Tres Enchante

reflections

2011-07-09T00:59:00.001-07:00

I sit down today in my dressing gown, occassionally peeping across at my newly born son and ponder. Am I today even half the person I set out to be? Granted some of the ideals I had in my thoughtful teens were mere flights of fancy but I did set some pretty solid foundations of who I hoped to be. Now 13 years later I wonder, true I know who I am today but if my 15year old self met me today would she recognise me? Would she approve of thejob that I seem to have settled myself into? Would she drool over the life partner I chose? Would she gaze and admire my maturen not so perfect body? Perhaps I set myself standards too high. Because relying on the hormone induced imagination of a teenager mighty not yield desired results. Instead today I critically look at myself through my mature 28year old eyes. I see a strong woman, a mother of two amazing boys, a wife to a wonderful man, a lawyer whose career is about to soar, whose body bears all the stretch marks and scars that tell the story of a life well lived.

New Blog

2011-04-12T03:16:00.001-07:00

i decided to chronicle my baby journey in a new blog, check it out: www.yummymummyfromzim.blogspot.com

Halfway Mark!

2011-02-09T22:05:00.000-08:00

i cant believe i am halfway through this pregnancy, it feels kinda surreal. 20 whole weeks of carrying a little somebody, and now the somebody is really making their presence felt, it feels like its party up in there most of the time. so state of mind: happy, content, excited. State of body: not so good, i always thought i was born to do this but eish its been more of a challenge than i anticipated. i wish my first one wasnt so smooth sailing ( no i dont really) but at least i would have been prepared for this one. still we soldier on!

little one is a bit of a globetrotter, was in Europe in December in the dead of winter, we are off again next week. hopefully the ice has thawed and it will be nicer!

P/s in case you hadnt noticed this one one lazy baby hence the absence from blogville. ((yawwwn))

Wake me up when the new year gets here! or is it here already? (((((yawn))))

2011-01-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

Its been way too long since I came to blogville and I thought I would do a courtesy call, my page was feeling a bit neglected. It’s a new year, new adventures and new expectations. I am not sure exactly how I feel about 2011. Its almost as if I haven’t yet wrapped my head around the fact that we have entered a new year. It seems as if its just a page that we have turned in the calendar. And that scares the daylights out of me. I haven’t done the “obligatory” reflection on the previous year. I haven’t planned for the new year in any way. In fact for all I know I am still on holiday, that’s how blasé I am about the new year! Hmmm…
Not that there is nothing at all that is happening in my life, far from it. One of the most exciting ( read exhausting, scary yet wow) adventures of my life is happening. I am gonna be a mommy again! Ok I know my martenal instincts kicked in the moment I gave my first cry ( after all we ladies are already born with all our eggs intact and all isn’t it?), yet I cant help feeling a bit nervous about doing it twice over. My first baby was a surprise, and the pregnancy was smooth and niggle-free, even the birth was a surprise. (no wonder my son is so full of surprises). This time around I am not so sure, I spent the first three months feeling utterly horrible and wanting to sleep all the time. I know I am supposed to be all glowing and stuff, but stuff it this is hard work! I love my baby I really do and I think conception is one of the most amazing miracles, but I cant wait to love her from OUTSIDE my body!
So anyway I shall try and sit down and see if I can map a way forward for 2011, but truthfully speaking, from where I stand a week into the new year, looks like I am just gonna roll with it, for the most part. Maybe it’s the preggy hormones but darn it, its too much hard work trying to figure out what to do with the year.

Happy new year people!!!!!!!!

random

2010-11-03T05:22:00.001-07:00

Addiction: (Noun)
The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming

I never fancied myself to have an addict’s psyche, but I guess each one of us has that one thing which we don’t realize that we are obsessively drawn to. I am not even sure if mine is an addiction, but I have discovered something about myself that quite amused me. I am crazy about magazines. Now ordinarily this is a statement which would not raise even a single strand of eyebrow. 90% of the female population likes magazines. But for me, there is something about the smell and feel of a brand new magazine that gives me something akin to euphoria
Euphoria: (noun)
an exaggerated or abnormal sense of physical and emotional well-being not based on reality or truth, disproportionate to its cause,

I am absolutely happy when I open a new magazine and I settle down to its glossy gloriousness, and devour its witty pieces and beautiful pictures. I have certain magazines that I buy every single month, whether or not I have the money. In fact I should just subscribe to them and get it over with. My only challenge is even though the popular adage says opposites attract, I got married to a man with just as much insane love for magazines, the guy kind of course. So now we are faced with the possibility of having to dedicate a whole room as a magazine library. People tell me to give them away, I look at them with daggers in my eyes. I am not selfish but I just like to hold on to my babies, every so often I go back and re-read articles from four years back.
That’s just me, if this deserves a straight-jacket, bring it on!

Assistance required Blogville, please!!!!

2010-10-13T02:37:00.000-07:00

I cant believe i am doing this but i am near desperate (lol thats a bit drammatic) but anyway if anyone passes through this page and sees this, please help me. i am looking for a song called RICH- BY BRENT JONES AND THE TP MOBB. please help i have been looking for it for years.

serious food for thought

2010-09-30T01:16:00.000-07:00

A discussion with a friend today got me thinking about a controversial issue. Now if you are African ( at least southern African I am not aware of the cultures in other parts of Africa) you will be aware of the custom of paying the bride price. This is when a man decides he wants to marry a woman and approaches her family with gifts and in modern days hefty amounts of money and cattle as bride price. It is only after paying these that you get your wife and take her home with you. Now some feminists have made so much noise about this practice saying it oppresses women, that men treat women like objects because they say that they “paid “ for them. it’s all good and true in some instances but I would like to offer a different argument to the subject.

I told my friend that if I had known what marriage was like I would have insisted that he charges much more than he did for my bride price and he laughed out loud. Called me crazy but I gave him my reasoning and the conversation went something like this: (p.s my friend is married as well)

Enchante: sha if i knew what marriage was like i would have insisted that my father charges much more!

friend:iwe uri benzi chairo ( you are crazy)

Enchante: say what you want but you guys have it easy

Friend: u figure we have it easy? i might just love this argument

Enchante: yes, and dont give me BS about the expectation to provide for the family, its ancient, women work as hard. in fact we have 3 full time jobs, at work, being a mother, wife to you and a fourth, housekeeping. and all are done simultaneously, everyday, for the rest of our lives

Friend:i think the problem that u are having is that u are suggesting u guys go it all alone and we basically play no part AT ALL

Enchante: i dont know about you sha, but the average african man will get home and either start flipping thru channels or read the paper, you are lucky if he plays with the kids, then expects a hot meal in front of him, doesnt know what happens to the dishes afterwards, goes into the bedroom expects tactics of pornographic film quality and wakes up the next morning asking where the hell his blue shirt is not knowing or caring who washed or ironed it and off to work he goes. am i lying?

Friend:k, b4 i reason out, how would u have that scene played out instead? PS, i laughed!!!!

Enchante: well i would expect that when i get home, he immediately takes the kids so i have time to cook ( or even better once in a while he offers to cook) then after we eat he helps clear out the dishes, i can do the dishes while he puts them away, trust me after that i would be more than will to perform wonders in the bedrum coz i wont be as tired also i would feel appreciated

Friend: k, well, honestly speaking i can tell u men are like kids, they are not born with a nature that is fatherly or husbandly, unlike u our partners u are born with the instinct and it only but grows, u have to educate us on your needs and expectations at times, i have been told once in a while, not saying am good coz at times i just do the dishes wrong but i get to do it coz i have been informed that it helps save energy and allows for some action after hours, lol

Enchante: well you see there are few men (like u perhaps) who after being told that a little help is appreciated, actually go ahead and help. most just nod but never do it. i will tell you that one time my hubby cooked and his son laughed his lungs out and said "daddy havabike" (daddy doesn’t cook) imagine my horror. what kind of a man am i raising, what kind of husband will he be?

so dear readers, and i will ~~insist~~ invite comments on this one, what are your views? should the bride price be scrapped and men and women treat each other with consideration or while men will behave badly anyway they might as well pay for our services?

Is forgiving someone a sign of weakness?

2010-09-07T07:15:00.001-07:00

Ok I never thought I would go back to this subject but it seems inevitable that I do. Those of you who have been following this blog will know that I had a messy break-up with my bestie and things just got downright ugly. And I told myself I was done with it, done and dusted and moving on. For a while I was, for several months I didn’t think much about it. I would always wonder of course what would happen if we were to meet. But I didn’t dwell much on it. But somewhere along the line I realized that I was no longer holding onto the grudge. Suddenly all the hurtful things that were said didn’t seem to matter anymore and truth is I kinda missed my friend. After all she had been my anchor for all of 9 years. 9 of the most important years of my life so far, when I made that transition from a giggly teen to a woman. Its tough to just throw away that batch of memories.

Anyway we have started talking again, baby steps, nothing too hectic. Now my issue now is my other friends, (we have this whole SATC thingy going on- me being Carrie of course) are giving me grief for forgiving her. They were there for me during the worst part of it, with boxes of Kleenex and supportive words. They took me dancing and got me sloshed and filled all the gaps she left. So maybe I should understand them being territorial about me and not wanting to see me get hurt again. But what I don’t understand is how they decided that my ability to forgive is a sign of weakness! How is that possible? Isn’t forgiveness supposed to be a noble, self-liberating decision? I am confused here, anyone to help me out?

$$$ issues

2010-08-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

I had kinda gone MIA there simply coz I just didn’t feel like writing, nothing was stimulating me enough to want to get down to a post. And its amazing that what I usually find annoying is what triggered me to finally sit down and write. As a rule I am not a big fan of people sending forwards to my email, I don’t care how funny they are or how tragic and sad they sound, I just don’t like forwards, period. I can count on one hand the number of times that I actually read one before deleting it and even fewer times, me deciding to forward it to someone else. But then this one caught my eye, I don’t know whether it was the title, (which spoke about what women want) or if it was the fact that the first thing I saw when I opened it was the glorious hair and beautiful face that belongs to Robert Patterson (someone help hold down my cougar instincts!) anyway this whole paragraph is irrelevant to my post by the way, I just sort of enjoyed making a grand entrance and doing an intro.

The subject of discussion is one that has been done several times over, even a number of times here on blogville, but what the heck. It concerns the grand issue of men providing for their women. And I shall put a disclaimer here and say this post refers specifically to married men providing for their lawful wives (this rules out small houses for the avoidance of doubt). Now we all know that even the bible has placed men in the ~~unenviable~~ noble task of providing for the family as the head of the house hold, fair and fine. I have no problems with that, hell show me a girl who doesn’t want to be spoilt and pampered and I will show you a blatant outright liar. Where is the problem then you ask? One of my favorite adages is that, culture, and indeed society is dynamic. Therefore one shouldn’t feel obliged to be stuck in the dark ages where a wife’s lifelong ambition was to always thank her hardworking husband for the pair of knickers that he bought her. I think we have reached a stage where any hardworking, professional assertive woman, will graciously accept a gift from her man, but not because she cant afford it herself. I am not by any long shot a feminist ( though I am still trying to figure out why that word always evokes such negative energy from people) but I do subscribe to the motto that what a man can do a woman can do even better. So yes, I will let dear hubby buy me anything, from a pair of diamond earrings, a blackberry, a set of wheels, but not because my fine self cant cough up the dough. Simply because he is my man, and he is allowed to show me how much I mean to him by spending some cash.

P/s I am not saying the world is now rid of the Khanyi Mbau’s and the Anna Nicole Smith, but that’s a topic for another day.

The elusive "one"

2010-07-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

A discussion with my bestie last night planted some thoughts into my head and made me ponder over the remarkable issue of meeting "the one". Of course, watching Eclipse just before bed also made me wake up with all sorts of wonderings about life partners vis the Bella-Edward-Jacob triangle. what i am thinking is, first of all, the age old question, is there a single "one" person, soulmate, love of your life kinda person that you will ever meet in life, or is it possible that you can meet a few people and still love them intensely and whole-heartedly in a lifetime? unfortunately i am not sure i have an answer to that, it still baffles me. but for argument's sake, lets say that there is "the one", how do you know when you meet them?

