Make That Move Right Now Baby!

A Super Solo Move

I was crying.

Tears streamed down my face as I drove at speeds exceeding the speed limit – the landscape whizzing past through Sweet Dudu’s windscreen was phenomenal – green fields and hills, a sky so clear and blue that it shamed the name of the colour ‘blue’ – and a mountain called Kenya in the distance, slowly growing and morphing larger and larger and dominating the horizon and sky to my right with a magnificent presence that awed my beating heart – because beating it was, as fast and furious as the tears that poured down my face. I said I would and here I was… moving.

Sweet Dudu [the name of my motogari] was packed full of my belongings, so packed full and so many things did I have, that I’d tied the passenger seat belt around two of those plastic picnic basket cartons that couldn’t and refused to fit in the backseat and boot – and my other house-hold goods – all that I possessed – were in a truck that was about 3 hours behind me despite them leaving Nairobi long before I did.

I had.

I said I would.

I did.

I left Nairobi on an entirely solo move and there I was -  hurtling at speeds not allowed [hush] - towards my destination town at the foothills, at the very bottom of Mount Kenya and smack bang on the Equator, and I cried – girl did I cry alone in that car - tears of joy, emotions leaking, fear, excitement…. Damn – I had done it, a totally solo move. The Truckers asked me: haiya, you’re going alone? Duh. Yes. Sometimes in life you can’t wait for others.

I had dreamt it and thought it and planned it and then in frustration I stopped planning and just went with the flow because you know, you plan things and they go wrong, utterly w r o n g – so I stopped ‘planning’ and just did. Jumped in – flowed – and here I was – hurtling eagerly through space and time towards an unknown destination, an unknown and unchartered life.  And when I got to the end of my journey, guess what- even the ka-house ‘agent’ wasn’t there, well, it was just the 3^rd day of a spanking new year – yet it tells a tall tale of hii Kenya yetu – ati ‘wait, I’m coming’ – after me driving solo for 4 hours – the young man who’s office is in the neighbour-hood asked for me to give him a sec [He later told me he’s vying for an MCA seat and I suddenly understood… politicians are all talk and zero action] << on that note, if your dad is a politician, just ask your mom who your real papa is…. hahahahahahaaa…… runs…!!

So I welcomed myself into this space that was clearly, just for me and opened the rusty old gate into the beautifully wooded space for myself.

How does one do this? I don’t have family here. I never have had. I don’t know anybody here. My weak attempts at talking to people ‘from Nanyuki’ proved fatal – the conversations died before they began and I left them there because clearly I wasn’t supposed to deal with death – I’m too full of life. So I put on my solo armor and softened my heart – most people will say harden your hearts – lakini I say no, please don’t look for a means of an early death. Instead my advice would be to Soften your heart. Make it soft and pliable and yielding to and for yourself. Not others. Yourself. Hmm. And listen to your heart. Give it nourishment that keeps it beating – laughter and smiles and good food and sweet things like fruits and candy and those yummy Indian sweets – give your heart hope and fill it with love – pour hugs and smiles and warmth and sunlight and all the lovely things that will make your heart happy – and follow those things that make your heart soft and yummy…

I did.

I’m 53.

I cried. Because I have the strength, the joy de vivré, the sheer determination and courage and magnificent drive to do this alone and build a future for myself even if I have one foot in the grave as many look at me askance and say, gaii… you’re old, but hey, I’m still alive and Inshallah will be around for a longer while…!! I came alone to live at the foothills of a place that I think is magical and magnificent. I came alone for this magic and magnificence that it may fill me so that I too, can partake of this daily.  This then was the adventure – carrying it through and nursing it at the younger ages of it’s creation – the dreaming; the birthing and nurturing of it – not abandoning the “burden” of my dream. <<< We often do just that, don’t we? >>> Abandoning our dreams and leaving them to die on a road in the middle of

      know where?

… what’s your story? What is your dream?

Not hers.

Not his.

Your dream? It may be to be President. Or live in Lamu by the sea. It may be to be an astronaut .. or a fantastic cook. It may be to just be happy and content.

… build it, work it, nourish it, love it tenderly.

People ask strange questions – like ‘what will you do’ or ‘how will you do…’ or ‘where will you do…’ or ‘who will you do…’   eff that nonsense. Kabisa. Don’t even!

Seriously! Don’t be side-tracked – the purpose of most people is to cut trees and place those logs on your road to success and; once you stop – because you can’t drive over the logs – they ambush you and steal your joy, leaving you with broken dreams as well as stuck in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night. You get to dislike that road and that route, you stop driving on that road of your dreams, you go and huddle with a bunch of human beings for security sake and decide that your dream is just too scary. And when someone else goes down that same road and beats the thugs, you get mad and wonder why you never had the courage to…

Note that siku hizi ata ukilia aje – ain’t nobody coming to help you with your problems – so don’t go announcing your dreams.

