When the sun sets, it naturally reminds me not only of the end of a day, but the promise of a new dawn and I love them. Back in my home country Nigeria, we used to have very gorgeous sunsets especially where we lived, which was nice sleepy town located around the hills of Enugu.
However, living in these parts, it gets too hot in this horizon of the UAE that most times, I find myself running away from the sun instead of running towards the sunset.
Occasionally, I have stumbled across a lovely sunset here, unfortunately, I don’t think that I have ever managed to capture a great photograph of it.
The best that I have seen so far was around Jumeirah beach, close to the Burj Al Arab and it was truly beautiful.
Who knows, hopefully I’ll get to see another truly remarkable one before I venture away from these parts.
p.s. I finally concluded the bloganuary. So slowly but surely and I have enjoyed it immensely. I has helped me reignite the need to write/blog more frequently. Hope to see you around.
I can bet my last dollar or should I say dirham that I am the only person still writing Bloganuary prompts. Anyways, it’s the way things are and I have been balancing many nuts per se. Do I wish I had stuck to the prompts judiciously during the last week? Yes, I do, but unfortunately, I didn’t and I won’t beat myself over the head for it knowing all that I have been handling lately.
The thought of writing an autobiography has never been too far from my mind, though I still had to process the prompt. The need to write my autobiography is borne out of a survivors need tell their story and though it is a project that I plan to tackle during the sunset days of my life, hopefully many many more years ahead (who knows) maybe, it is time to chalk it down on the drawing board.
When reflecting on how I would title the chapters of my autobiography, I think it will be broken down in 3 main chunks – not cast in stone of course, but my thoughts twirl around:
I have been on a continuous learning journey and have learned a couple of new things recently. As a matter of fact, it has been a conscious choice to ensure that I keep learning and improving myself day by day.
Late last year, I started a TikTok account and had to learn how to use the app, how to create posts which are different from my usual blog posts and how to grow my account. I have also been taking an intensive Business Analyst course, and learning stuff like how to use Visio, Figma, Jira confluence, creating functional and non-functional requires, user case story, swim lane etc. It hasn’t been a cheap or easy venture, but I know that it will yield sufficient dividends in the long run.
In-between that, I have taken a life-coaching course, teaching myself how to create a book cover and do all the necessary works to publish my 3rd poetry book myself without outsourcing it – because I want to use it as a learning opportunity. It is painstakingly slow since I have to learn a whole lot of stuff by scratch, but I have come to realize that it is not always about rushing to reach the finishing line but to enjoy the process getting there.
I feel far more alive when I am learning new things and viewing things from a broader perspective. I sincerely believe that every day, it is imperative to push ourselves to learn something new and that for as long as one is alive, we should be life-long learners.
My Achilles heel in this life is my sweet tooth. I am that girl that will be seated near the dessert avenue at a buffet listening to the cakes and whisper sweet nothings to me. I love cakes especially moist chocolate cakes, cheese cakes, red velvet etc. To be honest, I love them all and I am yet to meet a cake that didn’t get along with me.
For my birthday, I would probably order up a cake that offers something in these three flavours mentioned above. My absolute love for sweet things and the need to balance it for my health and weight sake, I stopped baking at home as often as I used to, because I always ended up eating half of the cake and giving family members a little slice here and there to fulfill all righteousness.
Asides from my native language and the local parlance back in Nigeria, I am also bilingual (English/French), but a whole lot of people over here barely understand or speak English or French, so, at times it is a struggle for one to explain themselves properly due to the communication barrier. Of course, one must never lose sight of the fact that for them, English/French are borrowed languages and not their mother language. There are also many who communicate effectively as well in either language and somehow we manage to get by.
I truly wish that I had applied myself more in acquiring a good command of Arabic language as it would be an advantage in many ways. I admire people who can speak multiple languages and maybe, this is a gentle reminder for me to make the necessary attempt and stop finding irrelevant excuses.
From my early years in life I loved performing for an audience, either as being a part of a dance group, drama group, debate team or modelling. These are the things that I have a natural flair for and as such, my dream job oscillated from wanting to be a newscaster, a writer cum journalist, to being an actress or a runway model – my mind never conceived anything else beyond these interests. Unfortunately, back then at home, these professions were not seen as lucrative and sadly, was perceived as a profession held only by wayward women.
In Nigeria in the 80’s, 90’s we had a few notable female newscasters and journalists who spoke impeccable English while broadcasting the National news and I used to admire them a lot and also imitated them from time to time. As I grew old enough to take part in school dramas and the likes, I grabbed the opportunities that came my way to be on stage and even fancied pursuing Theatre arts or Communication Arts but my mother was not for it at all for valid reasons. At that time, the acting/movie industry in Nigeria was still at its fledgling stage and she believed that I would become a starving actress, besides the fact that there were unsavoury stories of women having to sell themselves short to get a role in any movie.