I am certain its more than just a cliched catching of the eye across a crowded room, it even goes beyond butterflies or heated passion. there has to be a more unfathomable (my thats a big word) connection that is stronger than anything that could break you. you have to be able to be FULLY yourself with that person, no pretense, no trying to impress. you have to understand each other on all levels, the term i used to use when i was younger was "with your hearts beating to one rhythm" well figuratively speaking at least. You have to be able to look at that person and tell them the silliest things that get into your head, your deepest fears, your fantasies, your dreams and everything about you and know that it is safe with them.

before i start sounding like a hallmark card, i just think there is an internal radar that pulls you to that person, sometimes against your will, sometimes when it doesnt make sense. I am not sure in reality it would be the same as sacrificing your soul for that person (Bella) but it has to be somewhere up there.

i am not sure i will ever be able to define "the one" but i am a hopeless romantic, i am pretty certain the concept exists!

Who am i

2010-07-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was avidly stalking several blogs last night and if anyone has done that they know that once you start, you cant stop. Each blog links you to another and the cycle goes on and on. Anyway the point is I got exposed to so many people’s thoughts such that I swear by the time I finished I had their voices buzzing in my head, all at the same time. (((creepy))) And in a way it made me start to wonder what my own thoughts were, on several things, life, relationships, fashion, traveling, movies, music, EVERYTHING. But I thought before I overwhelm myself, I decided to take a leaf (or is it an icon) from my girl Kookie’s (page) and write about who I am.

For a while I rode on the waves of what I thought people thought I was (does that make sense?) as in I let people’s expectations of me determine my behavior and my judgment. I was molded on my perceived opinion of people on me. As much as I love my folks, I just think they worked too hard to make me a model child. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful coz it kept me out of a lot of trouble that I am better off without but at the same time, I wish I had made some of my own mistakes. So for the better part of my growing up I lived into that mould, I was always too afraid to step out of the line, I never developed wings for adventure. I had an iron clad conscience that made sure I was never tempted to bend the rules (pathetic I know we are not even taking breaking them here, just bending)

So now I am in my late twenties, and finally it dawns on me that I am my own person. That I can make decision for my own gratification and worry about the consequences later. I have the power to make my own mistakes, and learn from them and move on. I have the ability to know what’s good for me and what is not and still go ahead and do either. I have learnt which relationships are important and which ones to discard and never look back. And all that has made me into a confident, self assured person. It has made me face the world with a headstrong determination that after all is said and done; I can only be who I am and noone else. And most importantly I know better now, I will not bring my son up to be who I grew up as, with the crippling fear of the unknown which resulted me in never learning how to ride a bike, or how to swim. I shall teach him to seize life by the horns, and find who he really is, all on his own.

I can say now at the ripe, mature age of 27, I finally know who I am.

Untitled

2010-07-12T00:23:00.001-07:00

So when we meet, pretend you are doing fine
Pretend that your heart is not broken
Smile and hold your head high
And pretend you are not about to crumble
And that your arms are not aching to hold me
Because that’s what I will do.

So when you see me, pretend I am just another girl
A person you are meeting on the street
Say hi and ask how I am doing
But don’t expect me to tell you the truth
Just nod at whatever I tell you
That I am fabulous and doing great
Though we both know that’s far from the truth.

So when we sit together
Pretend my presence doesn’t affect you
And act like you don’t miss kissing me
And that hearing my voice is just one of these things
Act like the moments we shared didn’t mean that much
For my sake, please do that
As that’s the only way we will get through this

short randomness

2010-06-28T04:54:00.001-07:00

I just realized that I am reluctant to visit the dentist. Now this ordinarily would not make headline news, but you see my reason for reluctance is not the usual, fear of pain or whatever. But for me the reluctance is akin to the one I have to visit the gynae. There is something about having someone poking in there, judging me about my hygienic tendencies and possibly seeing ~~who~~ what I had done with my mouth. Its just disconcerting that’s all, there I have said it.

Hi name is Enchante, I am mum to a Cbeebaholic

2010-06-08T23:04:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine recently asked why I never blog about my baby, and my response was that this blog is really about me and mostly me, so I never get the others roped in. but today I just had to write a post about this incredible, three and a half year old, 95cm tall living organism crammed full of energy who I happened to carry in my womb for all of 38 weeks, amazing. I always marvel at how God chose me to assist Him in bringing forth this amazing little creature. Anyway one of its characteristics is that, at 630 am, before I am even fully awake, it is at my door asking for “something”. Now this is not some code from the planet that they must come from, it is simply a way of telling me that wake up and give me some candy. Now before y’all go off at me about bad parenting, I do not actually give out any candy (most days) but this was just to demonstrate that when you are all waking up busy thinking about your day ahead, my little man just has one thing on his mind, candy.

Now the most interesting characteristic of the marvelous specie is that, at 7pm when you are anxious to watch Prime time News, he has the remote firmly clutched in his hand and declaring that we are all going to watch cartoons. Now if we are all to be honest, there is a little child inside of every one of us which never grew up and secretly enjoys watching Scooby Doo, Looney Toons etc (for old times sake we say), so naturally cartoons at 7pm would not be a catastrophe (most days). In fact I am quite a big fan of Disney Channel and I am not ashamed to say it. However, the challenge we are faced with is my little warrior is particular about the choice of cartoon channel, it has to be the British Children’s channel Cbeebees. Now anyone who has a child, or niece/nephew, cousin or friend’s child, who has had the unfortunate chance to sit through a programme on Cbeebees will know that it is SPECIFICALLY designed for ages 10 and under. In fact it should come with a strong restrictive warning about the age limit. So the little man loves it, singing along to the tunes, jumping up and down and imitating whatever they will be doing. I have to give it some credit though, it has vastly improved his language skills, and its like a revision class for his numbers, shapes, colors etc when he comes from school. However it is absolute torture for any parent to sit through it. so because of all the trauma that parents out there must be going through, I think its only proper that we form a support group and help each other through the worst years.

Hi I am Enchante, I am mum to a Cbeebaholic…….

somebody is in trouble

2010-06-06T22:56:00.002-07:00

Somebody is in trouble

thoughts wander and the heart races.
Excitement, giggles like a 14 year old
Its madness, sheer utter madness.
I wake up excited and look forward to the day starting.
I smile to myself as I count the minutes til I can get to that magical place.
A place where just for that moment I can forget who it is I am,
I can forget what it is I have to account for
I can just be…exist…live…float.
I laugh. I smile; I even get some thrilling shivers once in a while.
Its exciting, exhilarating, rejuvenating.

I speak, I tell, I verbalize, I express.
I hear, I listen, I comprehend and sometimes miscomprehend
its part of the charm, the magic, the enchantment.
Its novel, its new, and it shall soon pass I am sure of it.
Once the euphoria is over what will remain is solid, grounded, meaningful.
But while its here I shall enjoy the foolishness of it.

No I am not newly in love, far from it.
I fell in love a while back and I am still very much in love.
I have just been made to feel 16 again,
when crushes I had but dropped them just as fast.

©Enchante

Random musings

2010-06-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

Its been gnawing in my head all day today, incessantly as if taunting me. Until I just had to give in, weak I know but believe me I tried to resist. So I gave in and dug deep into the buried recesses of junk and found it. it was almost like I was possessed because once I made the decision to look for it I got some superhuman strength to lift things and excavate it. I say excavate because I had indeed buried it, away from prying eyes and inquisitive hands. Then there it was… I cannot begin to explain the surge my heart did when I felt its cold cover against my hands. With hands trembling with excitement I opened the yellowed pages and breathed in deeply the musty smell of old pages and ink long dried. For a moment I was transfixed, taken back to a time when I was young and carefree. I sat down and started reading, then I couldn’t stop. I read about the feelings that I had 7 or more years ago. It felt foreign at first as if I was reading about someone else, but the more I read the more the memories came flooding back. And I was there back in the moment and I knew exactly what had been happened. For a moment I felt a stab of guilt at reliving old feelings, as if I am betraying my current trusts. But there has to be a reason why I have held on to an old scrapbook/diary for the last eleven years, when I feel like I am no longer sure of the direction that I am navigating this ship of my life, I always refer back to it for a campus. It helps me keep grounded. It reminds me of whom I set out to be, a fact which sometimes the cares of this world make me forget. Maybe I am just trying to hold on to my past, refusing to grow up. But there are time when what we think is being grown up is actually losing sight of who we are in the first place. So I read and read and I recognized familiar emotions. I got in touch with that girl that I was. In fact it’s the best thing that I have done all weekend, and I am grateful that I have my yellowed, dusty book to take me down memory lane, to things that my natural memory has left fade in the background. I realized, I started blogging long before I knew how to use the internet!

betrayal

2010-05-05T23:31:00.001-07:00

My heart pounds, like the rhythmic sound of the pestle as it hits the mortar
Blood rushes through my ears, like a burst sewer pipe in the streets of Harare
I lose my balance a bit, my equilibrium is definitely not what is should be
I wait for the anger to kick in, nothing
I wait for the tears to start stinging at my eyelids, nothing
My tear ducts appear to have gone on hiatus on me
All I feel is the dry, numbing, excruciating pain…
I imagine looking into my chest and seeing my heart shatter…
The fragments noiselessly falling to collect at the bottom of my stomach
I need to go; I need to get out,
Out of this body and away from the piercing pain that threatens to suffocate me.
I have to remember how to breathe; 30 seconds have gone past without a grain of air being expelled from my lungs
I need to run, to shake it off.
But my eyes go blank, darkness engulfs me
No I do not swoon, but the eye of my mind shuts down on it own volition
The agony is too much for it to continue watching
I feel my legs giving way, and I stumble to find a place to sit
I have tasted betrayal’s vile, foul-smelling palate in my mouth,
Wake me up when it’s over.

HIFA

2010-05-03T02:49:00.000-07:00

This past week has been nothing short of exciting. I always get really excited when one of the biggest shows (at least in my book) comes to town and that is the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). I was just telling some people the other day that sometimes I think I am more excited about the euphoria, the adrenaline that surrounds this show. But the performances are exhilarating all the same. And this year I have managed to watch more than any other year due to the fact that I was still on that month long leave, what perfect timing.

One of my favourite performances this year, (well so far coz as I write I am yet to watch all the shows that I have earmarked) is an all woman cast performance by some of the finest divas around. It had the soul and grace of a woman. It was a celebration of the essence of a woman, the African woman and as I sat there I couldn’t help but be reminded again of how much I am proud to be an African woman. As I listened to the magical voices of Prudence Katomeni, Dudu Manhenga, Hope Masike, Ruth Mbangwa and the rest, I got transported to a beautiful place. I got to step out of my body and look at myself afresh. I saw the strength, the resilience, the power that lies in me. I saw the love of a mother, the selfish strength of a lover and I saw how all the burdens that a woman carries are balanced because we were built for the rough terrain. I saw the softness and kindness only a woman can possess, and I saw the grace and charm inherent in our DNA. But you see it is not actually me I was looking at, it was the woman I want to be, the woman I always strive to be. I always remind myself that I have to always strive at being a Proverbs 31 woman, and it fills me with ultimate delight when I realize that, all the things described in that beloved scripture, are the perfect description of an African woman, who holds the world in the palm of her hand. Did I tell you how proud I am to be an African woman?

HIFA always rekindles my love for theatre and every time I sit there enthralled by a performance I always get stirrings to find my way back to the stage. You see I used to love theatre, I used to love the stage, the emotions you evoke when you stop being yourself for a moment and become someone else, the warmth the beams set off when the spotlight is on you, and of course the pleasurable thundering beat of your heart when the audience breaks into a loud applause. I always wonder how I lost the passion, or rather how I left it drift to the recesses of my mind and heart such that I only get the stirring only once in a while. But you know what they say, its never too late to follow that dream. But I don’t know, life does have a way of sucking out of you passion for anything that is not directly linked to your livelihood, and it has a way of fooling you to prioritize things in an order you are not entirely happy with all in the name of doing the sensible thing.

P/s well of course I proceeded to finish HIFA before I posted what is above so I might as well make it into one LONG post. The rest of the shows were electric to say the least but I am more interested in what I observed during the festival. This might spark some controversy but I couldn’t help noticing the number of mixed race couples at this event. White woman + black husband or vice versa. And what tickles me is almost always, the black component is spotting dreadlocks. Is this perhaps an expression of their “Africanness” which in turns adds to their appeal in the eyes of the Caucasian partner? Don’t get me wrong I love locks, hell I even have them myself and I absolutely love them. And in a way yes they do make me feel more of an African child than my former straightened hair. However I still don’t get how dreadlocks become the ticket to bag yourself a Vanilla spouse. Yes I said it, shoot me.