Be Nike.

Just do it.

I’m telling you my story so that you can learn and do the same for yourself – look long at the banner of ‘xPenSieve’ and the purpose of this blog. Yes…. Scroll back up and read it again…

Scroll….

Get it?

To use that beauty phrase that’s been turned into a political slogan – Tuko Pamoja?

Listen…

I once spoke aloud and sent out into the universe the dream that; “..my bliss would be to write from a cabin in the woods on some mountain, surrounded by the wind whispering through the trees, birdsong, sounds of nature and wild animal calls”. That’s MY dream. At a pals house a while back while watching TV [I gave away my TV – I call it a propaganda box…] I saw a young man being interviewed in a ‘House-hunting’ series in the US of A – and he asked for a town house. The dumb ass agent took him to view a house in the suburbs chatting all the way about how the apartment was in a nice quiet area with big windows and a view of …. The young man cut her off and refused, totally, to enter the house. “I said I want a Town house – an apartment in the middle of the CITY ..” he snapped and told her off,  “… with street noises and traffic and cabbies hooting, with shops downstairs and lotsa people.. didn’t you hear me when I said I wanted a townhouse – I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN THE SUBURBS!”  and he strode off… I laughed for a good 5 minutes….

Do you get it now? It’s YOUR DREAM. What’s YOUR Dream?

I have arthritis - violently painful and sometimes crippling arthritis that’s due to the metal rod that’s attached to my spinal cord in my back. I’ve lived through nightmare pain during my teens because of that operation to put in the rod -  that kept me looking at a hospital ceiling for 4 months – aki, there’s nothing as boring as a hospital ceiling, nothing. A Hospital ceiling has NO screen  -  sigh   do you know how boring that is?? That’s why patients in hospital keep ringing the bell for the nurse. Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg   Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg, Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg – kills boredom, hahahahaaa…. But,

What are your “problems” as put forward by a dream-thief? Really? What? Disease? Illness? Mental disorder? Finances? What?? Why are you not stepping up and out? Why are you weeping and gnashing your teeth and camping on your misery?

All Dreams are Valid; Yours included. Even something as material as owning a luxury car – be it a Benz or a LandRover. It.Is.All.Valid.All.Dreams.Are.Valid.Period

Is it Kool & The Gang that sung that song with those beautiful lyrics?

Make that move, right now baby!

If you’re a She’ro reading this and maybe wondering what the heck - I want to assure you that you CAN do it and you’re not dependent on any one other than yourself – and I’m not talking feminism here and neither am I negating the role of the MAN in your life, no, and please, neither should you. Man is made as you are – a beautiful divine creature.   I’m talking to the Melanated female and asking her to listen to a truth that’s been hidden from her in these modern days, in the 9^th and 10^th and 11^th way up to the  19^th and 20^th centuries, a truth covered up in lies, buried DEEP in the ground and our subconscious and stamped on and built over with more lies – listen - we’re strong. We’re beautifully emotionally and physically ‘nurturing’ such that we can alone, look after 6 or more children, raise them, feed them, go to work, clean them, educate them and still have time to laugh and be realest with our girlfriends. Give a man 6 toddlers and watch him crumble – no lie – they’re good at stuff, but we Melanated females have that nurture game going on naturally in us. Our dreams are possible. That is the fear. That if we Dream it, we can do it – and somewhere along the line many Melanated Women feed into the lie that we’re useless-and-hopeless-and we can do nothing by or for ourselves. Rubbish, we can and we have been doing stuff for years and we shall continue to… so this post is for you if at some point you’ve been taken off your track and she-napped and lied to that your dreams aren’t valid.

They are.

Go on, make 2017 the year that you stamped and validated your dream!

Hums song….”…Ain’t no stopping us now….”.. 

 

In conclusion, be brave and turn your world upside down and laugh as you do - like I’ve put my kids in a really weird position that’s totally upside down about what ‘shags’ is, and what ‘shags’ isn’t. ‘Shags’ and ‘oshaago’ is where your parents were brought up, grew and lived in before they got’s married and hitched…right? So, my parents shags is in Nai short for Nairobi. Now, I grew up in …. Ya…. Pap, Nairobi Suburbs. And my parents still live in that Nairobi Suburb. And they own land in that Nairobi Suburb…..  Gff – Nai is my shags and whenever I take my kids to visit their guks and shosh – I take them to…. Yap, Nai.

So, because I’ve shifted my base to living at the base of Mount Kenya, my kids will be going to visit their grand-parents – where? in Ooshaago…, so…. Hahahahaaa….. during “Christmasi”,  when you’all are all driving to your ‘shags’ upcountry, I’ll be driving to my shags in Nai….

Hahahahahaaaaa!!!

Happy New laughter filled year y’all and make sure you Validate Your Dreams. Make that move, right now baby!

The XpenSieve Report© 2017

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