2019 and its lessons

Hi there! 

I know I promised to share the lessons I learned in 2019 with you and though I expected to share them before the year (2019) ended, here we are on the 10th day of January now on it. 

Last year’s Christmas holidays went by so fast I barely blinked before they were over. Nope, it wasn’t as tedious as last years’ but I was hoping I could rest a little bit longer before returning to work, but anyways, let’s jump right into it shall we? This blogpost is about the lessons I learned in the wonderful year of 2019.

Let’s start with the things I learned. Lemme pop a disclaimer here. Now I may have learned these things this year but some are just confirmations, meaning I may have known them already.

1. People treat how others how they are treated. I got a deeper understanding into how people behave and how our actions are influenced mainly by childhood trauma and the things around us amongst other things. This got me to assess gracefully how or why someone was acting a particular way towards me. Most at times it’s not my actions but how others have related to that person, which then shapes their worldview and induces the nature of their actions and reactions. I took things less personal knowing this, and trust me, knowing/learning this is freeing.

2. People are both replaceable and irreplaceable. Contrary to the popular “You’ll never find anyone like me “quotesemphasizing the irreplaceability of people, I found that heck yeah! People can be replaced. Let no one lie to you;people, places, things can be replaced, which is not a sad reality but a beautiful one which feeds into the continuity of mankind and its systems. Hence, life goes on! But in the midst of it all, the individuality and uniqueness of the minutest of details is appreciated which feeds into the amazingness of God’s creativity, because of all the things He created, no two alike species are entirely the same and I stand to be corrected.

3. There is a time for everything. Act fast! Time is not merely a social construct but a major element which governs a lot of things in our world. I see people fleetly inventing conspiracy theories about just anything and hiding behind wokeness as a footstool. Guess what? Accurate timekeeping may have been invented by man but there is such a thing as a right time and a wrong time for everything, yes..everything. This discovery has led me to believe that acting in the now is sometimes better than waiting for when you are comfortably ready because opportunities do not always present themselves appealingly.

4. 2019 also taught me that grace is beautiful to possess but hardwork and grace mixed in one potion produces beautiful fireworks. Now let’s think of grace as a beautiful swan on a lake. It seems to move on the still water with ease but what eyes cannot see is that its webbed feet are putting in effort under the surface of the water. Grace is like floating, effortlessly.  It feels good to know that achieving something is not as hard as others make it to be. However, allowing for laziness to set in is what I want I want to elaborate on here. Possessing grace but being lazy only allows for you to not achieve your fullest potential, and so hardwork is your friend here. Imagine life this way, and the many feats you’d conquer by this.

5. I realized that people love power more than I thought. Now this became more profound to me this year as I noticed a lot about what occurred around me and observed a lot about people’s behavior, and you know what? I also observed that it is usually expressed subtly.

6. Challenges are exciting feats to conquer when you know you’ve done your homework. Truth is, we all have faced or still face some challenges in our lives. Some have tried to suck the life out of us and yet we’re still standing, but what if I told you that challenges mostly occur to help shape us for the next levels of your lives. When faced with pain-wrenching difficulties, why don’t you stop to think about what you could learn from it? Know that you have already overcome (and live it), even before challenges come your way because believe it or not, it goes a long way, at least for me.

 

And so there you go! A few lessons learned in 2019. 2020 beckons to greater lessons, wider smiles, and more enormous blessings ,and not only is it a new year, it’s a new decade!

Thanks for sticking with me.

 

 

Light, 

Maxinne. 

 

 

 

I’m Back !!

Ho Ho Ho guys! It’s been ages since I posted on here and despite the million and one resolves to revive this blog, this is the day the Lord has made!

This year has been something else and I mean that in every sense, but mostly in a good way because boy has it been a ride. Growth has been the word that has resonated in my mind since the genesis of 2019 and has been the filter with which the sequence of my days played out. Like a vehicular beacon, it beamed without apology, but with warm colours, in a way that it brought to my understanding that it was for the better.

