somehow to blame for the boy’s near fatal accident.
As soon as Swept-Away gained consciousness and was deemed to be in no obvious danger, the rescuers and gapers alike asked “How did it happen?” The truth was far from all the stories I had told myself. It was an inglorious tale. A lady (who was nowhere to be found afterwards) has lost her slipper to the waters and he tried to retrieve it. Unbelievable but 100% true! This young man had almost lost his life playing Hero! A hero emerged at the end of the day, but it wasn’t him. The Hero was the man who had swam after him and dragged him back to shore despite his disability. Oh I forget to mention that. The man who rescued Swept-Away was missing at least two fingers on his left hand? Yes he was!
When Swept-Away came to, his first words were… wait for it…wait for it… “Where is the slipper?” I thought he deserved a sound slap.

XMAS WALLPAPERS

JINGLE BELLS N LIGHTINS

This year I saw my first Christmas lights at the E-Centre in Yaba. They are not the prettiest light arrangements (as a matter of fact, if all Christmas lights look that way this year, I’d lose my thing for Christmas lights), but they drove home the point that Christmas is really here again.

I love Christmas for reasons that even I am yet to fully comprehend. I like the gifts exchanged with friends and family, if you come from that kind of background. I love the false sense of holiday that blows in with the wind in the month of festivity. Truth is that the real holidays belong only to students. If you work in a certain industry, the only way you get to partake in the holiday spirit is (a) if your boss is REALLY nice[‘ REALLY nice’ being a paraphrase for ‘close to a walk over’] or (b) if you’re a good looking female and your boss is male and…uh..hmm! If you eliminate these two groups of people, I guess the percentage of us left would barely make up an NYSC camp platoon.

Forgive my digression. I was talking about Christmas, not lamenting my unfortunate circumstance. Besides, considering the widespread laying-off of staff in the aforementioned industry, I’d rather have to go to work in December than not get to go at all year round. God forbid I spend Christmas thinking about my woes instead of counting my blessings and buying myself persents for every other blessing recalled.

So, I love to pretend that Christmas brings rest from whatever I do in real life. But what I love the most, what I really look forward to year in, year out, are the festive lights and decorations! Those lights transform our drab and even dirty streets to picture book materials, by dark. They almost make me wish the month of December could be a stretch of dark days and nights (pardon the religious irony).

I’ve pulled out and dusted off my easily excited Christmas spirit as banks and other business entities are bringing out the decorations from their stow- away places. I’m hoping that as Christmas creeps closer, people would be nicer to one another and traffic lighter. I’m hoping my boyfriend will devote his time to me and me alone (I know it sounds selfish).Now that I’ve gotten over my childhood confusion about Christmas and New Year being thesame holiday merely prolonged, I hope that Christmas gives a foretaste of an unprecedented and memorable New Year.

Last year, Governor Fashola made my day! He was so into the Christmas spirit, lighting up the city from end to end, I got confused about where he says his prayers. The best Christmas decoration last year was the nativity scene at Falomo. It was sooo un-Nigeria it caused hope to flicker in me. I felt like, if we could do that, we could do anything we set our hearts to. I hope there would be better decoration around Lagos but if last year’s decoration resurfaces…if I could like it last year, I’m sure I’d like it this year as well.

Eko o ni baje Ooooo!!!

P.S:

I'm really interested in hearing how you're preparing for Christmas. Let's Share! Send pictures and shout-outs - especially pictures with captions - to connect2nora@yahoo.com. I promise to post them on my blog as soon as I get them.

Merry Xmas Fellas!

