In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Your Number One.”Number one
My late dad adored music so much that now when I think of music and him, I think that he might have had a secret desire to be an artist or a maestro.
He played a plethora of tracks from diverse artists that right from my toddling days I grew up to appreciate and have an ear for all kinds of music. What I fail to understand is why I cannot carry a tune to match my love for music 😦
When I use the word diverse, this ranged from classics such as: Hallelujah from Handel’s Messiah, music from Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, James Brown, Bob Marley, The Jackson 5, Miriam Makeba, Fela Anikulap-Kuti, Sonny Okosun Elvis Presley, James Last, Don Williams, Dixie Chicks, John Lennon, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Donna Summer and a host of others
I think the music that sticks in my heart, the track that evokes bitter-sweet reminisce of my childhood and which makes my heart swell in gratitude to the man that nurtured me is the Jim Reeves classic “We Thank Thee”.
This was played in our house very early in the mornings and almost served as our waking call. Whenever I hear this track play anywhere, it transports me right back to our old family living room. To the smell of Sunday breakfast of fried eggs and plantain.
My dad helped to form the love that I have for music and dance today.
To you daddy, I say thank you and I love you always. May perpetual light continue to shine upon you as you rest in peace.
Please take a moment and listen to Jim Reeves, We thank thee and Halleujah from Handel’s Messiah.
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Tag: family
From pain to prayer…
What do you do, when each day seems like a struggle?
What do you do, when you are weary?
What do you do, when you are depressed?
When you are feeling ugly with negative emotions?
And everything around you seems to conspire to make it worse?
What do you do?
When the internal turmoils seems as if they will eat you up alive, from within?
What do you do when the anguish of your pain makes your eyes turn red?
And you feel like having a tiny switch button that you can turn on and take it all away?
So that you can experience blissful silence,
All your blues taken away.
Your vitriolic pain, your shame, your ugliness, your addiction, your anger, your depression, your fear, your bitterness, your mental anguish, your lack….,
All taken away at the flick of a button.
Your family have failed,
Your friends have failed,
The system has failed,
It all doesn’t seem right,
No human love seems enough,
To erase how you feel. That addiction has you in a choke hold, But you lack the will to stop,
That abusive relationship is killing you,
But stay in it you must,
No lover of yours, can fill the empty void inside you,
No booze, no drugs, no sex, no form of addiction, seems to help you out of the rabbit hole,
Hurt and pain of feeling lost are your steady companion,
Your grief hanging like a heavy cloak,
On your bowed shoulders from dawn to dusk,
Further pulling you down.
Yet you wear your smile,
Hiding your struggles behind the mask of your face,
Which is falsified like a clay cast,
You are trying to be strong,
Pretending to be strong,
Losing the essence of your authentic self, as each day goes along,
Pervaded by the feeling that you are not enough,
And that you can never be enough.
You float like a listless buoy, cast on roiling seas,
BECAUSE you seek for constant validation of fellow man,
Forgetting that he or she is equally fallible,
A mere human like you,
Bogged down by his/her own struggles, inner turmoils and pain,
Who cannot endorse neither the wind, nor the dust they were made of.
Ponder on the courage that you have to get up everyday.
The courage to face that job, to shoulder that pain, the hurt, the hunger, the loneliness, the lack, the emotional upheaval, the addiction and all the extra baggage.
Where do you think it comes from?
It comes from no other source; but from within you.
And you can do better
You can build that courage
Into a resilient dam of an over-comer.
BY CHOOSING NOT TO WALK ALONE!
The journey is harder when you walk alone,
BUT WHEN YOU CHOOSE GOD
Through Grace and Mercy
Through Faith and Hope
He leads you to Victory
A step at a time, out of the rabbit hole
A day at a time, to joy and peace
BUT ONLY IF YOU BELIEVE…
BE still and know that there is GOD.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Introducing myself: Blogging 101
Let’s hope I don’t bore you to death with my ramblings on this assignment of “who I am and why I am here” in the blogosphere.
Jacqueline, the face behind acookingpotandtwistedtales, is a passionate Nigerian woman.
I am a wordsmith (on the cusp of authorship, in my mind at least). I am an entrepreneur, an advocate of truth and moral values, a people’s person, a motivator and a bi-linguist; French/English (also attempting to pick as many languages as I can, even just in their smattering forms).
I am the spouse of an interesting and intelligent gentleman who makes each day in my life spontaneous and devoid of boredom.
I am a mother of children who keep all my faculties engaged (physical and non-physical).
So this is me, an avid reader (not mind reader, unfortunately), an everyday woman with a passion for life and family.
I love to sing in my wobbly voice (who cares), to dance and strut my stuff and to laugh heartily. I love fitness and good nutrition when I can encourage my other lazy self to lace on her training shoes and not to eat all the cake.
I am still a child of Evolution.
I started blogging when I got tired of keeping my thoughts penciled in my journals (I still pencil though). It serves as a voice to some internal thoughts and turmoils. I think in clarity, I recuperate and I exhale when I write. It is therapeutic for me.
I see a story in everything, humorous, serious, life matters, beauty, child rearing or anything that inspires me that we might have in common as humans.
So here I am, exhaling after a long time of staying under water.
If I blog successfully throughout the next year, I would have cultivated the discipline of settling down to write and ramble. I would (hopefully) have finished the drafts of the three novels that I am working on.
Indeed it would be good to arrive at those goals, but I believe that the trip through blogging would be a whole lot of fun.
I look forward to meeting and interacting with other members of this community.
Yours in sincerity,
Jacqueline.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 