I must admit that I was anxious about the unknown, knowing fully well from past experiences that growth was just a bland prick with a salty laughter and so no, I could not trust the process, but guess what, I did. And no, growth wasn’t bland (ok, sometimes), but trusting the process (to God ofcourse) was the best decision ever.

And so that brings me here. Back to my first love; writing. People have their silent and subtle pleasures that allow for them to feel alive or whatever, be it soaking in the feel of rain, nursing a precious cactus or exploring the world in wanderlust. Whatever, that may be you, writing is to me and I feel like this year went by so fast and beautifully, I was not able to write as much as I should have. Though I made a bold move by getting a poetry Instagram and actually posting (I barely even post on mine!). You can check it out here. 

With all that 2019 has taught me, one thing that stands out is that the pidgin phrase ‘time no dey ‘ (meaning there’s no time) is both true and false depending on how you see it. I’d like for you to imagine speeding at 120km/h, wind in your hair under the blazing sun. Now that was me. Juggling work, relationships, church and my business was one tedious ride on the highway, and realizing halfway through the year that I wasn’t living enough was a wakeup that couldn’t have come soon enough. I began to infuse intentionality into my actions; be it talking to God or stirring a cup of coffee, and that helped me assess a lot of things in my life.

In my next post, I will go more into the lessons I learned and unlearned in 2019. Nonetheless, it feels good to be back!

 

With Light,

Maxinne

 

Of changing times

Of time and love

Of seasons and dreams

Enveloped in a ravishing gift

You have given me

Of tears and feats

Of serendipity and the unknown

Your gift of a cocktail had just the right amount of indulging and sour

Of beginning again and owning your truth

Of shrugging it off and smiling through the storm

The brick road laid out for me, j will follow

Embracing the gold and then the yellow.

– benyiwah

The Cathedral

The rubble spread and own the ground
The haughty murals recoil
Prim buildings that line the streets crumble to the ground
Folks stare at the vestige
It used to be a fine place, fine town
But there lies an anomaly
Right in the middle of this town lies a structure of steeple and nobility
It’s unharmed and pristine
No faults, not even a hint of a crack
It stands up high
Holding its dome with pride
Folks stare at the incongruity
It’s something that can’t hide.
….The Cathedral

Man As His Own Prophet.

I’ve been thinking lately. My thought-processes have started to linger deeply and connive lavishly with my soul. I’ve always been a deep person but in this case, it’s a matter of being consciously aware of the levels and depths I can dive.

Do you believe man is his own prophet? Been battling with this question for days after finishing Bessie Head’s “A Question Of Power” . It’s a very insightful book yet bemusing. It takes you on an empowering journey…highly plummeting. It opened my eyes to the baffling events that spun around the black/colored race years ago. Imagine being reduced to being stupid, no-good, ugly, what not. The sad thing is it’s still happening today. It’s one weighty issue I can’t start to rattle about now. Yes. Do you believe we’re our own prophets? Of course I’m not talking about literally. Why wait on someone to change the world(your world) when you can do it. You can effect change if you start now, if you believe with all your heart you can.

As at now people say that Kwame Nkrumah should have waited ‘small’ so the whites would rule us for sometime before liberation action. I cry silently within each time I hear this. Why regret ? He did us good. More good that anyone could fathom. It was an action that had so much written in between the lines. THE BLACK MAN CAN MANAGE HIS OWN AFFAIRS! We could manage our own affairs. Why couldn’t we manage our own affairs? You see? We as a people also have a role to play with the value we place on ourselves just like currency. We don’t think we can do this or that and that some other ‘superior race’ can do it better. Hell no! Hell frigging no! We are all equal. We are all the same. Brother A, because of his skin color is not better than Brother B. They are all the same. Equal.

So yes. My point exactly is that we can do it. We can be whoever we want to be under the sun…and change starts with ourselves. We can’t begin by changing the world around us when deep within us we’re not mended and think we cannot do it; succeed in life. You are your own prophet…’sent down’ to effect change wherever you find yourself to make the world a better place. Let nobody tell you that because of your skin color you can’t do it. Or because you’re too short, tall, fat, hairy, dumb. Whatever. We have our roles to play… our roles to play in being mankind’s prophets.