In my university days, I modelled part-time for small fashion houses, calendars and advertorials to augment my pocket money and last took part in a fashion show in 2018. I guess if bigger opportunities had come my way, who knows, maybe I would have embraced them. These interests of mine were not considered as serious professions and were looked down on back in the days, but with each generation, as the time changes, societal views change as well.
During my growing up years, in most Nigerian homes, they were coveted professions that parents chose for their children, Doctor, Pharmacist, Engineer, Lawyer and maybe nurse or teacher for those who are unable to fit into the other ‘chosen professions.’ I ended up studying Law since my language proficiency was considered excellent and my mama felt that my oratory skills would serve better in the law court. To cut a long story short, I have never been in a courtroom nor worked as a lawyer. My career path has vacillated over the years, however, these days, I find that my writing and speaking skills are being used more and more especially nowadays that we have social platforms that offers us the opportunity the embrace our latent skills.
Who knows, one day I may still venture down on the runway strutting my matronly stuff or on the stage acting my heart out, though I spend more time these days writing and teaching others.
Given that I grew up in a spacious bungalow spread out on its own compound with a large balcony and that through the years I have lived in either a duplex, townhouse or condo which usually comes with more living space, an apartment can be a squeeze.
My biggest hang-up is that there’s insufficient space to express myself and to set up my personal workspace, which kind of impacts on my ability to create the ambience that I want my workspace to have, to get into the zone and to focus on what I am doing. I love being surrounded by nature and growing plants/herbs, unfortunately, the heat of the Middle-East and lack of sufficient space does not make it conducive to go as green as I would love. Anyhow, I have indoor plants scattered around the house.
There is one central AC control which means that it is difficult to regulate the temperature in different parts of the house, so if it’s cold, it’s cold everywhere and vice-versa.
The AC ducts also brings in aromas/whiffs of our neighbours cooking or the smell of burning incense and a lot of times this happens in the middle of the night and being a light sleeper, heavy smells of garlic, fried onions, curry, spices, incense or what have you simply wakes me and keeps me up at night.
It is not all negative to say the least and over the years of living here, I have managed to create a cozy home for me and my family, but I do look forward to a time in the near future when I will leave the concrete jungle and return to something more spacious, private and surrounded by nature.
This is one of those topics that irks me. I guess I’m part of that percentage of humans who don’t have a favourite colour and simply finds something to love in every colour.
It used to bother me a whole lot when I was younger and gave me such angst that among my friends I seemed to be the only one who was undecided about her favourite colour, therefore, I was the odd one out. I struggled to choose which colour best defined my personality and being a part of society where you are required to choose and to fit it in, it can be odd at times when you are so undecided about something as simple as colour.
It took maturity to make me understand that it is absolutely okay not to have one specific colour that defines my personality and since I find that my moods, the place that I am going to, the occasion in question, how I want to be perceived etc. determines how I dress, I simply follow my feelings and wear whatever I feel like at that point in time.
I love all colours, bold, subtle, plain, splashy, in all shades and hues and I the arty side of me has learnt how to work colours to complement me.
In all sincerity, I can’t recollect any specific day so far that I can count on as the happiest day of my life. On my wedding day, I think I was a bit anxious about my guests having a good time and hoping that the wedding ceremony goes as well as planned to classify it as my happiest day. In retrospect, if I had to redo my wedding, I would do things a whole differently and have less crowd.
I have come to see happiness as a state of mind that persists in one’s life based on several factors such as being present and finding peace and joy in the moments that we have and not a temporary product of a specific event. As such, I work consistently to maintain as much level of contentment, fulfilment, joy and satisfaction as I possibly can by eliminating negativity and negative energy, by staying positive and doing those things that bring me that sense of happiness.
I have experienced great moments of joy when I gave birth to my babies, a sense of fulfillment when I published my books and beautiful memories of sublime moments with family and friends but there’s no singular day in life that I can pinpoint as the happiest day in my life. It is still non-existent, but who knows, maybe sometime soon in the near future such a day will come.
Several of my traditional home food evokes a whole lot of memories especially as I have been living outside my home county for decades now and unfortunately, our condiments are quite exorbitant here, thus, I don’t get to eat them as much as I would love to and sometimes the smell of anything similar to a traditional dish makes me feel nostalgic.
When I catch the whiff of fried plantain which we call ‘dodo’ I am reminded of my mothers warm kitchen, of nicking a slice or two of sweet plantain, of laughter and my mom’s reminders not to let the plantain burn and not to finish eating them whilst cooking.
The smell of party jollof rice simply brings joy. It is a staple in every Nigerian home and is synonymous with our celebrations both back home and in the diaspora. Wedding ceremonies, birthdays, child dedication, Sunday lunch, graduation even funerals et al.
A lot of quality family time means food shared, bonding, good music, camaraderie and love shared. I believe that I have somehow managed to transfer the love for jollof to my children especially my boys. They love eating spicy, delicious servings of Naija jollof and believe me, a good plate of flavourful jollof rice accompanied with essential condiments can make you hum with joy. It gives me a sense of home, warmth, culture and heritage that can’t be quantified.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 