And now in other not so exciting news, my month long leave has finally come to an end. People ask me what I did with it, obviously meaning what meaningful thing I did. I never know what that questions requires of me, but what I know is , I rested a lot (read slept), I spent time with my parents, and I discovered that there is hardly a sentence that my three year old son cannot construct by now. I read a lot too, and I watched a fair amount of television, I learnt new recipes and I strengthened a bond with my cousin by spending time with her. In fact I achieved quite a lot in this one month and I am not sure how I feel about going back to work yet but I have feeling I will do a much better job at it than I was doing a few months back. Even though of course the urge to look for another job is definitely still there, but that’s a post for another day!

Ola!

2010-04-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

So I am back, after my sojourn. Let me see if I can remember the highlights of my trip. Oh first of all of course, I have always heard people go on and on about how women are absolutely crazy about men in uniform. And I always used to scrunch my eyebrows at that because honestly speaking, those specimens are lacking in my home country. There is just nothing appealing about the police officers, army officers or whatever officers I have seen here. Until I set foot in Spain ((((whistle)))). I was attending a rather high profile meeting so it meant that we had police escort everywhere we went and oh my goodness, I have never seen so much eye-candy! I mean we all agree that Spanish men are quite a dish with their dark hair and gorgeous accent, just wait till you see how they carry their uniform! Its sad that for security reasons they declined to have a photo taken but I can most assuredly tell you that this was high-ranking amongst my highlights of Spain.

Onto other Spanish related stories, I had quite a bit of a drama when I realized two hours before my flight that I was at the wrong airport altogether and the one I wanted was 70km away! Now I shall forever be grateful for efficient first world public transport, because had I been in sweet mother country I would have kissed my flight goodbye. So anyway in between, very little (read none) Spanish with bus drivers and taxi drivers I managed to get onto that plane even if I was the last person to check in!

By the way, the Canary Islands are absolutely beautiful, save some few quid and head down there because it is absolutely amazing, and the climate is warm too.And for all the ladies who are shoe-and-bag crazy as i am, you definitely need to get your booty over to Tenerife, you will shop your heart out at amazing bargain prices. and i have to say this, Spanish people are quite warm, whether it was because i was in a tourist area and all they saw was ching ching $$$ as they looked at me, i will never know. but all i can say is, the drivers are very courteous to pedestrians ( something refreshing when you come fom Zim), everyone else pretty much greets you with a smile. but then again, as i said before they might have just been smiling at my wallet instead.

Jetsetting

2010-03-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

so today i am off to Europe, the weather better be kind to me i am not looking forward to having my nether bits frozen. i am African i dont do snow! he he i want to believe that where i am going the sun will be shining (humming) anyway i hope i will find lots of interesting stories to blog about when i come back, i will try and visit blogville in the two weeks i will be away maybe post too if i am lucky!

The S*** has hit the fan BIG TIME!

2010-03-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would blog about the same topic twice but desperate times people desperate times. Now I was all in tears sobbing about the loss of my BFF just last week. And I really was low and in a sad mood. But hey, this ahs turned into a downright nasty encounter. And the sickeningly funny thing is I have not said anything in return, all I have said is that its better we call it quits, to which i got attacked in an avalanche of words that seem to have been plucked out of a particularly best-selling copy of insults. I mean come on, I am in my late twenties, I cant be doing cat-fights ON EMAIL and getting all clawed up over something frankly I have no clue about. In fact if I still had the desire to sit her down properly and ask her what she is stark-raving mad about, I doubt she will have an answer!

That being said since I am over the shock of the attack, I can say that I should have the emails carefully extracted and preserved. They could work very well for someone who is trying to get rid of a boyfriend and ensure that he never again attempts to get in touch. SMH, some people! I am wondering now whether she was always this special brand of Cruella or the truck-loads of money she is making now has gotten to her head. As you can see, from this post, respect for her and loyalty to our years of friendship have totally flown out of the window and I am not in a hurry to scurry after them.

I am done with this, sue me.

Related to that really I wonder what it is about us women that always gets us in this sort of mess. I mean guys can pull punches, put each other in ICU, and yet a short while later they will be buying each other beer against the strict orders of the doctor. Why do we women harbour bitterness and animosity? Why do we always pull out the obvious arsenal PHD (pull her down). I really don’t know, if someone does, kindly shed some light.

Friday Randomness

2010-03-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Steve Harvey's Act like a lady, Think like a man. all i can say is its unputdownable! i am not big on self-help/motivation/relationship advice kinda books, i never get past the first chapter but this, i found truly refreshing. mostly coz i found myself nodding at most of the things he was saying, the things that we women always know at the back of our minds but decide to ignore anyway because we wanna get that man, and keep him against all odds. and it also made me understand some of the things that have made me previously mad at DH for, like i dont care how new-age your man happens to be happen, but he will not cook or do dishes, on an average day, especially after the ring is on your finger. thats just men for you. i wont give away too much in case someone wants to have a look at it, which i strongly advise, its a great read. and if anyone wants a copy i can hook you up with an e-copy, just holla at me.

talking about reading i just realised that i have regained my passion for reading. somehow amidst the court papers to done and redone, toys to pick up after, ~~forcefeeding~~ coaxing a three-year-old to eat, feeding ~~an older three-year-old~~ my husband and finally getting to put my feet up, i find time to pick up a book and flip through several pages. and i have to join a library soon coz at the rate i am going i will run out of money and shelf-space for all the books i am buying. thank goodness for e-books that i occassionally read.

that being said i am looking forward to lazing around on the weekend with my latest stash of books! have a great one!

my best friend is gone....

2010-03-12T04:10:00.000-08:00

i lost a friend today, my best friend to be exact. in fact i have posted about her before, my forever constant, my partner in crime. she and i have been friends for all of my adult life, i met her just as i was entering into adulthood. at the time when i was discovering life, discovering myself and i discovered a kindred spirit in her. we shared a great deal first kisses, first heartbreaks you know the works. its like my earth came shattering down on me, my maid of honour is gone.

but before you start really shedding tears for me she didnt die. and even though i woke up today thinking i would write a really nasty post about, i guess the loyalty i have felt over all these years is still in tact. today my friend said hurtful things to me, she said things that i dont even have the courage to say to my enemy. she called me all sorts of things and i am still trying to figure out what i did to deserve all that. i didnt cry, maybe i am still in shock. mayve this is a wound that has been festering bit by bit and i was blissfully unaware of it, or i was bandaging over it. but today the bandage was rudely ripped off, they always say its better without warning. but i wanted to be warned, i wanted to be told that it is going to bleed and be really really painful. until i started writing this post i hadnt shed a tear, but now i can hardly see the screen.

my best friend is gone....and i have never had a best friend before....what am i going to do?

my first love letter

2010-02-15T22:16:00.001-08:00

Something triggered an old memory today. I just remembered the first time I became aware of boys as “boys”, in other words my very first crush. I was 8 years old and he was 13. I remember he was light in complexion, very good looking (at least that’s what I thought) and he was an athlete. I remember my heart racing fast, palms sweating and getting all flustered every time he was close by. And I never had the guts to look him straight in the face. And the worst part is, he liked me too! I say the worst because what then happened was he wrote me a letter. I remember reading the first few lines and then throwing it away. My best friend couldn’t as well pass up a really juicy story took it and read it. I refused to let her read it out loud, I don’t even know whether I was angry with him or if I was too embarrassed to receive a letter from a boy. Now 20 years letter I wonder if I shouldn’t have read and memorized my very first love letter.

Social misfit

2010-01-29T01:56:00.003-08:00

I am a generally easy going person and I do have friends that I hang out with and I don’t really consider myself “stuck-up”. However I seem to have gotten a reputation for shunning social events hosted by my work colleagues. Here is my take on it, if you have your child’s party and I can make it, I do make every point to make it. But if I am having challenges like I don’t have a car that weekend and getting to your place requires an intricate knowledge of public transport and road maps in your area, then I simply wont go out of my way to try and make it. Unfortunately for me, the latter occasions have happened one too many times. So the result? I am no longer invited to such events, and the last time that I got invited and I actually pitched, I was out rightly told that there had been major betting with some swearing that I wouldn’t pitch up.

Now naturally I wouldn’t let it bother me and most of the time I do succeed in actually ignoring it, but something must have snapped if I am making a post out of it. I don’t know really I am half-bothered and half of me couldn’t care less. I guess the half that’s bothered is the one which keeps telling me that I have worked with some of these people for almost 5 years and I spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week with them, so really should make more effort. But the half that couldn’t care less is busy telling me that I don’t even like some of these people, I work ok with them professionally but I am not sure I like some of their personalities outside work issues.

Anyway since I have made the argument that exonerates me last, I shall sign off feeling good about myself, sue me!

nostalgia

2010-01-22T01:21:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up young again. I woke up 16 and I am not sure how it happened, and though my body was evidently of a mature 27-year-old mother, my heart was 16. I woke up in high school today and I heard the familiar sounds and smelt the familiar smells. I felt the same emotions that I felt 11 years ago and I realized the same feelings are still there at in the centre of my 27-year-old heart. I heard Lauryn Hill’s X-factor and Blackstreet’s Don’t leave. They rang so clearly as if they were playing in the room I was in. I heard whispers in the wind and I could clearly understand the whispered words unspoken. Its probably just nostalgia that elusive, heart-breaking emotion. Yes I am sure that what it was, though it felt stronger than that.

I know we grow and we choose different life’s paths but I think the heart remains the same. It gets diverted, it gets heartbroken, disappointed but I believe it never changes the rhythm of its beating. Its still the same, it never changed. And sometimes I find comfort in remembering that fact, because it means I can hold on to the purity and the real deal.

I woke up thinking of a friend today, and I know I have dropped more friends than I have made in my entire life, but there are always some who fall unintentionally and I just cant seem to let go of those.

2010

2010-01-12T04:57:00.003-08:00

Before I go anywhere just wanna say I am so loving Whitney and I am so glad she is back!

Ok now that the randomness is out of the way, hope all of you had a good holiday, I no longer know how I feel about the festive season. At some point the excitement wore off as I progressed into my twenties, but I guess now I thank God for the gift of children coz now my son’s enthusiasm about Christmas is making me start to believe again.

I usually avoid the word resolution like the plague because most (read all) the time I never seem to stick to them so why set myself up for failure right? Besides I always wait until my birthday to go into the whole reflective mode and planning for the future bit. Here is my logic, no point marking the beginning of the year on 1 Jan when I wasn’t even born yet so technically my year hasn’t ended yet. It’s a good thing I was born in January though that means I am not too far behind all y’all. This year however because I spent eons of time at home doing basically nothing I had plenty of time to think and found myself thinking about what I want out of 2010. Actually no ignore that I mean what 2010 is gonna get out of me, its all about me at the end of the day is it not? I decided one thing; in 2010 I wanna live a little! (ok maybe quite a bit!) what I mean is a lot of us (read me) go through life shying away from certain things because we say “oh that’s just not me” or “oh I couldn’t possibly wear that its just not me!” yet we don’t actually have a definition of who “ME” is! I will have you know that I have lost out on some pretty fab fashion simply because I didn’t have the guts to step out of my comfy zone. But no more! And its not just a threat I have already went out and got myself a funky vibrant wardrobe such that the other day my hubby looked at me with a look that said “hey who are you and what have you done with my wife?” the good news though is he is loving it!

So I am now officially getting into my late twenties, next week to be precise. When you are closer to 25 you always console yourself by saying you are in your mid-twenties. However I am finally approaching the stage where “young” will cease to be the pre-fix for lady in reference to me (Thomas Hardy). For a long time I have been scared of turning 30. It sounded so…serious. Like you need to have achieved all your goals by 30, to be exactly where you should be in life, being stable etc. but you know what I am not scared anymore. I am looking forward to mature, sexy 30. 30 is blossoming into a woman, 30 is making decisions for you and not for anyone else, 30 is not about compromising, 30 is self-assured and no nonsense. I can’t wait to be 30!

