One advantage of writing is that your senses are heightened as you go about doing life. I recall Biko (yes he has a face. Pay me and I might just tell you what he looks like) telling us in one of his master writing classes that you can never run out of stuff to write about. As long as your senses are aware of your surroundings and encounters then you will find a story in almost anything. Oyunga Pala confirmed it by saying that many times a writer is blank but when you open up your laptop and stare at it, words start flowing from your head to your fingers and an article chomokas.
About three weeks ago I went to support a charity golf event that belongs to the church where I grew up – St Andrew’s PCEA church. We are those guys who during a fiery church sermon only jump in our hearts – never showing strong emotion in church. It was nice meeting some of my seniors who guided us as we grew up. My pal Richmond who is also my mum’s buddy invited me to play with him. It’s funny that he’s my age mate but close friend of my mum. That’s different in a fresh way. Like what do they talk about?
That day I met a young lady called Wangui who was from Safari Park Hotel. They were one of the sponsors of the event. We got chatting and as all sponsors do she tried to sell her hotel to me so that I can take business there or patronize it somehow. I must have looked influential to her hehe. As we chatted I found out that she loves poetry and writes quite a bit. I think writers should form the 45th tribe in Kenya. Right then it’s like we had discovered we are related. She sent me some of her work (check it out on #kuiwrites) and I found it quite impressive. One of the quotes she sent spoke a ton to me. We hear that a picture speaks a thousand words but some words can draw a master piece.
What if the light at the end was dimmed by your own darkness? I stared at that quote for a long minute. It made me reflect on the journey that has been my life especially now on the fourth floor. Could it be that the light we seek or see at the end of the tunnel is as bright as those LED floodlight towers that light up the Nairobi neighborhoods at night? Yet to us it looks like a weak candle light that’s about to be blown off by the wind from our breath of anxiety.
As I’ve mentioned before here I see my life as a sum total of what I call God- incidences (not coincidences). As I look back its clear that I’ve mostly moved with the tide and tried to focus on the task at hand then I get surprised by the results. It’s like my many blind spots are only out of sight for me and not for the universe or others in my life at that moment in time. That has always got me curious. Why can’t I see what others are seeing in me? I suspect it’s for my own good and especially now in my forties, being blind (or seeing dimly) seems to be a requirement for graduation into our second half.
That is a good thing because I think it helped me not to settle. A huge risk though is you could be headed down a slippery slope and not aware until you crash. That’s why I bring God into the picture and call them God-incidences because He acts as an airbag of sorts in case of a crash. I’ve covered some reasonable ground in my first half even though I don’t feel like it sometimes.
Folks, could it be that sometimes the discomfort of stuff we going through gets so much that we lose sight of where we are going or want to go? I wonder if sometimes the darkness we have accumulated in our first half (0 – 40 years) is so much that even when we are under the flood light of possibility it looks like we are standing under a candle. No one is immune to the trials and tribulations of life so we will sometimes discover we are over our baggage limit when at the check in counter about to board the flight into our second half of significance.
Life happens. No wonder many folks’ status on their social media accounts reads – complicated. Kui’s quote has made me start checking the baggage I’m carrying. I need to evaluate what I should get rid of so as to travel light and see the light. This is equal to shining the torch inward so as to clean house then the light outside may just shine brighter as if it’s a reflection of the growing brightness within.
I don’t know about you folks but for me the fear of poverty and dependence is one of the contributors to my darkness. Yet I’m in a space where faith and positivity is required in huge portions. It’s always the case when at crossroads. I have wrestled that fear for a long time as it threatened to take me back to the comfort zone that has been doing what I’ve always done for the last twenty years. The God incident here is that that watering hole dried up and I was forced to wander off in search of a new watering hole of my new purpose and destiny. This is unfolding slowly but nicely. It seems the more we attempt to allow the light within to shine the brighter the light at the end of the tunnel becomes. Looking within entails taking care of what we need to now. As a result, what we need in future will start showing up pole pole.
I am off to clean my windows, I need that external light to shine in. Good work bro