P.S. This is what I feel. May be the truth(glory to God!). Just know everything..(everything!) has an element of contradiction in it. I’m just saying.

Not Again

The room is painted orange by your smile.
Though it is pouring outside,
your presence alone calms the storm of a racket my emotions strum; their fingers conspicuously bleeding.
But they have nothing on you.
A full package, that’s what you are
Your captivating eyes and luscious lips,
full breasts and slender hips makes my heart ache a tad that you aren’t mine
You haven’t told me about who that lucky guy is though?
Moments spent with you are golden
Like the time you lay your head on my thigh as I played with your hair and we chatted away last Saturday on my couch.
No, wait. Just one of my imaginations
Like, uh, the time we threw sand at each other playfully at the beach and chased each other.
Wait, wait
Okay we haven’t spent much or any time together but I know they’ll be golden
I like the way you touch my face
It’s ticklish and the sensation is surreal
I like how serious you look anytime you’re walking up to me
Your ponytail today looks mwuah!
And ooh baby, I love your dress today too.
Accentuates all the right places. If you know what I mean.
Ouch!
A cane lands on my head and you’re standing akimbo facing me with the cane in your hand.
I can’t believe I was daydreaming in class again. The class roars with laughter as you instruct me sternly to walk out of your class.
Not again.

 I’ve been feeling quite bleh these days. As though all my energy has been sucked away by some alien life-form that has gone into hiding and never to be discovered. I feel my life is going so slow, it’s hard to keep up. Like sooo slowww. I feel I’m loosing out on so much.

my breathe seizes to realize the truth within my heart
and so keeps on,
keeps on tying the loose ends, tearing into fibered skins
and stabbing into the flesh of my soul.
i am almost defunct.
You make me the more you annihilate me,
fix me the more you break me,
complete me within and without…wholly.
i cannot help the conflict within me.
i cannot deny myself and walk the opposite way just immediately and smoothly.
how long do i have to use You this way, Lord?
how far do i have to walk in direction A, retrace to B and begin again,
my rehearsed steps and actions only an agonizingly pitiful offbeat song,
almost with no possible ending.
for what is love, if not expressed?
pain, if not to transform?
joy, if the heart knows no day?
and i, if your full sun in me is only exuberating just a painful iota of its goodness?
i love You, i must show it
…And i will

The Liberty Song

This, as the title gives, was originally written as a song. May come off as dark. May not. You decide.

Here comes our first real trip
This is the moment
This is the time
We will be triumphant
Enough of grime
Call us resplendent
God’s our pillar, we’ll be fine
We’ll blow the dust off
This is the time

Good the caked blood disrupted the wheels of your carts
Your beguiling selves could not burn out the fire within our hearts
The only brightness we saw were in your dark gleaming eyes
Spread across your lips, hellish smiles, now rusting in the pit of mire

We tread along these crossroads,
Gladdened we’re living dreams once told
By the dried cries from throats of old
Meandering with beams once helpless, a groan

Mia

 

Cold stares run our mood

And the air we breathe

A little negotiator of war

A bridge to a dark world,

Playing time

Playing patience

Playing humanity

The adrenalin surges through my veins, thumping hard

Steering my body,

A digesting tantrum registered.

You? Likewise.

Your porcelain skin turns coal hot

And your ever clear eagle-grey eyes darken with hell’s rage.

You pull out the weapon, an epitome of the deciding factor of the very end

Fist -clenched, mine.

It wasn’t necessary.

We wrestle like cats on the floor,

Your grip loosening gradually on the weapon.

Or was it?

POW!

. . . . . . .

I – I . . . .

It wasn’t me!!

No!!!

I can’t look!!!

This can’t be happening…

Here you are in my arms, bleeding from the guts,

Shot. . . .

Mia!!!

. . . . It happened so fast.

. . .

It sucks here, Mia.

This hell-hole I’ve come to live in.

If only I could turn back the hands of time.

It’s a shame…

It’s a shame I cannot, try as I can, even, remember why and how it all started.

You…were all I had.

As it now stands, I shall be joining you…soon.

….Soon, where you are.

…..Soon, with you.

….Soon, Mia.