2010 is the year of Breakthrough! Yeah baby those mountains will certainly move this year, and oceans shall open the way for me. I can already feel it and I have already started experiencing it! Watch this space for more.

poetry galore

2009-11-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

i used to love writing poetry in my younger days. i dont know how i lost the touch. anyway i have decided to upload my earlier works in a seperate blog. they are nothing fancy, mostly a product of an overactive young mind which was constantly in "love"! lol i think ever since i entered the teenage years i had a crush on one guy or another all the time. anyway will find that i entered the age at which i was when i wrote each poem. if you can be into that sort of thing, feel free to check them out here

waist-watching

2009-11-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

I had a good start to my day today. I managed to fit into an outfit that had been relegated to the back of the wardrobe in the vain hope that one day I would lose some pounds and fit into it again! Ladies y’all know what I am talking about, there is always that special outfit that suddenly refuses to go over the ever-increasing curves but you just cant bring yourself to get rid of it. actually come to think of it, who ever gets rid of clothes? I certainly don’t I just keep pushing them at the back of the wardrobe until it almost bursts. Then I gingerly remove them from inside the wardrobe and pack them in a suitcase and put it ON TOP of the wardrobe! This lady right here needs to learn how to donate to charity. (note to self: go and distribute that pile you are stashing away!) it’s a habit I guess, unless someone actively makes the call at church or something to donate, I just never think of it! shame on me!

Anyway in case you are wondering my secret, I know this is going to be WTMI but ladies, know that myth that contraception makes you fat? Well its not a myth and that is all I am saying!

***********

And in other news we are a few weeks away from that time of the year that I love so much, holiday yay! And out of their generosity (and desire for us to expend our leave days so that they won’t have to pay for them) we are going on a month’s vacation! From 11 Dec to 11 Jan! Yep I am so looking forward to it! so Sandton here I come, I am going to shop til I drop (literally somehow I always do drop!)

What up for the holidays my munchkins?

important "contacts"

2009-11-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was so excited about getting contact lenses I still am but this little beloved motherland of mine has just made me throw spears down (he he kukanda mapfumo pasi!) I went up and down, high and low looking for just one optician who would be able to dispense contact lenses for me and guess what noone does. NOONE! I must have been to 6 practices in one afternoon and all of them give me the same line, well we are not doing them at the moment. Come on! How hard can it be? Does noone in Zimbabwe wear contacts? Is there no market whatsoever for this sort of thing? Ah I still cant believe it.

Lucky for me though the last practice I went I was referred to what they called “the best in the field” and guess what it turned out it was my old school mate! So I called him up and he casually said I can come in next week and see him and he can hook me up! Ah to have “contacts” in high places!

Of fried chicken and man-braids

2009-11-18T04:31:00.000-08:00

So I had this huge, uncontrollable craving for fried chicken today! I swear it was uncontrollable I couldn’t stop myself, so I looked around to see if anyone I know was in the area and I dashed into the fried chicken place. Once or twice I almost chickened out (he he excuse the pun) and almost left before I made the order but that smell of greasy fries and coated chicken kept wooing me. It won of course and I purchased my box and left in a hurry.

So as I am walking back to the office (read sprinting) with my loot, I stop at the traffic lights and I recognize a familiar scent. I swing around to see which lady standing next to me has such exquisite taste in perfume (like me) I get a shocker. Next to me is a dude, no man, gently shaking his braids out of his eyes. I do mean braids not dreads, the proper plaited on ones, neatly done in a short bob style, and he is wearing Elizabeth Arden! I could have excused the perfume (maybe he sprayed his wife’s perfume by mistake, it happens you know, I once walked around all day smiling to myself coz I smelt like my hubby! Ok I digress) and maybe the graceful gait was simply his way of walking ( I deliberately walked behind him to see how he walked) but the man-braids??? Come on! To top it all off he had what suspiciously looked like a wedding band on the appropriate finger on the appropriate hand!

Now before anyone starts judging me for being homophobic, I just think my friend at the traffic light just looked plain funny and too old to be sitting down for hours getting his hair braided. And he made me forget for a while all the shame of the bright red box I clutched in my hand!

p.s the fried chicken and greasy fries were divine, thanks for asking!

2009-11-13T04:48:00.000-08:00

Last week i was on a roll, blogging like its going out of fashion and this week i just couldnt get myself to write anything. mostly coz i got bit by a suspicious bug, the details of which i am not at liberty to dsclose ( he he its open for all those imaginative minds in blogville to explore and guess!) anyway because its a Friday afternoon and i self-conditioned myself to think that noone as a rule should work on a Friday afternoon, so i found myself floating on blogville. and just as well i came i have been tagged! yay! my first time (thanks Vim) so here goes:

Here are the rules:

1. You can only use one word!
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers.
3. Alert them that you have given them this award!
4. Have Fun!

The Survey

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Your hair? Braided
3. Your mother? Nurturing
4. Your father? Loud
5. Your favorite food? Chinese
6. Your dream last night? Superhero
7. Your favorite drink? Cosmo
8. Your dream/goal? wealthy
9. What room are you in? Office
10. Your hobby? TV
11. Your fear? Rats
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Top
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something that you aren’t? quiet
15. Muffins? Marble
16. Wish list item? Baby
17. Where did you grow up? Masvingo
18. Last thing you did? Work
19. What are you wearing? Tunic
20. Your TV? Soulmate
21. Your pets? None
22. Friends? Loyal
23. Your life? Renovations
24. Your mood? Bored
25. Missing someone? Much
26. Vehicle? Spacio
27. Something you’re not wearing? Earrings
28. Your favorite store? Game (lol)
29. Your favorite color? Brown
30. When was the last time you laughed? days
31. Last time you cried? August
32. Your best friend? Amazing
33. One place that I go to over and over? Office
34. One person who e-mails me regularly? Several
35. Favorite place to eat? St Zita

My list of bloggers is very modest so i shall only nominate the following:
Talitha Koum

excited!

2009-11-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

Am excited today, and its not even that big of a deal. But anyway for the last 16 years I have been wearing glasses because I have rather poor eyesight. Lots of people have told me I look prettier without them, and I am inclined to believe them. Anyway I have finally plucked up enough courage to go for contact lenses. So in about a month from now I will be having them! Yay! The funny thing is the one thing that I am most excited about is that for the first time in my life I am FINALLY going to be able to wear sunglasses! Ah the simple pleasures of life! And when the new exercise regime starts to pay off I am gonna be looking smoking hot! 2010, say hello to brand spanking new yummy mummy!

guilty as charged

2009-11-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

I was in Kenya a few months ago and I met a guy. Now before you go off jumping to conclusions not in that way. He was a chef at the hotel I was staying in Mombasa. He was a cheerful fellow, always smiling. He asked for my African name, I told him and he loved it, he asked if I had kids and I said I had a little boy and he smiled coz he has a little boy too. Everyday at mealtimes he would look for me and everyday I learnt something about kiSwahili culture through their food and his cheerfulness. Soon the whole kitchen staff knew me and they smiled at me and told me if my friend was off-duty. One said she loved my dreadlocks and another said she loved the gap between my front teeth. She said in Kenya it epitomized beauty. I had forgotten all about that, here at home I believe I have heard it being said at one point. On the last day before my departure, my friend gave me his email address, I was touched. I didn’t have my card with me at the time so I didn’t leave him anything. I am sad now coz I cant even remember his name, and I lost the little piece of paper with his email address. I lost that precious link to Kenya. I feel ashamed as well, because I think my subconscious deliberately let me forget him. My elitist mind, embarrassed to befriend kitchen staff, refused to be friends with this genuine warm person. Never mind the fact that it was a 5-star establishment, a tourist resort and he might have been a world acclaimed chef. He could have been I never let my myself find out. Shame on me, I really ought to kick this bourgeois mentality. I am writing this as I am sitting in the coffee spot of a hotel and I have taken time to observe the staff serving me. They are genuine people, brilliant even and I swear from now on I shall look beyond someone’s uniform!

submitted but not a servant!

2009-11-03T22:55:00.001-08:00

I have suddenly been bitten by this bloggerville bug and it won’t let me rest til I scratch it to the full. One of the things that I never wrote about in my posts is the institute of marriage and today I had a revelation which wouldn’t let go of me. Today I saw my husband in a different light, funny thing is he wasn’t even with me when I had it. I realized that I am his, his companion, his friend, his lover and I realized that his life depends on me in a way that I never realized before. I saw my husband as this constant, the voice that is always there even when we are thousands of miles apart, the voice that always gives me that valuable advice that I always run to him for. I saw my role as a helper just the way God intended it to be, and I saw my vocation to love, and be submissive to him.

Now the whole issue of submission has always been controversial, and I for one am a testimony in flesh. It is a biblical principle and the emancipated modern woman thinks it is an archaic form of oppressing women, but that’s only because they never understood it. I am learning new stuff everyday as I grow and one of the most valuable lessons I have learnt in this ministry of marriage is that being submissive is not the same as being made a servant. I will be honest, I am modern in every sense, I am a professional woman who strongly believes in girl power, I always said to myself it would have been very easy for me to become totally feministic. I am headstrong and for 20+ years of my life I was used to doing things my own way, even my mother had problems with me sometimes. A guy once dumped me because he couldn’t handle the fact that “I always wanted to be in the driver’s seat!” (his words not mine). So you can imagine how much trouble I got into when I finally decided to venture into the institute of marriage.

What I have learnt however is that, we are equal yes, but God intends for him to be Head of the house. But in the same vein the head cannot function without the heart, and I am the Heart of the home. Mind you if the heart stopped pumping blood to the head then all systems shut, so even though he is up there, I am the one who really holds it together. I pump the blood that keeps my home safe, my in-laws happy, our finances secure, my children healthy and our love alive. So I let him be in control, after all the head determines what the hand should do, but the hand still needs the blood from the heart to do it. This is the way I see it and this is the way I keep my home together. Even if we are to move away from the bible, lets face it our men have egos THIS BIG! And we all know what happens when those egos are messed up with. Its how they are made, and for the sake of everyone concerned, why tip a perfectly balanced scale.

So no matter how educated, enlightened, emancipated or how much you earn, if you wanna keep the devil away from your home, give that brother the respect he craves. You certainly won’t lose anything. And one of the things my mother taught is at the end of the day, just make sure he thinks that all the good ideas you come up with are his, and everyone is happy!

Far above rubies!

2009-11-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

Something interesting happened the other day. One of the interns in my office came up to me and told me something that really caught my attention. She says one of her friends in Law School is always saying she admires me. I mean ME, Enchante! She apparently has all the low down on me, where I work etc. she has seen me at church with my husband and child, she has looked at the way I dress and carry myself. To her I am the epitome of a woman, and she even says she hopes that one day she will turn out like me! And by the way I absolutely have no idea who this young woman is, I have never met her but she knows me. Now let me tell you that really caught me off guard and that really got me thinking. I mean here I am going about my life complaining yet I have all these blessings that God has so generously poured in my hands. I have them in my hands but I am busy trying to shake my hands out so I can reach for stuff that is not even in my quota. It reminds me of what my pastor always says that sometimes you are the only bible that someone ever gets to read and the way you lead your life has that sort of impact on them.

Now believe me, all my insecurities about my weight, my frustrations with my job etc pale in light of the person that I really I am. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I have beauty far above rubies. I love and I am surrounded by love. And its time I remembered the basics and appreciated the life that I have. I am a strong African woman, and I was blessed with a heart that’s big and nurturing. I delight in my child’s laughter and my husband looks at me like I am Eve’s twin, precious and pure. I am blessed to be surrounded by strong beautiful women, my cousins and my friends. And its time I appreciated it more, and celebrated their lives more. I am a princess, a queen, a diva, an angel and I dare anyone to tell me any different!

Untitled

2009-11-03T02:13:00.000-08:00

I have just been having a conversation with a friend of mine, actually my best friend. She is really going places, she is successful, determined and raring to go. And in all frankness I am really so proud of her, she is an amazing, hardworking person she deserves it. On the other hand I will be frank again and say I couldn’t completely curb the slimy green monster that was threatening to come out. I mean lets face it, we both went to the same Law School and now almost 5 years later she has a Masters degree, and has set up an office and is on the go. And what do I have? Am stuck at a dead end job which is not giving me any valuable advancement of my career and I absolutely hate it. i am keeping the job now because it pays the bills and I do so need the bills to be paid at this particular juncture.

Instead of being ambitious and venturing into the big world all I can think of right now is having a second child. I have no interest in being a lawyer if anything I am more interested in writing than in lawyering. My only problem is I keep telling myself I am not good enough to write something worth reading and I have used this as an excuse. I suppose its time that I embraced the fact that we are all different, what drives us is different and definitely our destinies are different. In fact if anyone would ask me where I see myself in 5-10 years I would say that my law degree would most likely be buried in the back of beyond, I would be shuttling to all my kids’ school functions and I would be a writer, working from an office at the back of the 4 bed roomed house which I shall buy. This is it for me you know, that is what I want to do and I am done feeling bad and guilty about it. I think one of the things that has actually pulled me back is the fact that it’s not the right thing to do, I should be passionate about my career blah blah blah. Well that is I had a career to talk about. So here is my game plan and I will stick to it. I will most likely keep this job for another year or two but after that, I am done baby. In the mean time I better get those creative juices flowing! Maybe I will become a famous writer, maybe I wont, but I certainly plan to enjoy doing it!

