BABY LESSONS

A silent sob takes over me. I really thought I was passed days of feeling like this. Like I don't want to wake up tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I am not suicidal. Some days are just hard and you want to go to sleep and wake up a year later knowing the problem is long gone. We all feel like that at some point. Life can be overwhelming.

I sniffle and bury my head under my covers as Janelle hops into bed. She snuggles close and hugs me tight. Her face is distorted by sadness and I hate it. She has some fat heart and is quite lovable and adorable.

Oh Lizzie. You suck sometimes.

She bursts into tears and we cry together. Mourning my loss and celebrating our bond together, as we always have.

"Na-na-nakupenda, Lizzie," she coos amidst the tears. "Who should we hate for hurting you?"

See what I mean?

Lovable.

I smile lightly. "Honey, I don't want hate seeping through your pores. You are too beautiful for hatred. Nakupenda so..." she starts snoring softly before I could finish.  So I kiss her forehead and pull her close before my own thoughts swamp me.

Mental note; buy new colouring pencils.

See, my niece is only six years old and she is no snooky baby like me. I was blessed enough to watch her grow up, learning a lot in the process. I used to be some delicate blossoming flower but days around her turned me into a thriving weed. And that, trust me, is a good thing. All the cases I had to solve were of her beating the life out other kids because they overstepped their border. She happens to be quite opinionated and never fails to state pieces of her mind. This little beautiful girl took me under her wings and gave me a new motto: "Don't take shit!"

I really did win some "best niece" lottery. This kid is the object of my affections. She taught me how to love, and give. She is like my second sister. She holds me in affection like the first, but only attends more closely! I share my heart with her more often than most. She does have the color of a parent, if you ask me. I put before her emotions I dare not lay in anyones path. When I send Janelle a sorrow she returns it to me mended. .She always has a remedy. That is because merriment is her finest gown so I cant help but gather delights each time I set eyes on her; delights enough to make my struggles small.

Janelle has some fine sense of wonder. She counts neither past nor future as the present utterly contents her. Watching her tender trusting face does make me solemn especially when I consider the fickleness of possibility. Life really does add weight to innocence.How I wish I could know about her tomorrow and shield her from its darkness. But she once told me that children are nearer to God because they arrived recently. That is the reason she gives for having to be the one to conduct our bedtime prayer. She is closer to God. See, she is the sharpest tool in the shed. But then again, I find proximity to God fugitive-and quite frightening. I am more comfortable with distance.

HOPE

To doubt that health plans a return,
And hope finds her place
Once more against a wrecked soul,
Is the defeat of life
To witness the purple flames dim,
And leaves reduce their stay,
Says more of loss
But hope beats its wings,
Against my funeral thoughts.

Growing up, I wanted to be a journalist. To protect the weak and the vulnerable and take on the bad guys. As far back as I can remember, I had this burning desire for justice. At school I confronted bullies if I saw them picking on the smaller kids. If they didn't back down, I would fight them. You can almost guess I lost more times than I won. In spite of all the beating, I knew I could never give up. I was too much of a believer in the old adage; evil triumphs  when good men do nothing. The only advantage I had was my voice. it was deep and quite commanding. needless to say that I was  a toothless dog. But really it's genetic. My father is quite stern but he is thunder without lightning. Joram, my small brother, and I used to guard ourselves more tightly when the walls trembled but feared no harm from errant bolts. You can almost guess, then, that my mother was the Big Punisher.

I am really not sure why I told you that but hey, am bored. Am surrounded by this deathly silence and sleep ditched me long ago and doesn't seem quite interested in a truce. My keyboard is all I have. I would have loved to get all passionate and intimate with her but my thoughts just went numb. They are rushing but they refuse to form a row. I have never been a strong believer in the writers block. I am however acquainted to the fright that stabs ones heart when there is no sound to shape sense. But I am aware of another terror, a larger one than that, that even after molding, mustering your thoughts to form a row, thought might remain numb, still! Words have always been my loyal friends I can turn to for comfort. They never fear the mind's inciting acts. However much we struggle-and am beginning to fear their disobedience-they always allow me the final mastery, which I consider some honour. Their power is stupendous. Words give breathe to thought, and life itself. With them we shape the world and taste immortality.