Filling The Boots

The best instructors children the world over have ever known are Parents; yet ironically, most parents have constantly remained the worst examples for their wards in, at least, one way.
Did your father ever advice you to focus on things like your studies rather than build your existence around the opposite sex when you knew by name a couple of ladies who made up HIS existence? Or did your mother ever preach about the importance of always saying the truth even when it seems like that truth would be the knife with which your throat would be slit just before she told your younger one to tell the neighbour that she was not home? What are you looking my way for? I never said those were my Parents!
Growing up and watching our Parents parent us solely by words alone, which by the way aren’t always consistent, most of us repeatedly vow that we’d be nothing like them when we grow into Parent-Sized-Boots. “I’d listen to my kids because I know they’re not mindless!” some of us swear. “I’d lead an exemplary life.” others insist. The more damaged ones pledge that they’d rather die than abuse their children physically. Yet studies have shown that a few years after these vehement promises, only the luckiest of these people do not show signs of rot in the exact places where their parents had. Why is this the case? Is there some genetic marker that tags us to be just like our parents despite our better judgment?
However alluring the idea of blaming it on the genes may seem, my suspicion is that as we grow into adulthood under the influence of our parents – be they negative or positive, we unknowingly react to situations the same way they react to them. I cannot say, yet, exactly how it begins. It’s probably with the desire to scream at him because he’s always screaming at others or the inclination to be rebellious about something they want done because you know that they hardly ever do the right thing themselves. Whatever the case, slowly but surely the trickles build into a river and next thing you know you look in the mirror (either willingly or forced by others) and find your parent staring back. From this point on, it’s complacency and self denial for some and rehab for the braver folks because if your habits come to the attention of others, they must have eaten deep.
Luckily there’s a good number of years between the resolution-making stage and the “Oh my God, look what I’ve become!” stage. In that time span, there are a couple of things we can do to guard against falling into our parents old smelly boots.
There’s an age worn saying that a problem known is half solved. If there’s any truth in that, then realizing that mum and dad’s habits are bad is very important. If you never really call their acts for what they are, flowing into them would be almost inevitable. So identify these sore points in your parents’ lives and decide how exactly you want to differ from them. There’s no room for ambiguities here. Deciding not to be like Dad is fine, but you can’t leave it at being 'anyone but dad'. You have to define the person you intend to be because if you don’t, the decision to merely not be like dad could put you in the situation of the guy in the bible who casts out a demon and leaves an empty room.
Having painted a picture of who you’d like to be, step two would be to piece together the qualities that make up that individual and incorporate them into your persona. Living the dream would probably work best if the action plan is kept simple and achievable. Trying to beat a Greed problem by giving out ALL you own during your first rehab session is more likely to drive you insane than break the habit.
If there’s one practice I know to help with character building, it’s Introspection. Don’t wait for people to point out that you’re goofing at being nice or a good listener. Take yourself up on a self assessment exercise every now and then. If you must introspect though, please be honest about it. A popular saying of mine is “If you must, lie to others, but NEVER to yourself.”
For those who’ve had the mirror experience, all hope isn’t lost. Just have the good sense to laugh at your mistakes (if they’re funny), pick yourself up by the bootstraps and re-strategize taking into cognizance where you went wrong the first time.
Whatever the case guys, the next time you’re tempted to tell Fibbish Mum a lie, remember … slowly but surely.

Echoes of Hardship

It’s the sigh of a mother on sighting
The depleting bag of garri.
It’s the vain attempt to stretch the last tuber of yam
For fictitious months in a household of six,
when in truth, we know that it only has two days service left in it.
It’s the reason mother sends the prettiest of her girls to the shy meat man
For yet another credit purchase.
The reason she turns partially blind and deaf when the second oldest comes home with strange money
In hand, and ambiguous tales on her tongue.
It’s the sound that distracts the hardworking but, strangely still, penniless Trader
From the insults showered by his razor-tongued wife.

It's the echo of hard times,
the sound outside our doors.
shut the doors and windows!
stuff the cracks in the walls!
by all means, keep the sound at 'bay!
cos like the sirens song,
all who hear it must fall under its spell
and slowly, the oil will dry
gradually the jingling of coins against each other
fades
and the market square empties out of not just buyers
but even the traders and their wares.

It’s the echo of hard times,
The sound outside our doors.