Oh and by the way I am totally looking forward to having my hubby taking care of most of the bills while I figure out what to do, I am gonna be a kept woman, sue me!

memoirs from a time past

2009-11-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

Part 2

Its amazing how much you bury deep in your subconscious for one reason or another. This morning I just happened to be dusting some inner recesses of my archived thoughts and I found myself humming some song that was sang in my childhood at sports games. It brought back a plethora of memories which I just had to record. You see I grew up as “mwana waHeadmaster” (The Headmaster’s daughter) and that came along with a lot of priviledges mostly, any negatives my still-developing child mind did not immediately decipher I can explore those another day. Anyone who grew up and learnt at a rural school will know that the “teachers’ children” are always treated differently at least that’s what happened where I grew up. For starters, most of the other kids would clamor to be your friend thus they will bring you wild fruits which they picked on their way to school, they brought you delicacies during harvest time. And they would generally be nice to you because they thought that (1) that would make them get liked by the parents a.k.a teachers (2) that you would share with them the luxury items your parents could afford that they could only dream of. Well of course that never worked I will tell you why.

Looking back now I realize that in our own innocent way we were major snobs. You would find that no matter how much the other kids tried to impress you, invariably your friends would be other teachers’ kids, if not then you would choose your friends among the “smart kids”. I shall define those, they were the kids whose parents (mostly just the father) was working in the city so they had nice (clean) uniforms and proper school shoes and socks. That also meant they had been to the city at some point so you had stuff in common like television programs. Besides it was just better to play with the clean kids! Secondly the reason why most of my friends were the teachers’ kids was because when school ended at 4 I still had a lot of energy to play and the only people available to play with were the teachers’ kids who stayed at the same compound with me, same goes for weekends as everyone else went home. It all sounds very cruel and nasty but I am just telling it like I remember, I guess class divisions one way or the other come out no matter where you are.

The other advantage that being a teacher’s kid had was this; during the “general work” period when everyone would engage in manual labour, the teachers would always give the lighter, easier and less dirty jobs to the teachers’ kids, even those that did not have kids themselves. It was like an unwritten code, though I must admit that once or twice I would run into a teacher who had a bone to chew with my mother or father and they would give me hard labour. But those were rare occasions, after all I was the headmaster’s daughter and everyone wanted to suck up to the headmaster one way or the other.

I grew up in a rural setting but I must say I had a very sheltered childhood, not very much different from my urban peers in more than one way. Of course I had the typical rural bit like the following: my mother would always make sure that my brothers and I helped in the strips of fields that she had such that during the appropriate seasons most Saturdays you would be woken up very early to go and cultivate the field. Of course because I was the only girl sometimes (only sometimes) I would get spared and have some extra hour or two of sleep. Also, we did not have electricity so by the time I was 8 I knew how to light a good fire and cook over it, something which my urban peers never mastered even up to now. That also meant that on occasion I would go with the other girls in the compound to look for firewood (my mother was always uneasy about me going but I did go enough times). That was an adventure in itself it meant that you could climb the mountain and fetch various wild fruits while you are at it. Another thing was we always had to go and fetch water at the borehole. Now this is one chore that I would rather have been spared. You had to go at least twice a day or more if mama wanted to do her laundry. You had to carefully balance a bucket of water on your head and be careful not to let it splash all over your clothes. I don’t believe I ever learnt how to do the proper balancing without holding on to your bucket. It was only fun when you were going there to do the laundry because that meant two hours or more of gossip and listening to stories from the other girls.

As I said before a lot of the things that happened made me feel no different from my urban peers. My parents always made sure they bought us plenty of toys (well they seemed plenty then) in fact more than most of our friends. We would watch cartoons after school or during the weekends so as a result I can happily join in when my urban brewed friends get into reminiscent convos about TV back in the day. I would go into town a lot with my parents, my dad had a nice Renault 12 and the nearest town was only 37km away. We always had new clothes especially around Christmas. Speaking of Christmas every year my parents would buy us the ever popular “lucky dip” which my mom always hid until Christmas morning together with our new clothes even though we had seen them being offloaded from the car! The funniest bit was when she would ask us to try on some new clothes just in case they needed to be returned for size. Then she would say “I am not saying they are yours, just for some other girl your size!” duh I was the only girl in my family! Then she would proceed to hide the clothes only to produce them on Christmas morning! And we always had a huge feast on Christmas and New Year’s Day complete with cakes and lots of meat and those Choice Assorted biscuits!

Ah life was good then!

memoirs from a time past

2009-11-02T06:20:00.000-08:00

Part 1
The house we lived in last is the one that I remember vividly, but we will come to the house later. Just next to it stood a big chicken run built into a small house complete with an asbestos roof. A fence surrounded it and it had a nice cement “yard” because you see, years back there used to stand a little two-roomed “flat”(In Zimbabwe it is common for any small dwelling house with an asbestos roof to be called a “flat”) which was used as teacher’s accommodation but it had been demolished. I remember I used to hate sweeping out the chicken droppings but the again I had big brothers who did all the literally “dirty” work for me. Behind the chicken run was a garage where my dad used to park, firstly his lovely sky blue Renault 12, then later the truck that I never quite warmed up to. Right next to the garage was a cage with four compartments which was hoisted up on long poles and I could swear by the time we moved away I still could not be at eye level with the lowest compartment. We used to keep rabbits in there.

In front of the house was a little patch where my mother grew roundnuts. Oh how we used to harvest in that patch, it was tiny but it must have had good soil because it sure produced a lot of roundnuts. As we progressed further there were two other patches which other teachers used to grow their crop. What divided the patches was a path that always used to fascinate me. It was man-made but it comprised of two neat strips divided by grass. In the green months the grass between the two strips would grow so tall that my modest grade 4 height could be hidden completely. Therein my friends and I would set-up booby traps by tying together two strong grass stalks and then wait to see people trip over and fall.

Where the patches ended the school yard began. There was a big Msasa tree which had old logs neatly arranged underneath it to form benches. This place we used to call “kumatanda”(loosely translated- at the logs) and a lot of outdoor school activities would take place under the shade of that tree. The wood of the logs over time had grown very smooth and lovely from all the little bottoms that had fidgeted on them. Right next to the tree was a picturesque Roman Catholic Church. Wow that church was beautiful, it was built of large blocks of stones and it must have been hundreds of years old. My favorite part was the side of the church where the bell was, maybe because we were never allowed to play there. In front of the church was a big yard full of sand where people used to congregate after church and discuss the mass or simply just gossip. Come to think of it I am glad I was too young to have been wearing heels because I can’t imagine how the pretty young ladies with their stretched hair and glass shoes (In the early 90s patent leather shoes were all the rage and they were called “glass shoes” because of their shiny glassy look) used to walk in all that sand.

Immediately after the church was the Grade 1 Block where yours truly spent her first year of formal learning. It comprised of two classrooms side by side and well lets just say all that I remember of it was that it was a classroom block. Behind it was an area where many hours were spent playing. Underneath a Syringa tree (What do you know my research actually shows that that is the correct name for it!) was a concrete block at least one metre high, one metre wide and 8 or 9 metres long. Now believe I have no idea up to this day what those missionaries were thinking when they built that thing because it did not look like anything meant for kids to play at. My mother would always scream is she heard that I had been playing there. The last straw was when one of the teachers’ kids fell and broke his arm; I was forever banished from that “thing”. We used to call it “kuchiblock”, well it did look like just a block.

There is not much to say about the rest of the classrooms but I will give a special mention the grotto and my father’s office. The grotto (I will confess before I started writing this article I didn’t think this was a real word until I looked it up) had the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of it. It was man-made and comprised of long thickly knit trees whose density was never penetrated by the sun. We were utterly and totally forbidden to play in there, but we did not need much persuasion, the place just looked spooky on its own. Now the only problem is it housed the prickly yet surprisingly much sought after delicacy in the form of madhorofiya (Prickly-pear cactus fruit). Now I will not even be ashamed to admit that in all my childhood years I never had the guts to pick that prickly fruit and rub off the thorns myself. The few times that I tasted it (it was not even particularly nice, full of seed inside) was because someone else had rubbed off the prickly bit for me.

My father’s office was the prime building at the school. It was nestled between (and attached to) two classroom blocks. Its roof was higher than all the other buildings at the school thus meaning that you could see it from a distance. Have I not told you? My father was the headmaster! I recall on one wall of the office was a line-up of the legendary great African statesmen. I remember seeing Kenneth Kaunda, Eduardo Dos Antos, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela ( when he spotted his pre-detention side parting that never ceased to amuse me) I recall I always used to go stand by that wall and look at the stately poses and wonder if my father would one day end up on that wall. Wishful thinking perhaps but a young girl always sees her father as the ultimate hero.

I did say I would come back to the house, but not today. That’s about it about the place where I spend most of my childhood years. But that’s only about the school and its buildings, what went on in there and the friendships I made, is a story for another day. For today I shall rest my carpal afflicted hands.

oh pen, where art thou?

2009-09-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

I made a startling discovery about myself, well if I were to be true and honest I suppose I always knew that about myself yet I was in denial. But not anymore. I discovered that I fancy myself a writer but I have never written anything worth reading. Yeah of course a bunch of immature poetry when I was still a teen and that’s it. In fact I should give my 16 year old self a pat on the back because at least she had the passion and the drive to write, the quality thereof is something else altogether. But who determines what quality writing is and what is trash? Yeah I know there are great literary critics and all that, but isn’t writing a form of self-expression, which sometimes happens to catch the attention of people. Why do people write? Is it to sell books and earn a living or is it a passion? Maybe I shall direct my questions to my newly-found writer friend, she should have some answers. Talking about my new friend, I am still slightly star-struck and I am sure I will be more so when I meet her in person which I hope to do soon. And ever since I started talking to her I have really been doing some soul-searching, I mean I used to have huge ambitions about the literary world, and I think I wasn’t half- bad judging by some of the scripts I have done. Well maybe I should take it up again.

Its almost as if the universe is working in cahoots with some dead literary giant who wants me to rise out of the ashes like a phoenix ( ha ha I just had to laugh at myself there!) I had quite a surprising revelation recently when someone I totally did not expect, revealed himself as the creative-type. I mean complete with film directing ambitions etc, I mean it was quite refreshing and kinda strange too. In a good sort of way, if there is anything like that. But I sure hope he realizes his ambition, it would make a huge difference to me, and give me hope that I too can finally have what I have always wanted. I was watching Chris Rock last night (that dude spews forth craziness and then some but he does have some real good points most of the time). He was talking about how what he does is a career and not a job. And that his job was at a Red Lobster place, then he went on about how those with careers should not go on and on about it since it would make the ones with jobs sad. That was a reality check right there, I mean I have a job and it’s far from being my career. I am sure I still have time, I hope. I know most of the time we make plans about how we are going to do things and think we have all the time in the world and forget that time is one commodity that we have no control over. I certainly pray very hard that I am given time in abundance, I need it

mad ramblings from yesteryear

2009-09-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

I found some stuff tucked away at the bottom of my drawer and I realized I was keeping a blog long before I joined blogville, albeit an erratic one. But here goes:

17/05/06
Perhaps I should start writing, no particular theme, no style. But just write until I am devoid of emotion. You ask why I am sure, but then such statements are not answered by a why. They just frustrate you. So better shut up and listen, read rather. If I let you. You think I am rude huh? But I am not, of course not. I write what I like, I am free. I have the freedom to express myself, in words, in tears, in shouts or whatever. I am human. I am alive. Are you? Coz many a times we tread upon the grounds of life, unbidden, yet not noticed. Existing yet not alive. I choose to live. I choose to be felt, to be heard, to be seen. It’s a choice really. This feels good, feels really good. My fingers are shaking with excitement, my page is panting with anticipation. Haven’t done this in a while! Its like an oasis in the Sahara! Aah! It smells sweet, liberating.

