It was the perfect wedding. The sun had shone just at the right proportion. The storybook garden where they shared their vows was dreamy. Everything was as it should be. Sublime.
Yet Cecilia felt some restlessness in her spirit. Helmut is a perfect match. Mother loved him very much and approved of him. Even her picky friends liked him well enough. They considered him the dashing, wealthy European.
Their marital vows felt like a constriction to her vocal chords. She shook off the inner voice and focused on the sizzle. She loves Helmut, he’s a passionate lover and even as every cell in her body screamed ‘don’t‘ she said I do.
It didn’t take a long time for her to realize that the marriage was a huge mistake.
Helmut’s perceived candour turned to blunt cruelty. His passion became an obsession. He smothered her to death.
Mabel is now at the Autumn of her life, watching the sun-rises and the sun-sets while filling her days with little chores, knitting and waiting for her loved ones to visit.
Christmas is just a few weeks away and she can feel it in her bones already.
Some days, her arthritic pains plagued her, but today is a good day. Her children and their spouses will be arriving soon for their fortnightly dinner.
They had taken it upon themselves to share their visits in batches and come more often since their father passed on.
She preferred to keep her house and didn’t want to move in with any of her children so as not to cramp their style.
Christmas brought special memories and was chock full of nostalgia for her.
Her life with Dan started 43 years ago during Christmas until a misstep on the ladder 3 years past, had sent him in throes of pain with a slipped disc and down the slippery slope of one medical issue or the other until he slept off peacefully.
She recalls mirthfully, how their romance started so many years back. It had all began with a misstep as well.
As she walked down the pews after communion that Sunday morning, Dan had suddenly placed his long leg in her path and an attempt to side step found her tripping and sprawling in Church to her utter dismay.
She had been beetroot red in the face as he stood, all 6 ft 4 inches of him to help her up. He apologized so nicely and that was it. They fell in love and their beautiful union produced five wonderful children.
She always said that an Angel had a hand in placing Dan’s big feet on her path, that the misstep was a benevolent high point and divine orchestration in her life.
Thoughts of Dan always filled her with bitter-sweet emotions.
The ring of voices at the door, alerted her of their arrival. She could hear little Dan’s chatter.
Her four year old grand-son is a spitting image of his grandpa.
It’s a no-brainer that I should follow my heart when I toppled over in love with my husband, right?
Or, should I say, when he didn’t let me get away?
I was so focused on building a career. I had a fantastic job with The Delegation Of The European Union. A young lady with a bright future and a job that opened up so many doors and windows.
Then love came calling and stole my heart away and before I could even say Jack Robinson, he whisked me off to the altar, after a whirlwind courtship of six months.
That was a bold step and today, here we are, sixteen years after and counting.
It was a tough decision for me to leave my job and join my husband back in Lagos and we tried the long-distance thing for a while which was maddening for both of us.
At a point, I knew that I couldn’t take it much longer and decided to resign from my mouth-watering job.
I committed my steps into the hands of The Lord and joined my husband with my rounded belly in tow.
It took no time at all for me to gain a solid employment with British American Tobacco and the rest is history.
Sometimes, I do ponder on the thought: what if I had refused to get entangled with my husband and had stuck to the vision of working my way up as an aspiring diplomat?
I would have probably met some of those diplomatic career goals, who knows.
I will never know the answer to what my life might have turned out to be, but I can’t visualize a life without my family and I have no regrets to have taken this path.
All I know is that ‘all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord.’ Rom 8:28
It’s been a couple of weeks since Tess bothered to connect with anyone online.
A number of pings had come in, but she was tired of trying to imagine who the real person was; behind the eyes and their best profiles showing off their best angles.
After her last dates debacle, she was a bit down in dating spirit and also leery about jumping back into the fray.
She had no idea what kind of fish she might catch again. Would it be a friendly snapper, a piranha, a barracuda, an octopus or an outright snarky shark. Her man fishing luck hadn’t yet yielded much dividend.
Mark looked like a decent sort according to the online matching criteria and their brief chats whetted her appetite to meet him.
”Okay! This is one more taking a chance. Third time lucky or simply not.”
No dressing to the nines for this particular date. A nice pair of slacks paired with soft flowery cashmere blouse and comfortable pumps, she was good to go.
They had agreed to meet at Mid-Point, a pub favoured by the young and smart.
She waited for twenty minutes in her little car, admired her shiny new nail polish and when she felt certain that he would have arrived, she strolled into the crowded pub.
It’s Friday evening and the happy hour crowd were gathered in little cliques.
She paused for a bit as her eyes did a quick scan of the room to identify the face that had stared back at her over the past few days.
He had proposed skyping but she still didn’t get the hang of it and for some reason the idea didn’t quite gel with her.
”Hello Tess?” A hesitant voice that belonged to a pleasant faced looking chap asked as he stepped up to her.