At the time of my birth, my mother was a teacher. I bet that explains everything. I was born in Macalder, somewhere in Nyatike constituency before we moved to Kabuoch. Oh yes I have travelled the world. My travels have shaped my ideas and character. The childhood memories remain. She used to teach Home Science and I used to look forward to my knitting sessions with her every Saturday.She was one hell of a strict woman and that was about the only thing that brought us together. She used to travel a lot and in those days that she was gone, the house was always looking windswept, with some forgotten feel to it.The merest plate awaited her return for the imposition of its former order. It was some curious sensation because her absence gave our spirits greater freedom. There was less wrath to risk! But I always looked forward to her return. I would be lying if I said any colourful displays marked her return but I felt the joy she could not express each time she saw us run to welcome. But perhaps I could feel her absence because we two are similar. Seeing ourselves in each other, we feared to bring the mirror closer. We both wore a vail. But while I hid from the world,mother-who confronts the world-hid from her own soul, and from the family that would define her. She holds back her affection and I follow her in this, for the pattern was long set. But though our lips are silent, hearts speak quietly.

PINKTOBER

There still is nothing cooler than seeing an idea come to fruition. To see something go from a whiteboard to actual production. October was one of my favorite months this year having seen me achieve all that I had longed and planned for. My ambitions and expectations did not wither in the bud, they flourished, blossomed, saw the light of day. 

If I was obscenely pushy last month, that is what drive is-wanting the impossible, wanting it all, never knuckling under to an obstacle, pushing till you get what you want. I wanted to battle cancer. If I ever become somebody who stops fighting, I will be finished. Let us not be sentimental about this. That is what reaching the top and staying there means, in all aspects of life. If one for a moment, is tempted to think, Poor Akoth, so insecure, so driven, so unhappy, do not bother. Be glad for me. Thank God I am driven. Being driven is my energy source. It is my fun. I have always liked a good fight-your adrenaline is going and you are in there sparring and punching, especially if you have right on your side and you are thinking, I am going to win this. I believe that where there is action, there is movement, and those ripples will eventually produce something positive. If my life ever  becomes steady and even, I will go crazy with boredom, become fat. Lets just say I am addicted to action.

UNTITLED

I rubbed at the tears with my thumb and a smile pulled at one corner of my mouth. I dumped the onion rings in the pan and turned on the tap. I held my hands under the running water, watching the water hit them and splay off into the sink. After a few moments I smelled them carefully and dried them on the dish cloth. Ileaned against the counter and stared into space, thoughtful.

"The onions are burning Lizzy."

I began to laugh through my tears. Another monkey's wedding. I scrabbled at the onions vigorously with a wooden spoon as I encouraged my thoughts on.

"Oh, hell. I am the champion messer of the world. I just wasn't cut out to be a good cook. I dont quite know what I was cut out to be either. I get carried away by my own emotions. I am purposeless."

"What does that mean?"

"I suppose I don't know what am at...and I mind. Lots of people don't know and they don't mind. I mind."

"You're going to get married."

I sighed.
"I suppose yes. That's not purpose though. It's sort of routine really. The birth, marriage, death routine."

"You really do not have to get married you know."
"It's hard to explain about love, even to yourself. And then...Ihate living on my own...you need someone," I lied.

I held the pan under the tap and let a stream of hot water run on to it. Steam enveloped me for a moment, then my little brother broke into a song. I wondered whether he knew his singing always had a way of breaking the clotted sadness in my head.

"Would you kill anyone? Any...you know...person?" he asked.

"I am not sure. How can you ever tell the answer to that? I wouldn't want to kill anyone. And I think if I ever did kill anyone, for whatever reason, it would probably be the wrong thing to do."

There was a long silence. Only the sound of the gas fire whispering through the room. I watched as tired dust settled on the kitchen windowpane. I looked past the window, out into the street. A building outside was still smouldering and some workmen were clearing away the rubble. There was a queue at the police checkpoint and women stood with shopping baskets, shuffling along a few metres at a time. Bags open. Shuffle. I watched a man light his cigarette as they waited. Hands patting up and down bodies. Bags open. No love lost. No time for humour. Guns always at the ready. Bags open. Never turn your back on anyone.

I could see feet shuffled and shopping bags shifted from one arm to another, to ease the weight. Grey piles of stones and guns strapped on waists. Their day was done.

A crane was w3orking on the road and I watched as it gently swang its load from one point to another. A couple of men stood near them and watched also. Curled ropes and lengths of chain and the high buildings stained with floor dust. The cars moved slowly over the cobblestones. Two men stood nearby talking, gesturing, their eyes warily on the movements of the crane. A dog sat near them, fluffing out its fur to keep the wind from penetrating.

"God give me patience!" My brother's shrill voice brought me back. "How many times do I have to call you?"

"Oh, am sorry."
"Yes you should be. M hungry. And I wouldn't kill anyone." He said fiercely. "I wouldn't. No matter what."

"Joram..sometimes we are not able to really help the things that happen to us. The things we do. We have no control...at times, that is. It's far much easier to think the right thoughts than do the right things."