I could go on and on. And of course I will. I have started on a lot of journeys, though I have never really reached the destination. It always seems so near yet so far. Oh but the destination is not important, it’s the journey that has the thrill. Even though it’s a solitary journey. Not lonely mind you, just solitary. Through the mazes and the webs. Through the slides and the water. Its an adventure alright. But you have to be in it to enjoy it. And you cant be in it if you are not me. Tough huh? But hey laws of nature. Perhaps if you listen closely to the words from my mouth, even the unmuttered ones. Perhaps if you watch the movement of my body, with true concentration on the language, or if you stop and feel the quality of my touch. Maybe then, but only maybe.
Ok maybe some of it was just hogwash yet other bits make a whole of sense. Of course as you guessed that journey like the rest of them was never completed. Ah such is life. I shall keep digging in my archives!

going retro

2009-09-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

I am constantly accused of being stuck in the middle ages when it comes to music. I have stubbornly refused to move past the late nineties in my taste of music and the more retro the better. And I will not apologize for it but that’s just who I am. Anyway I was just listening to Keith Sweat one of the tracks he did in the mid-90s and it swung me straight back then. I remember how it was then, when my view of love was defined by the sweet words echoed by the likes of Keith Sweat, Babyface, KCi and Jojo and the youthful Usher back in the day. I remember I would always imagine my “crush” crooning those words to me. I remember how I would walk alone along the jacaranda lined avenue and dreamt, my favourite pastime was daydreaming. During the daydreaming my mind left my body and I was transported to another world altogether where everything went exactly the way I wanted it to be.

well life happened and even though i still listen to my retro music, i pretty much stopped day-dreaming.

am back!

2009-09-07T04:37:00.000-07:00

So I have been off my feet for a while now. I like to flatter myself by thinking that blogville missed me! Anyway I did say at some point to my girl K that our similarities are uncanny so true to form I was wheeled into the operating theatre a mere few weeks after she came out! If I ever discover that the reason was the same I swear I am going to faint. Anyway I always thought I was a tough one and that no amount of threatening me with needles would get you very far. But this experience, oh boy if I never drive past a sign that says Hospital again it would be too soon. Its quite strange considering that this is the person who was hospitalized at 7 to get tonsils taken out, again at 19 coz for some weird reason I had a stroke, and a few years ago I breezed through my c-section like I do it every day. Yet this time….hmmmm I was just plain traumatized. Well as far as moments are concerned the most memorable one was when I was being wheeled into the OR and the last I thing I heard was strains from Donell Jones, how cool is that! I shall never listen to Donell with the same frame of mind again.

What this whole experience gave me was time on my hands, and time to think at that. It made me realize that when all is said and done, your BFFs might be there for you and all but noone does it quite like family. Everyone else will break momentarily and sympathise and strengthen you but at some point they shall jump on back to the train of their busy lives and at that point all you have is family. The people that don’t sleep if they think you are in too much pain and the people that will drop everything to come and sit by your bedside. No offence my BFFs I love y’all and you guys are truly amazing but my family came out tops on this one. And believe I fell so very blessed to be the subject of this very fierce contest.

Anyway staying at home also made me a fully qualified, certified couch potato which feeds on day-time television and bad movies! I swear in three weeks I must have gone through over 50 movies an average of 3 per day including the time that I was in hospital ( I had hubby sneak me a dvd player in there) and at least half of them were really bad movies. But I watched them anyway its like I was possessed and I couldn’t stop myself. At first I was doing my favourites only ie chick flicks, then with time I ran out of those til I ended up doing were-wolves and mafia! Oh and another memorable moment is I finally met Stewie! oh Stewie, yes huggies does make your bum look fat! I do believe I have watched enough screen for the whole of 2009 and I think I should attempt removing the set in my living room (fat chance of that happening!)

Ah its good to be back, I sure did miss y’all even if you didn’t notice I was gone! Stay blessed!

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After having written the above, I was settling comfortably to finish off what was left of my slouching couch weeks in front of the telly when something happened. I had a visitor at home, an elderly family member who was seated next to me. He asked me a very pertinent question, he asked me whether my favourite hobby was watching telly. Of course I couldn’t say yes I spend all my waking hours in front of it, I had to tell him that I read a lot (well I do read though not that much anymore) in order not to sound so fickle. He asked me if I ever went to watch any sport well that was a flat no because I have an aversion to sport that borders on allergy. Anyway the point is, he got me thinking. We have (well at least I have) settled into a life where telly practically rules my life. I have ceased to attempt find other things to amuse me. I used to sew (yeah I do own a sewing machine) I used to bake, and I used to be much me out-going (well the combination of saying farewell to my long-time friend Mr B..(ooze) and being a mother resulted in me preferring to just sit at home lets face it, its no fun to go out and risk heartburn by downing litres of orange juice) where was i? oh yes I was talking about how I have given in to telly as my babysitter. I really should do something about it, once I am fully back on my feet I need to find a new hobby, any ideas people?

You know I was thinking when I was writing above, about something that my Pastor said the other day. She said that us women do what is called spider-webbing when we talk. This means when we start to talk about something, we think of something else and stray there and while we are there we think of something else and it goes on until we link the whole story back to the original story. If someone maps the story it would result in a diagram that looks more or less like a spider-web. And that’s so true just look at how I kept digressing in brackets above. Its fascinating really and no wonder men never understand us!

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Ok I am back again, that elderly family member I was talking about then turned out to have been asking from a moral pseudo-religious point of view. He happens to belong to a certain denomination ( whose name I shall not reveal) which believes that their doctrines are the gospel truth and I just happen not to agree with them. So my couch afternoon resulted in us being locked in a weird bible lesson or was it brain-storming session. Either way I wanted to run out of there! And I did, to the kitchen, resulting in the yummiest cupcakes I have made in a while. It wasn’t all bad you see!

Bitching session

2009-07-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

oh its one of those days. i feel extremely annoyed and i want to lash out yet i know society ( and the sanctity of friendships) forbids me from doing that. how do i go from perfectly laid out plans which are completely in my control to being at someone else's mercy and whims? call me a control freak if you like but i like to have some certainty and control over the things that i do especially if those things require my financial input!

i am too upset to continue with this thread, dont worry i wont put a gun to my head!

Balancing act

2009-07-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

I took a day off work yesterday. I was feeling a bit under the weather so I just rolled over in bed and went back to sleep until 12 midday! Now that is bliss! The time at home gave me a chance to just appreciate life. I mean the usual bustle and tumble of weekend with people to visit, friends to entertain etc always leaves you breathless after a weekend. But a Monday at home, with DH (Darling Hubby) safely at work and my LO (little one) behaving remarkably well was too good not to enjoy. I spent the afternoon curled up on the couch watching old movies with a blanket. I cuddled my LO and smelt his hair (isn’t it wonderful how baby hair always smells divine!) and received a thousand wet kisses coz he couldn’t believe mummy was home for another day. To sum it all up, I had a wonderful restful day and I thanked God for the gift of life.

The whole encounter just makes me interrogate again the thought that is somehow always at the back of my mind. Would I be able to survive being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mum) or would I be bored to my wit’s ends? I know for sure that it would be blissful the first few days, weeks even but I cant imagine doing that on a permanent basis. I mean it would be lovely to be able to pick the kids from school, play with them a bit, help them with homework and then prepare a scrumptious meal for when DH comes home. But lets face it, once you have tasted the freedom of the workplace its difficult to just sit and play housewife. I always think of how my mother with everything that’s going on here absolutely refused to retire from her teaching job, says she would rather work for nothing that drive herself crazy by staying at home. Of course for me the ideal would be the best of both worlds, do mornings only or work from home as some fabulous, brilliant consultant who gets paid loads of money for telling people what they know already in flowery legal jargon, and also be able to do the whole soccer mom scene. I believe that is my ultimate ambition, at least while the family is growing up. I don’t want to be the mom that always gets home after the kids are in bed and leave when they are still asleep, at the same time I would certainly not want to be a frumpy housewife who survives on tidbits of gossip from across the road. So I am going to work my cute bum hard to make sure I become an “expert” in my chosen field and get people clamoring for my opinion, then sit back, watch my kid(s) grow while I do what I know best. Perfect!

So tell me ladies, what is your take on balancing the obviously tricky roles of wife, mother and climbing the corporate ladder?

the one that (thankfully) got away!

2009-07-14T00:39:00.001-07:00

i had resolved to stay away from blogville today but somehow i found myself navigating towards it. anyway the reason why i opened up this page is because i had a visitor, a refreshing one but it just made me really think. this was one brother, who impressed me so much the first time i met him that in 5 min flat i was half in love with him! he was suave, charming, articulate, charismatic, great looking, sharp dresser, fervent for the Word of God and to top it all up he was a medical student!now i know packages dont come this good, they just dont its impossible! and i was right!

over time i saw things happen, i saw a dream fizzle out, i saw a light die, i saw a great future just disappearing before my eyes. by the way this is his dream i am talking about ( i never really got to date him- God was protecting me!), 8 years later he still doesnt have his medical practising certificate. so today i sat there and looked at him, the looks are still there though a bit rough around the ages now from all that smoking, clubbing and boozing, but he is just a shell of his former self. i asked myself (and him) how one goes from all that to this? i felt sad actually and i still wonder what went wrong.

but there is hope, i think finally he gets it and he still has a chance to make something of his life. the passion and the drive is still there i can see it, i believe all will be well. but hey, i am happy i let this one get away!

Cry the beloved country!

2009-07-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

i have never written about what is happening in my country before and mostly because it has been too depressing.but today i couldnt keep quiet. i attended what was supposed to be a national meeting on the Constitution making process.i felt like a responsible citizen waiting anxiously to take part in my own governance. i had an overwhelming sense of pride as i saw the national flag being put up in all its colourful glory.

well for starters the meeting started 4 hours late during which time the different political party supporters took the opportunity to hurl insults at each other through songs and slogans and at some point heated exchange of words. it started off as fascinating but turned to downright ugly with unprintable words being sent across the auditorium. now after patiently waiting for the meeting to begin i had no option but to stay put and watch the drama unfold. but that was not the most interesting part. just as soon as the meeting formally opened,with the speaker of parliament addressing the meeting, a crowd of supporters from one political party poured onto the main arena and started singing.

the singing got louder, the group got larger and wilder. bottles of mineral water that the hotel had so graciously supplied were opened and the water sprayed on top of the delegates, the distinguished and honourable ministers. i stared with my mouth agape as the ZANU Pf supporters continued to sing and watched as women danced kongonya ( a traditional but-jutting almost vulgar dance) in front of close to 4000 people. i looked at the womem, one in particular, a young woman still in her twenties i am sure, properly dressed, pretty even and on her left hand a sparkling ring on her third finger. i prayed fervently that it was just a dress ring improperly worn. because if there is a man at home waiting for his wife to come home, then as the bible says it is better to live in the corner of the roof than to share a house with such a woman. the profanity that erupted out of her mouth, the swing that her waist did and the heights to which her leg was raised left me scrambling for my jaw on the floor. i sat there trying to imagine what kind of a person she really was outside the brainwashed euphoria of the crowd she was in. it was hard i tell you to imagine her having a normal conversation and worst of all, to imagine her bearing children and teaching them any values at all.

needless to say the meeting was disrupted and broke off which is what they had intended and another opportunity coupled with vast resources went to the dogs. we are still a long way off from political tolerance really and it just makes me sad.

2009-07-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Do any of you ever go through your day and you have an interesting thought and you immediately start to develop it for your blog but the problem is you are nowhere near a computer or even pen and paper so you desperately try to hold on to the thought but forget it anyway by the time you get to machine? Well I do that now and it can get annoying sometimes and it has just made me realize how I am becoming a career blogger! Yeah right I will say that when I get to 100 posts which at the moment is more like a dream.

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Anyway sometime ago I read some rave reviews on a book by a South African writer Zukiswa Warner called "The Madams". now i tried to get hold of it at the OR Tambo bookshops and the guys in there looked at me like i was talking Chinese in a Greek accent. anyway i want to ask, have any of you read the book? is it any good? should i lose sleep over hunting for it? next time i am in Joburg i intend to look for it.

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its a Friday again, ah doesnt just time work in favour of those who dont like waking up and coming to work. i am particularly looking forward to this one.....the reason why is of course a story for Monday morning! have a good one people!