With her acknowledgement, they got seated in a nice spot which offered vantage view of the pubs goings-on.
”He looks okay.” Her little sensible voice argued with her cheekier goddess voice that thought Mark had no ‘oomph’ about him.
”Well, those ones who have loads of oomph always seem to have baggage of trouble as well, remember Tim?” Sensible voice reminded inner goddess.
Soon enough they had their orders placed and got down to having a chat.
”Hmm! This is really delicious. Thank you for telling me to choose this.” Taking a long sip of the Chipotle grapefruit margarita, Tess expressed her delight with the drink.
”It’s really good right? That’s Shawna’s favorite drink too.” Realizing his gaffe, he quickly tried to cover it up, but, it did not take a long time for Tess to realize that Mark was still totally hung up on his ex-girlfriend.
Every tail of their discussion found a way of swinging back to his past relationship, to his sadness, bitterness and disappointment.
It came as no surprise to learn that Mid-point was Mark and Shawna’s fave pub. He probably kept coming back in hope of catching a glimpse of his ex.
It was embarrassing for Tess to watch as his eyes involuntarily kept drifting around in expectation.
From all indications, he was simply on a rebound and if Shawn changed her mind and came back to him, any unlucky new lady involved with Mark would be dropped like hot potato.
He was a nice chap, from all indications, but he just wasn’t the one for her.
Her heart went out to the nice young man seated before her. She knew what it felt like to love someone who just didn’t love you back.
She had been in such a relationship in the past and had no intentions of investing her emotions anymore in a one-sided affair. She felt sorry for Mark but not sorry enough to be a second fiddle.
Her man was somewhere out there waiting to find her, but she wasn’t sure it was going to be online.
Her nerves couldn’t take all the dating anxiety and gambles like Kate had. There has to be a better way but she is yet to find it.
Like you already know, I love digging in the neighbours yard. One never knows the treasures that may be found within. I present to you this bits that I found:
Tess took another quick peek at the mirror of her compact powder.
No, there’s no dodgy piece of green stuff stuck on any dentition.
Yes, her lip gloss still shimmered.
Her hair still looked healthy and soft; every strand was in the right place.
A bit of powdering to stop any shiny nose, a second look at the slender wrist watch and it was time to go into the restaurant.
It hadn’t been easy sitting out the past fifteen minutes in her car waiting for the appropriate time to step in. She had tortured herself with all manners of imagined dating debacles.
Any respectable young lady shouldn’t turn up for a first date ahead of the time agreed with the guy, she remembered Kate’s advise. It would make her appear too desperate.
Striking a balance is just the right thing. Ten or Fifteen minutes after the scheduled time, then you stroll in leisurely, in controlled steps with just the right amount of swagger to the hips.
Thistle Bar, just the right kind of place for a first time online hook-up. It was her first time in there and it was quite decent.
It was a high street casual bar which was not too high end pricey and not too drive thru junk-food kind of place. Just a balance of both.
He had said he would be wearing a coffee coloured shirt and she told him that she would be wearing fushia. He hadn’t known what fushia looked like precisely, so she had sent a picture of the dress.
It was one of her best colours and lovely dress hugged her curves in the right places.
That must be him, as a pair of eager eyes lit up in her direction. The face looked recognizable and the shirt was dark coffee coloured.
She picked her way past a few rows of seated customers, a tentative smile plastered on her face.
As she approached him, he stood up like a gentleman and Tess’s heart sank to the bottom of her peep toe heeled sandals.
He was not tall by any standard whatsoever! As a matter of fact, in her opinion, he was hugely short.
She quickly ran through her mind, checking to determine if she had seen an indication of height on his bio.
Was height not important? Was it mentioned or not mentioned? She couldn’t remember but her hopes had just received it’s first dashing.
She liked her men tall and had never dated a guy shorter than herself before.
Patrick was fairly an okay character. He even made her smile a couple of times, but there was absolutely no spark – at least on her own side.
The meet-up was not a bad one at all, though she could not afford to eat out often, but hey, if you want to eat omelet, you have to crack some eggs.
She doubted very much if there would be a repeat date. He didn’t ask and she didn’t suggest.
Believe me when I tell you that I ate so much humble pie in the earlier years of my marriage, that it’s not a surprise I got a bit more ample and humble over time.
There were so many instances, that I cannot even begin to recount.
At the start of married life, I assumed that my husband was an Almighty Druid who should be able to read my mind; this was regardless of the 6 months compulsory per-marital counseling classes that we were made to attend.
I think that my mind was doodling wedding gowns in the clouds and what not, when they talked about that communication part.