"I wouldn't. I wouldn't." he repeated.

He started to sing again, there being no answer to that.

DATING THE IMPOSSIBLE

[This is an attempt by one  Faith Keener to produce a sequel to OF FIRST LOVE AND BROKEN HEARTS. She is a close friend and quite some good writer so this just as close as anyone could get to the facts. There you go.]

"He is gay. He is going to waste you," The truth behind his friend's statement came hitting hard as I held Mitch's hand in mine. A statement I wished I had heed a year and a half earlier. I became involved because of the determination that churns like an engine inside me, this credo of mine that will-power and intensity can do anything, can break through any obstacle. I felt so much masculinity in Mitch, felt so physically attracted to him, that I refused to believe he could never function with a woman he loved. After all, he had fathered a brilliant kid (yes he has a five year old son called Terrence). I guess I really thought for a long time that the love of a good woman could convert Mitch, really thought I could save him.

I remember how I used to bask in his affection and aura. I was the person that Mitch, the arbiter of intelligence and cleverness, had chosen to adore, which gave me an identity, something to be. I loved being with him, this man who was utterly romantic, utterly aware. There would be flowers delivered to me on occasions, a poem in the mail, a gift in elegant taste for no reason. He was my knight who saw into the subtleties and absurdities of everything. Our minds were like two little kids playing the telephone, schmoozing and giggling into Dixie cups connected by a string of brains and affection-I am also bright, you know. My first phone call every morning was to him.

I remember how he would put his arms around me and hold me and kiss me warmly. He would say, "I love you. There's no one like you," and be masculine and passionate, and I would tell him,"You are sending me the right vibrations," all the while shutting out the image of his doing the same with some man elsewhere.
    He would say, "I'm not."


As in my whole relationship with him, I was living my dream vicariously, luxuriating in the glamour of being behind the art scenes. I had always wanted to develop a voice through lyrics and I was already open to him, already moving instinctively in his direction by improvising and taping and developing my own voice. Also, the act of creation fascinates me. You can only sit with a blank page and wait. You cannot press a button,cannot program it. Everything comes out of smoke and mist and nothingness, a mystical happening, something to be worshiped. Writing meant an inspiration.

He was a charismatic man who people turned and looked at. As a poet, he was a potential William Blake, writing pieces that were beautiful, touching, original, with great internal rhymes. He had an irreverent, caustic, very dry wit, a brilliant, precise mind, and an insatiable appetite for gossip(you can almost guess my own appetite tripled his). This rich description is from the days when I was notoriously poor in perceiving his faults-I was blindly head over heels in love.

Despite his being gay, we so adored each other that what we had(whatever it was) became a sort of reality-as though by desperately wishing, we could make it real. He was frustrated as I was-one of the few gay men I have ever known who really hated being gay and hated himself. The only thing he took pride in was his mind and his work. Ours was a very sad love affair.

I was in love with a man who was my dream-a man who looked right, who was right for me and my family(yes, I consider them), adored me, lived for the arts, a man who had a happy place for me in his life-perfect except for one little flaw. H e was a homosexual. What a waste of such a good man! I was hot with shame. I, who prided myself on being honest with myself, I had let delusion take over, let wishful thinking convince me that this relationship could work-and now I had been told to get lost because my loved one was going to be a homosexual for a while. I felt slapped hard across the face.

"What am I doing? What am I doing?" I felt entirely defeated, entirely inadequate. I who always believed there MUST be a away. But there was no way I could compete, no way I could change and get him. A homosexual is a homosexual is a homosexual. Torn by mixture of anger  and grief, I walked through the night, knowing this precious relationship was over, but still absolutely crazy about him. Besotted.

Mitch and I continue seeing each other, but the relationship faded back to what it should have been-an extremely warm friendship-and I wondered to myself why I constantly chose impossible men.

BIG CUT!

If you are of my origin,the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear of the "big cut" is probably some circumcision,which wouldn't be such a bad thing were i a man!But my own wasn't as far off from that because well, i cut my long glossy,black,beautiful,african hair..(you'll have to give me some intense adjectival order culturing after this)

Yes you heard right I cut off my hair on 21st November 2012!why? Because I can! Seriously I've had a big hair for years,ok, make it two years and i just wanted to try out something different. I refuse to mention the fact that i have cancer and is going to emerge out of the tunnel a victor. So well, i was never going to stand my hair fall off so i decided to take initiative of chopping it off. Yes, I love being in control of circumstances.


But before it all goes, I've cut it to about an inch!My routine for the first month is going to be wash and go and my activator gel..I am rocking it!