Gone too soon

2009-07-08T06:57:00.001-07:00

(((((sob sob sob)))))) I dropped her today! Wham! Right onto the floor. Now she wont talk to me. Even if I poke her she just sits there staring blankly at me. I try to say I am sorry but obviously noone is listening to me. Ah, poor thing she couldn’t have survived that fall. I will have to take her in for examination, I hope she can come back to me, I had become very attached to her. But at the same time the idea of replacing her with a Macbook is too tempting! Oh what to do what to do, dear laptop!

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As if in consololation the song started to play my song. Now I will tell you folks this is one song that tickles me deep within and and make my insides all jelly. In fact the sensation I get is close to orgasmic! I mean it’s a general fact that I love music but this song right here does things to me. I am sure you are wondering which song it is. It is a song by the group Air Supply (I wonder what happened to those guys??) and its called “Out of nothing at all” man that’s my song! Of coz the fact that the song in a way reminds me of a time when fate attempted to make me fall senselessly for a younger man has nothing whatsoever to do with its effect on me!

So now you want me to tell you the story about the toyboy neh? Well upon reflection now I do realize that there was quite an intense moment but me being prejudiced blindly by this whole age factor I never for once imagined the intensity erupting. So I was blissfully unaware that my “friend” was dangerously on the other side and was wondering why on earth I couldn’t see it. It was only much later when I was already in content matrimony that he alerted me to the fact that I had all but broken his heart! You can imagine his bitterness and my floundering apologies which were years too late! Ah shame, stuff happens.

Ok my amigos, I am now using a tired old hag of a desktop so I shall stop now before it infects me! Cheerio!

Just because its Tuesday

2009-07-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

I got bit by the bug! I had survived the last two weeks without so much as thinking about the whole MJ debacle and my sentiments when I got the news were, oh shame! And that was it, I mean over the last decade I had almost forgotten that such a person existed. But yesterday afternoon it hit me! All this frenzy, how his death has turned into a mega-circus and suddenly I found myself longing for his voice yeah! So I looked for my old favourites from him and I have been listening to them since yesterday and I must say, I had really forgotten how the man was once a very special part of my life! I mean I was in love with him at some time in my early teenage years though funny enough (up to now) I never saw him as a hunk/sex-god type. He looked too frail to me and even when he got married I always wondered whether he was able to fulfil all his husbandly duties LOL! In our culture we are taught not to mock the dead so I shall stop now….

Now in other unrelated news!

If anyone has been reading my blog ( I hope so! Lol) they will think that I am a twenty-something (hopefully) single woman trying to get by in the world. Well today I shall reveal it! I was really thinking about it and I think today is the day! I am not sure I have a particular reason why I have not mentioned it for the last dozen or so posts but I guess its because I always wanted to make this space for myself, and myself alone me me me the only place I am allowed to be totally selfish! But anyway I am a doting mother of a very clever, rather naughty and one of the most energetic 2 and ½ year old boys I ever saw. And he raises in me emotions I didn’t know I possessed, from fierce, protective lioness love, to white maddening fury all at the same time. But I would never trade him for all the money in the world. And secondly (though not in the least less important) I am the dutiful, loving wife of a wonderful, gorgeous, sexy specimen of the male species! Oh and his smile still gives me palpitations 3 and ½ years later! I do believe I have been truly blessed beyond measure!

Anyway I have a telephone interview today! I better start practising my business voice! Have a great day peeps!

mon...(yawwwwwn) day

2009-07-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

I wore a skirt today! And what in the world possessed me to do that today when temperatures are below 8 degrees Celsius outside (which believe me is freezing by Harare standards) . I wonder if I really thought the nylon stockings I wore would in any way serve as a shield! What a laugh. So now I am working whilst my legs are stuck to a heater, ndichaita mbare! What to do. Now we all know what happens when you get too warm and cozy, I found myself nicely dozing at my desk! Thank goodness I am not in an open plan office!

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anyway i find myself in a sticky situation at the moment where i have to question my own loyalties. why does the world have to put so much pressure on us to choose, decaf or not, black or with milk, cows' milk or....arghhh. why cant we be allowed to say that you support everyone's point of view even if they are at opposite ends of the table (in this case bed he he he). i swear i am suffering more than anyone else in all of this!

eish!

2009-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I always said I would write a book sometime and at one time fancied myself quitting my job to do just that. actually my earlier fantasy was that I would get a qualification (in something) get married, quit my job and work flexi hours as I write a book and raise my kids! Ah what a life! But it doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to though it doesn’t mean that it turns out bad.

Anyway I am so happy that my fingers have found their way back to words though. When I was in school I stayed out of trouble by burying my head in books, not academic ones mind. I would write all my thoughts down on scraps of paper and would always make sure I have a pen and paper on my person. When that got boring I would spend hours tucked in dusty, yellow-paged volumes of Elizabeth Browning or John Keats or Yeats in the furthest part of the library. No wonder people didn’t really like me, and no wonder I scared off the boys! But it kept me out of trouble and gossip and the usual boarding school drama.

I hit a break when I was in college. Somehow writing about love didn’t seem as exciting as actually snogging in real life. And all the ideals and lovely romantic thoughts flew out of the window as I realised that men in real life were actually not much to write about! (he he pun intended) and I spent my time following around low-lives who thought a great night out is having your girl freezing next to you at 2am as they drink their umpteenth bottle in an open air entertainment spot, then drive her back in semi-slumber state to the hostel and dump her there. All that took away my precious time from me and clouded my judgment about what I was really about.

But hey thank goodness for small mercies (in this case big ones) I got delivered from that phase. And I grew up! And I look back and I think eish what was all that ish? And I am glad now I am older, hopefully wiser and I have learnt the language of love from a real man. And I have rediscovered myself and I can still write yay! It feels good to just be alone with your thoughts and manipulate words just the way you want.

letter

2009-07-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

Today I am low. In fact I bordering on depression but I just think that’s being too melodramatic. So today I am just writing a letter to God, my father, my confidante.

Hey Dad

Oh I guess you already know what I am going to say even before I have said it. And today I just want to come and sit at your feet and look for wisdom from you. you see (well you know) I have been struggling and I have had pain in my heart, and anger sometimes, and regret and bitterness in a way. And you know why I have had all those emotions, I have been bottling them up because I always thought it is not right to express them. And I know you haven’t really sanctioned me to have such negative emotions, because they negate your promise and positive word. But hey I guess I have been stubborn and today the first thing I want to do is to apologise. I am sorry for having doubted your love for me, I am sorry for being angry at things I cannot change and not trusting you to bail me out, I am sorry I lied to myself and to you about what I was really feeling. As you can probably tell I am pretty messed up right now. but I know why I am messed up, because that slimy foul thing the devil has been teasing me and telling me all the things that I cant do. He is busy laughing at my confusion and rubbing his gnarly bony palms with an evil gleam in his eye that his plan worked.

But today I will proclaim for all who care to listen (including the sucker-devil) that he cannot take my joy. Oops I am sorry Dad that this has kinda turned into an attack on the slimy thing instead of a letter to you. I am sorry Dad really I am. Anyway today I take comfort in your word that says you make all things come together for the good for all who trust in you. And today I am giving up all pretence of being a superwoman. Oh no, aint nothing super about me. I am rightly giving back all the glory to you coz you deserve it. I am letting you take charge of my life once again and I am content to just sit quietly in the back and let you work the cockpit. I am sorry I ever thought that with zero hours of flying experience I could ever steer an engine as big as my life, what a joke!

It will not be easy to just sit quietly so I am asking for strength and wisdom, and patience, and discernment and all the other ammunition I need to fight this battle. I will always endeavour to stay in the kingdom in right-thinking peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. I shall endeavour to rejoice always and pray without ceasing and give thanks in everything for that is Your will for my life.

Thank you Father, I love you so much.

ranting......

2009-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

so i start to write this post and i realise i have no clue whatsoever what i want to write about but the urge is there all the same. and since the wheel is already in motion who am i to stop it? my bag got stolen yesterday, i have absolutely no idea how as i found the car locked but all the same the handbag was missing. i was sad but mostly angry. i felt violated, i imagined someone pawing through my personal stuff and rummaging through my intimate things. to all those who dont know, the handbag is the woman's shrine. it contains the most intimate yet inanimate objects close to one's heart.

i found the bag today, minus all my prized and need i say expensive items. but i suppose i should be thankful that my identification particulars were all there. but the sense of loss was no less profound. i doubt i will ever use that bag again, there is a foul smell to it, it might just be imaginary but its there nonetheless. i am just glad i dont have to take the dreaded trip to home affairs to replace documents.

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shocker!

2009-06-24T04:45:00.001-07:00

this will be my most controversial post yet, well at least controversial to me because i have never had the guts to admit this stuff even to myself! what if i had no ambition whatsoever? after all those years of learning and working what if i realise i just want to sit at home and be a mummy? is that so bad? in a world where young women are encouraged to be ambitious and be go-getters and climb the corporate ladder etc etc. i know this post would break my poor mother's heart so i will stop. but then again i sometimes think that the fact that i am in a totally wrong field makes me feel like i am unambitious. maybe its time i moved and did what i really want to do. i wish it was that simple....oh life, i think the worst bit is i absolutely have noone to blame but myself. i am caught in a web of my own making and i need to find a way out soon before i suffocate!

Of SPs, deep thoughts, Respect and embarassment

2009-06-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

For most of last week I was at a “Strategic Planning Workshop” (one of those!) the setting was perfect, tranquil and beautiful and not a speck of cell phone reception anywhere in the confines of the hotel, ah brilliant for focussed thinking! Well it was a lot of work though half the time I get annoyed by how things are phrased, “strategic intent, frameworks, blah blah” I think people should just learn to use simple terms! Or maybe I am just too much of a simpleton! Anyway during one of the sessions I couldn’t help drifting off (I promise I was participating and attentively listening the rest of the time!) and here is what I wrote:

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So I got to a point (I am not sure how) where I now check what I say. The reason is because I stop and ask myself what my words will do, whether they will come back empty or whether they will hit a home run. And I think I have already avoided a whole lot of conflict which would have been pointless really. To be precise I ask myself if imparting my opinion will necessarily change someone’s behaviour or thinking. if it doesn't no use wasting my breath. And if it does, whether my motives are good in trying to change that.

I believe I have matured amazingly because I have also come to a realisation that there are just some things I can’t change and that are beyond my power to, and in the same vein, there are things that only my God can deal with. ( yeah i know i should have realised that long back, but hey i am here now thats all that matters!) And I have stopped stressing about those, every time I start to fret, I stop and say, “Dad you got that one right?” I also recall every time I get afraid a sermon by Dr Creflo dollar about fear. He said the Lord says I have not given you a spirit of fear, and that every time we are afraid it means we are not trusting God to do what He said He would do. We do not believe that He can take care of it and that’s some serious stuff right there.

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This is one of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I listened to people speak at the SP; it’s a funny thing, respect, it determines what your ears are willing to listen to, what your mind is willing to absorb and what your heart is willing to believe as someone speaks. Never underestimate respect, and should you find yourself in danger of losing it for someone, try to run as fast as possible. If you are going to remain in the company, employ or influence of someone, rather try to keep RESPECT for them in tact.

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On a sad note, today marks the occurrence of the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to me, and it’s too embarrassing even to write down. I only hope when I look back and read this, I shall remember what it was because I know most certainly, today my ears might be heating up from the shame, but very soon it shall become just another faded memory. I hope it shall be the same with my colleagues! Argh!

my crazy unproductivity (is there such a word???)

2009-06-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

After spending the last two days unhealthily obsessing over a single blog and doing NO work at all , my browser finally gave up and I am slightly worried that I shall be disconnected from the internet altogether for spending too much time on it, but at this point who cares?

I have been hungrily going though hundreds of blog posts by one person and I find her writing witty and humorous and totally captivating! It’s a good thing I don’t know who the writer is because such obsession can only be shrouded in anonymity. But I am back to reality now and I am wondering whether I should follow her blog or not? Who am I kidding I probably will but I need at least a week to recover from the obvious overdose that I have inebriated my self with.

