OUR TOYS CHANGE…

Warning: This is a very random blog post.

You see, I have this thing in me, I thought was never there.  I am still in the process of obtaining a restraining order against Microsoft word because I think I have been conspired against by the forces that make this world spin and worse, by the forces that try to make it not to.  Every time, this brainwave walks into my head, sits, crosses its legs, stares intently at me, lights a cigar and begins to blow smoke rings towards me. I ignore it, I really try to. Then it picks up cymbals and starts to strike them together. I immediately develop selective deafness, I am too busy. No time. Then it beckons to my phobia- Astraphobia. Finally I give in.  I really think it is high time that atavistic(hmmm, big word) astraphobia always hovering around is dealt with. On realizing it has crossed the Rubicon, it gets up and whistles away. Annoying Brat…

You see, as we grow older our toys change. When I was little I had always dreamed of having a violin as a birthday present from my folks, but funny enough I don’t think I ever voiced it out or demanded it. Maybe I may have mentioned it once but that was all. So, when I realized I had outgrown that request, I simply wished it upon my kids- especially my daughters, it is simply magical to me when I see a young girl play the violin. A few days ago, I had a broken silencer on my car, and anytime I revved up the engine, I noticed the noise made my blood rush and made me want to move faster. Voila! I had found a new toy.

My birthday is on its way again, and top on my birthday list, odd as it my sound is a formula One race car, second is a power bike - Grey in colour, with few red stripes, 400CC engine, full gear, and a year’s registration with the Abuja  or Lagos Bikers group. Unlike my childhood, I am talking about it, although very subtly, but still I am voicing it out into the cyberspace. Aha! You may say, she is asking someone to buy it for her. No, no, no, far from it, but [oh well] I wouldn’t mind if someone offered anyway. Call me a tomboy if you may but, I am a woman.

Truth is, even the people we relate with change as we grow older. There is a Yoruba adage that says “Twenty children cannot play for twenty years”. True, but there comes a time when some of those children will converge in a place and share stories, bitter, sweet or bland. That is why when [if] you begin to progress in life and you raise your nose in the air, looking down on others because you have achieved what they haven’t [yet] achieved, you will not notice when they will gather momentum and spring up higher than you, because you nose is still in the air!

These past few weeks, I realized that nothing is really there, until it is there. I have heard sounds deep within my soul and seen images I never knew existed. I have seen buds, in form of people and things; spring up in strange places similar to that time when specialists said there would be no life in Hiroshima until 75 years passed for the radiation-damaged soil to ever grow anything again. I have been able to differentiate an illusion and reality, difficult as it may seem. I have dialogued with deception, danced with illusions and dined with reality and for the first time they agreed on one thing- YOU ARE WHAT ONLY YOU SAY YOU ARE.

Frank Edward, a gospel artiste sang “What you say is who you are, when you believe you will receive…” Every living thing on the face of the earth evolves, but some prefer not to, because suffering never kills but too much joy does. The world is your orchestra and to be the conductor, you have to have your back to the crowd, even God turned his back when his son, Jesus cried on the cross “Eli, eli lama sabachthani?” [meaning; My God, my God why have you forsaken me?], so the sins of mankind could be forgiven. Even as my toys change, I change along with it, so do people too but for now, I ride away on my bicycle singing along with Christina Aguilera “Tonight, I’m not the same girl”.

Miss Nono