Well, after the lovely wedding and the romantic honeymoon, we got into the real deal. I had never lived with a man prior to that time, I had never had a husband, so it was trial by error 😉
I see things in brilliant and different hues of colours and my husband sees them in grays and black, so, I learnt that men are truly from a different planet; maybe Mars like they said and women in a World of their own. Though I can say that some of my colours are beginning to rub off on him 😉
After several erroneous assumptions, mostly on my part, and several courses of eating humble I-am-sorry pies, I had to re-calibrate as I realized that:
No, my husband is not a mind reader, though it seems that years of being together are now turning him into one.
No, he is not a druid but, like in the first instance, some magic is happening now.
I realized that in order to make it work, our communication had to get better than my sitting on my high horse with my nose stuck up in the air, expecting him to know those things that lay within my heart and mind, and I daresay that after 15 years, I think we are getting somethings right, since we even finish each others sentences these days 🙂
Now, it’s time to shed the pounds of the humble-over-the- years pies that got stuck on my hips.
After hours of journey on bumpy, dusty roads, arriving his village was euphoric for Ikem.
Mama did a little praise dance when she saw him, and did some more praise-singing, showering him with edifying names when he brought out the things that he came back with.
Friends and cousins equally returned, it would be a good time.
He went greeting kith and kin, strategically launching his new clothes and holding his phone conspicuously for all to see. It’s show time for everyone and he has no intention of being the poorest looking cousin.
Christmas Eve’s night service was a hit as usual. A gathering of old, new, returnees and home bound indigenes. It is doubtful that half of the people at the church service came for the prayers.
Sweethearts fell back in the dark shadows of twilight to hold hands and whisper sweet nothings.
Young rascally boys scared the maidens by tossing penny banger’sin their direction, their squeals of fright an entertainment for them.
It’s a dreamy time of the year, lavishly spent relaxing, binge eating, showing off, going to look at and running from the masquerades, attending a lot of social events….
Eligible young men returned seeking handpicked brides from their villages.
Marriageable girls strut their stuff at Obodo Ukwu, Obodo Ububo and everywhere the opportunity rose, to attract proposals from the city boys.
Hi-Life music blares into the air till the wee hours of the night. Nuptial introductions and lots of traditional marriages are constantly taking place in one clan or the other.
Mama wants to know when Ikem would choose a wife. In fact, her heart and eyes were set on one of Ifemeka’s daughters Kanyinulia.
From Mama’s assessment, the girl is quite sturdy, with nice child-bearing hips, very industrious and pretty too! She makes her thoughts known to Ikem.
”Nna, have you seen Ozo Ifemeka’s daughter Kanyinulia?” ”That girl will make a good wife for you.” ”It is my thought that we should express our interest in her to her family.” ”Her mother is a good friend too you know..”
”Ha! Mama, please not now.” ”Maybe in a few years time.” ”Let me get to Onitsha first and see how things go over there.”
”Hei! My son, if we waste time, another family can pick her out for their son o.” ”That girl is a good catch.”
”Mama, let us pray that things go well, then next year, okay?”
He is happy he visited home. His cousin has agreed to accommodate him at Onitsha while he seeks his future.
He joins his age-grade in their outing masquerade dance.
His satisfaction is soul deep. He knows that his future holds brighter times ahead.
Links to earlier parts of the series are at the top of the page.
Quick Glossary:
Banger: small cheap fireworks that make a lot of noise.
Ifemeka: Igbo name which means ‘things have happened.’
Kanyinulia: An Igbo name for a girl which means ‘let us be happy.’
Nna: An Igbo word for ‘father’. Mothers at times fondly call their sons by such pet name.
Obodo Ukwu: ‘The big square’ A social gathering ground where people go to be seen, to see and mingle.
Obodo Ububo: ‘The sweet/fun square’ A social gathering ground where people go to be seen, to see and mingle.
Onitsha: A city with one of the largest commercial markets in West Africa. It is situated on the river port on the eastern bank of the Niger river in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria.
Ozo: A highly respected title to a worthy male indigene of a village. Not a cheap process.
Its fun to dig in my neighbours gardens and I never come up empty. Links for you to enjoy.
The Sun sets, leaving wisps of orange and lavender ribbons across the blue tinted sky.
Anastasia leans on the rail of the promenade deck of the cruise-liner, her soft floral dress blowing in the breeze. Alastair’s muscular arms wrap around her, sharing his warmth in the gentle breeze.
It’s a beautiful day. Their wedding day.
A clear Autumn sky without a gloomy cloud in sight. The aisle and pews decorated with hues of Autumn, in orange gold, red and faded green; her best season of all.
She felt like a fairy princess floating down the aisle to a wedding march of soft tinkle of waterfall and chirping sounds of birds, accompanied by the choristers well modulated sweet rendition of their song. The wedding party was sublime. Everything! Picture perfect!
As the ocean-liner cuts through the waters to a blissful honeymoon, Alastair nuzzles and plants a soft kiss behind her ears. She wants the moments to last forever.
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a cooking pot and twisted tales 