Anyway now that I am not stalking the poor blog it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am now working. I mean it’s a Friday anyway and half the office is out gallivanting on one mission on another so why should I pretend I have major deadlines? (thank goodness for closed offices!) So I have taken to reading an online version of one of my favourite books of all times Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. ( those IT guys will surely have my head for this)

whilst on the subject about favourites here is a list of some random things about me:

a) i LURVE Pride and Prejudice- i read the book for my A Levels, i watched the BBC version (all 4 hours of it), i read the book again, i totally fell in love with Mr Darcy ( and Colin Firth in the process) and i still verily believe Helen Fielding based the character of her Mr Darcy on this particular one in her books Bridget Jones Diary!

b) my other favourite book is "The Scarlet Pimpernell" by Baroness Orzcy ( i hope i got that correct) i cant count the number of times i have read it and who wouldnt fall in love with Sir Percy..ahh

c) i think Brownsugar is the most romantic black movie ever made (of coz the fact that Taye Diggs is the lead has a lot to do with it he he he). maybe its because for a long time i had a crush on my childhood friend and i always fantasized that we would end up together!

d) i am a total sucker for chick-flicks and i dont apologise for it. same as i love chick-lit and i even throw in the occassional Mills and Boon when the mood takes me

e) for almost of my growing years i NEVER danced esp in company i would get paralytic with fear and shyness, (growing up does loosen you up- literally he he he)

f) i have an unhealthy relationship with chocolate, no matter how much i try to stop the stuff keeps sticking to my fingers!

g) i am most terrified of rats and bats, to me a bat is a rat with wings and bigger ears. . those things mortify me!

thats it for today folks!

sisters

2009-06-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Someone said that if someone is not discerning enough to notice your worth or yur value then they are not worthy of it. if a man foolishly refuses to see the promise in your eyes, to feel the quality of your touch and hear the love in your voice then he is not worth it. we sisters spend a lot of time thinking it must be our fault, and grinding our self-esteem down to smitherens simply because of a brother who is way too blessed to notice it. i know walking away is never easy but there are times when we owe it to ourselves. there are times when we need to rescue us from ourselves and walk on ahead and never look back. there are times when we just need to stop and remind ourselves that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that He took His precious time to mould every little finger every strand of hair and we are not here by accident. there are times when we just have to remember that there is so much goodness and promise in us to let anyone just tear it to pieces.

they say its always easier looking in on the other side of the glass, i am sure it is. but in the midst of all the tears, and the hurt and the pain, its good to just remember to appreciate our own worth even if noone else does.

An Ode

2009-06-02T07:12:00.002-07:00

Do you remember exactly what you were wearing that first day right down to the fancy design of your shoes? Do you remember how we stood by the doorway and promised to keep in touch albeit academically? Do you remember orientation week when it was so good to see a familiar face in the abyss of freshers feeling all important because they had finally “made it!”. Do you recall that providence just happened to place our rooms in the same corridor when we could have been in different hostels altogether?

I remember it all very clearly, especially the vision of you dancing on top of your bed the morning of the conveyancing exam. The day I was beaten by the GBs as I was coming from your room at around midnight, oh gosh I have never run so fast in my life. I remember bunking a boring class so we could go chill by the mall. I remember leaving the library at night because we suddenly both had a craving for fried chicken. I remember dancing the night away at my graduation party and then getting crazy at yours.

I remember so many things but the most important thing is I remember you being always there. All the time, my forever constant. The one who knew how I felt even when I wasn’t speaking to you. The one who would talk me out of a bad decision or giggle with me over a silly crush. Its been 8 years but I know you are still there, I don’t even need to think about it. Thank you for putting into practice for me 1 Cor 13 love, even when I did not deserve it. My girl, my partner in crime, my anchor. The one who ALWAYS had my back, ALWAYS. Thank you for taking this journey with me from giggling girlhood into mature womanhood. For being my sister, my confidante and my punching bag. I still don’t think I would have made it without you. I love you babes, I always will.

this is me

2009-06-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

I went home last week. Wait a minute I am not sure what I mean by that now. I mean someone will say home is where the heart is, in that case I have several homes coz my heart is in several places. Logic would tell me that home is where I have my husband and my children. But society tells me that home is where my mother and father lives. Again culture tells me that home is where my mother-in-law is since I have married into that family. To confuse the whole absurd situation more, ancestry tells me that home is where my father originated, his roots, where his umbilical cord fell off and was buried like they say. I shall not give myself a headache by considering all these semantics, simply put I went to visit my folks. And oh what a visit. You see my folks live in a rural part of the country, which (thanks to some momentary madness) is electrified, so I will be glad to say I never cooked over an open fire, nor did I have to look for firewood. But I could have and I can actually. In fact this is the person that I am, you can find me one day in my (ok not so fancy) office, wearing killer heels and a sharp suit, arguing a matter with a colleague. Then the next day you find me clad in flatties and a long dress and cooking over an open fire. I am dynamic like that, I am not ashamed of what I can do. No offence to my new-age peers, but I have no qualms about slaughtering a chicken for relish, or cleaning the inside organs (matumbu) of a goat. I don’t like the smell but I can do it, I have embraced my roots and I am not ashamed. I shelled maize while I chatted to my mother and sat in the sun watching my son running away from chickens. Poor thing he just couldn’t get over his fear of those creatures.

I went to see my mother-in-law. She stays in the urban areas but she might as well been in the rural area at the rate at which electricity goes. So I did cook over an open fire. And oh I did do all the cooking, and cleaning up. In other ways I was a traditional daughter-in-law. And I didn’t complain, I have nothing to lose, its only for a few days. I am an African woman after all, so I am not going to pretend that all this education made me any different. I came back to my house, muscles aching in place si didn’t know had muscles, washed off all the dust from the visit and put on my favourite tight pants and curled up in front of the telly and let my maid serve me supper. I was me in a different mode now, whoever I was during the visit was only a passing phase. It comes and goes and I embrace it when it comes.

This is me, and I don’t apologise for it. Neither do I judge anyone who is not like me, because after all everyone is unique. And the sooner we stop measuring ourselves by a certain standard the more we will all recognise how unique and special all of us are.

i love me some ME!

2009-05-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

I took off my clothes yesterday…((((((giggle)))) that sounds like it was the first time I was doing that in a while! Well its just that yesterday I did that and I stood in front the mirror- jeepers creepers why on earth would I want to do that? Anyway I stood to my full height and looked straight ahead, I turned to the left and then to the right and you want to know what I saw? Beauty beyond measure, fearfully and wonderfully made.

I realised that I had been at the brink of falling into the same trap that most women fall into. That of comparing oneself with unrealistic, untrue images of beauty. I am an African woman, I revel in my curves, my strength is in the thickness of my waist, life bounces in the heaviness of my breasts, every single stretch-mark is a reminder of the wonderful life I carried inside my belly. You want to know something, I fell in love with that woman in the mirror, her image is permanently imprinted on my mind, I see the corners of her mouth lift slightly as she starts to smile, to appreciate the view in front of her.

I put on some clothes today… comfy and in my world stylish and I felt good about it. I don’t have to wear skinny jeans and stilettos and paint my face red, pink and blue to feel good. I like my style and I will stick to it, it defines me.

I think of one of my favourite songs of all time, from India Arie, and I just had to get excerpts from the lyrics to make the statement:

Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I dont
Sometimes I comb my hair and sometimes I wont
Depend on how the wind blows I might even paint my toes
It really just depends on whatever feels good in my soul

Im not the average girl from your video
And I aint built like a supermodel
But, I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen
Im not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what Im wearing I will always be india aria

When I look in the mirror the only one there is me
Every freckle on my face is where its supposed to be
And I know our creator didnt make no mistakes on me
My feet, my thighs, my lips, my eyes; Im lovin what I see

If i had met me now i wouldnt recognise myself

2009-03-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

its been almost a year since i even visited this blog in fact i had all but forgotten all about it. but something pushed me to llok for it. it is this illness that has gotten hold of me that has sent me looking and searching for my roots, for myself in fact. i sat wondering who i was, who i had become and where i was going and i was shocked by what i learnt. i have no clue whatsover who i am, i am not evne sure what name i answer to at the moment. its all a bit blurry and i think it has been like this for the last two years i was jut too wrapped up in it to realise it. dont get me wrong i love being a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister but i guess i just forgot how to be me. and the revelation broke me down to tears. i used to be passionate about life, set in my beliefs, poetic, romantic, idealist, sentimental, i sued to be! now there are just not enough hours in the day and when by some miracle they are there, i just dont have the energy or the drive to pursue anything else. how did i end up in this rut? i mean honestly to qoute carrie Bradshaw in SATC-the movie " If i had met me now i wouldnt recognise mysel"

2008-05-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

i got high last night. i mean seriously i got deriliously high! i hadnt done that in a long time and i had forgotten how it feels. oh it was the sort of feeling that you wish you could capture in a jar and store it, to use on one of those dreary days. or just when you feel like indulging yourself. what got me high you ask. well i will tell you. a movie! yes a screen act with people who went back to their messed up lives when the director shouted CUT! but for those close to 2 hours they made fly to the lion and the singing and grass, to narnia. there are some who will criticize me for being such a fan of soppy chick flicks but i will not apologise for it. i love them and i love the way they make me feel, and sometimes make me think. you are probably wondering what movie got me so strung up well, its Brownsugar! Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, scorching! i have watched that movie three times but it still makes me hang on to every word, read every expression and tug at my heartstrings in the process.

2008-05-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

someone once said (dont remember who and neither do i remember their exact words which dont matter anyway): nostalgia is when we look back at the past and fool ourselves that life was better then. i actually used to have the actual quotation pinned up somewhere but that was a long time ago. now i struggle to remember whether the author was correct, whether life was indeed better back then. well i do remember that i never had to worrry about a lot of stuff....no thats a lie. i did worry about the last time i wore an outfit, if someone would think it was the only one i had. i used to worry if that boy i had a crush had seen that i was wearing a new sweater, or if he sat on my good side in class. now that i think of it i remember something that i used to do. i liked to survey the classrooms and see which room he was studying in. i would then strategically sit opposite him. i would never talk to him or look in his direction (oh no heaven-forbid) but i would always make sure that my every action was deliberate and that he noticed it, how i held my pen and what book i was reading. at the end of it all the two hours prep period was a strain to my nerves and i was glad to then just slip away (after making sure that he watched me exit) and go to my dormitory to dream of him! oh how painful it was being young and infatuated.

but maybe life was better then because all of it was young, fresh and innocent. now you meet a guy and the moment he starts talking to you his eyes are dropping to below your neck. every word he says to you insinuates that he might like to sleep with you. you are saying one thing and all he can see is how your mouth curves when you laugh. i mean sheesh what happened to women being actual human being who have a brain that actually works on top of that cleveage. what happened to wanting to know what my favourite book is and whether i think that Obama or hillary will make it. when did women turn solely into an object of male fantasy i mean honestly!!!!

how? why? for what?

2008-05-23T02:40:00.000-07:00

i get angry to think that someone takes it upon himself to kill another simply because they are of a different political persuasion or because they were born in a land that’s an extension of yours really. I am trying to put myself into the head of a human who has turned into an animal who feels that they should play God and clean up what they perceive to be a “mess”. I cant fathom it all, how do you beat up a person until their flesh is torn and falls off their body? How do you raise an axe and strike another person right in the middle of the head? Where are you eyes while you do this? Are your ears closed to the blood-curdling screams of the person you are attacking? How do you go home and wash the blood off your hands? And do you ever wear again the clothes that have been splattered by the blood of an innocent person?

It pains me that my fellow countrymen are being treated this way. those that remained here to fight for a change are being butchered in the middle of the day for daring to think differently. those that have gone beyond borders to try and earn a living are facing the same hand of wrath. I want to understand if the normal faculties and empathy that an ordinary human being possesses cease at some point and their DNA changes altogether for a moment. I have always thought that serial killers have a psychological problem, and that random criminals have a motive be it stealing or whatever. But I am failing to understand how such a huge group of people is brain washed and made to have so much hatred and all for what purpose. I don’t see a personal significant gain to any of them.

Go back and search for it

2008-05-05T01:59:00.001-07:00

It used to be behind the hostel, on a big rock that was kind of in the middle a jungle. an elevated rock with a magnificinent view. thats where it was, it sounded like a chirping bird, like the rustling of leaves, like the rock was breathing. but it was there, tucked safely away from prying eyes, away from wax-plugged ears that belonged to mouths which were ready to sneer.

then it moved. to the yellow fields, the bright vast fields. it was there in the sound of the wind, in the whispers it carried. it was free and liberated. and smelt oh so sweet. it was electrifying, satisfying but most importantly, it was mine. and mine alone. noone even knew it was there.

now i search for it, determinedly, desperately. but its not anywhere within sight. i know its there, i feel it in the rise and fall of my chest. i feel it in the itching of my fingers. i feel it in the urgent rush of my blood. but its elusive, playful, taunting me. i need to find it. i need to go back and search for it.