Chizoba was it? Maybe Chibuzo. My first experience with love, like most humans, would be with receiving love and care from my parents, the elders in my family then my siblings. But that is expected, it is the way humans are. My first experience with love in a way that was visceral would be when I was 6. The northern architecture is beautiful, so much so that you must experience it to understand...
The kind so clearly different from grief. In that sadness lies regrets. The regrets from having not made those mistakes. Because now I would never know. Not destruction. I do not seek destruction. Hindsight give inference For the choices that should have been. The mistakes to have been made. So regret gives sadness And sadness enlightenment. Make some mistakes. Live a little Small...
Today I saw an “elaborate” ghastly accident on my way to work. A truck carrying cement was turned upside down with it’s sixteen tires facing up. I did not see any bodies. I hoped they were no bodies. I found out that the driver of the other car in the collision broke his neck. I do not know how a humans body works when a neck is broken, but I find myself hoping the owner survives the accident...
There is no certainties.
There is no sureties.
All that is certain is the uncertainty of life.
All that we share is the certainty of death.
That a life comes to an end.
And there is no tomorrow.
So while we are here yet,
while we are here now today,
live.
Not exist.
Live.
For you never know.
All you know is the uncertainty.
There are some things I find questionable about humanity. When asked where I am from, I am expected to say unequivocally where my father is from. I love my father a lot. Almost more than I love my life. So that is not the point of this sentence. Bearing a child does not necessarily make you a parent. Nurturing and raising one does. While it makes absolute sense that a child must bear the father’s...
I believe joy must feel different to everyone. What joy feels like to me must be different from what joy feels like to you. But sadness must be universal, and so must grief. Losing someone you love is the highest quality grief you would ever feel. I am sorry about the word quality. But the depth and breath of that emotion give to its quality. But you see, losing yourself is the greatest loss...
My time in Enugu taught me a few things about myself, in the way travelling does. I have a great fondness for locales with lots of old trees clustered together. And so I loved the village a lot. It was free, it was fun, I was very happy. Travelling engages you especially for a child’s curious mind. I asked an endless numbers of question on my first sights of many things. The zuma rock was...
Nkita was the first Igbo word I learnt. I do not think I knew another Igbo word for a long time after that. I am fluent in my language now. I will tell you the story of how I learnt to speak it later. During the time I spent in Enugu away from Kaduna, I managed to drink kerosene because I thought it was water. I had my first taste of breadfruit. I did not like it then. I do not like it now. My...
This is the story of my life. I have found it is necessary to not take life personally. I failed at a lot of things. I hope at the end of this series I have started to win at more things than I fail at. And that my successes are on a scale tremendously bigger than my failures. CN is an acronym of my name. CN is the first of five children born to Igbo parents of Nigeria, born in northern Kaduna...
In your journey of life, one day you suddenly understand time in perspective. It takes a human’s time from 1 day to an average of 90 and 150 years for the most extreme to grow and then die. It takes a tomato plant 30 days to 3 months. It takes a tree a few hundred years. And mountains a few thousand years. And so you wonder where you are in the midst of this. Are we but a puff of smoke in...