I Don't Want to Let You Down

It's been a while since I posted something here. But I don't have time for something long. I just had to say this: My favourite artist Sharon Van Etten has an EP out. Go check it out. It's called I Don't Want to Let You Down. My favourite singles so far are Tell Me and I Always Fall Apart

When There's Memory To Be Made

There is something about memory that I find fascinating. It is interesting how our minds filter things; losing certain aspects of occurrences while keeping others; altering those kept aspects and making us question if what we remember really happened.

I might have mentioned how I was in a road accident late last year. And this incident is, for the most part, out of my mind. Like I can't quite tell where exactly the accident took place, even though I have used that route numerous times since. What is interesting is that occassionally, I get vivid images of how everything went down: from the second I thought that we were in trouble to the point of impact to the subsequent overturning and the lingering screams. The first time this happened was a few weeks after the accident. I was on my way to town when my mind registered, somewhat belatedly, that the song playing on the matatu's radio was the same one that was playing on the day that I got into that accident. Traffic was moving slowly and I actually found it weird when the matatu I was in got into a fender bender with the vehicle in front. If I were a superstitious person, I would have thought that song was cursed. But alas, I am not. I just find that song a trigger. I can't tell you the title, because I don't know it. I also don't know the artist. But it is a ragga song. I keep on telling myself that I will look it up. But I haven't. And I think I owe it to myself to do it. But amidst all these,  there is a chance that maybe this song was not the one playing at the moment it happened. Another possibility is that I may not have heard of this song before. Maybe it never even played. I will never be sure of these details.

All these, I must say, is influenced by the song Neighbourhood #1 Tunnels by Arcade Fire that I have on repeat right now

 'Then, we try to name our baby
But we've forgot all the names that
 The names we used to know
But sometimes we remember our      bedrooms
 And our parent's bedrooms
 And the bedrooms of our friends
 And then we think of our parents
 Well, whatever happened to them?"

Memory. Choosing whatever it wants to remember.  Letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that I can't hurry it. Keeping things from me when I desperately need them. Choosing to ignore my pleas to point me in the right direction.

The title of this post is from the song The Only Ones Who Know by The Arctic Monkeys.

Get into My Ear: Cough Syrup by Young the Giant

I am about to break down. It's no longer a matter of if I'll break down, it's a matter of when I'll break down. It's annoying. Being on the verge of something and never really getting there and not knowing when you'll get there. Such is my life right now and the reason behind my absence from the blogosphere. So in an effort to find my footing again, I've been listening to Cough Syrup on repeat.

Favourite Lyrics

Life is too short to even care at all
I am losing my mind, losing my mind, losing control

If I could find a way to see this straight
I'd run away to some fortune that I, I should have found by now
And so I run to the things they said could restore me
Restore life the way it should be
I am waiting for this cough syrup to come down

Life is too short to even care at all
I coming up now, coming up now out of the blue
These zombies in the park they're looking for my heart
A dark world aches for a splash of the sun

***

I was walking in town earlier tonight when I decided to walk down a street that I haven't been in weeks now. I noticed (because Nairobi forces you to notice things) this kid running towards me. When the distance between us shortened, I sidestepped to let him pass, but he stopped and said, "How are you, beautiful? Si uniachie kakumi."

Memories

When I was in class five, my composition and English Grammar notebooks all had red circles on the word interesting. I always wrote it as 'intresting'. One morning, (English lessons were always in the morning, I don't know why) the teacher was dictating words as we wrote them down. These were the words we would find in the story that would open a new chapter in the Primary English text book. One of the words we  were to write down was the word interesting. After saying this word the teacher continued, "Mijide, you are another one! I hope you get the spelling of 'interesting' right otherwise I will punish you."
I did get the spelling right and escaped punishment but this incident sort of started a life long sort of watchfulness every time I write down the noun interest and the various different ways it can be used as an adjective.

This, I just realised, was (gasp!!) 14 years ago. But I have been liking the German adjective interessant and loving it even more because one has to pronounce every letter.

When You're Dreaming With A Broken Heart, The Waking Up is The Hardest Part

Sometimes waking up is hard. This is especially so when you fall asleep with a broken heart. And even more so if you are responsible for breaking your own heart. Sometimes your hopes and expectations start out together, and somewhere in an unknown and unforeseeable future, they take separate and completely different turns and before you realise this error, both are too far gone in their journeys. The process of looking for the expectations you had and the hopes you lost becomes a tiring one and yet so dire but going back becomes and remains your only option. Your poor little heart sometimes can't take it. And it breaks a little with every backward step you take.

Breaking your own heart, especially when you knew better is hard to bear. And it's harder when you keep letting yourself down. People will tell you to forgive yourself. But that's easy. What's hard is watching your heart break, again and again, and you trying to mend it every time it does. Sometimes you do a damn good job but it still breaks. Then there is the pain that comes with the mending. You'll wake up after trying to numb your pain with sleep, sleep that was so fitful in its taking of you that you are aware of your pain all along. Sometimes what you think is a nightmare is your reality. But nightmares are still dreams.

This is what I know: sometimes the meeting of our childhood dreams and our adult realities is a grim one. A meeting that has the power to awaken us into a very harsh reality.

There are times you'll want to swallow the sun especially on those days when waking up is hard. The sun will mock you with its brightness and betray your mood with its persistence and instead of cheering you up it only succeeds in burning all the energy you had in you. These are the times when your skin feels foreign; so tight that you feel the tension building inside you and yet so slack as if you are melting. But you have to keep reminding yourself to breathe.

The title of this post is from the song Dreaming With a Broken Heart by John Mayer.

Open Mind For a Different View

On very good days (which, let's face it are rare and far between) I will feel like the planets have finally aligned. These are the days when I get this intensive compulsive desire to touch that cat I see roaming around; these are the days that I will not complain about the weather; these are the days that I don't see all the things that stress me, that or I choose not to dwell on them. Like today. I was reading an article on The Rumpus this morning and for every article the writer linked to in the article, I realised that I had already read those articles some time back. And for the authors she mentioned, I had read a book and/or numerous articles they've written and even subscribed to their podcasts. I see how this may be seen as an obsession on my part. But I don't see it that way. This, dear reader, is HUGE for me. Like totally up there on the list of things that make me happy. See, I woke up one day and realised how very little I knew about the world. What followed then was a desire to read the world, a desire so dire it made me tremble. I became desperate to make sense of the world outside of the bubble that I live in, to want to listen to other people's realities, people who I don't meet in my day to day reality. But with the scramble to try to read, I had to face and accept this reality: unless I become immortal, I will never read everything that has been published and continues to be published. There are so many stories out there just waiting to be told -including mine. This world is layered in stories and I want to unravel them, layer after complex layer. So to find an article that has all the articles I have read seems like a step in the right direction. But it also means I should continue to intentionally and consciously diversify my reading.

The title of this post is from the song Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.