I'm sorry you're you. Happy Holidays.

HERE

HERE

Till today I had been carrying a certain guilt with me because I believed in Odem when she told me I was ‘muck’, last summer on the last night at home. The misunderstanding that led to such an allegation was trivial and I was partly to blame, and even though I apologized the next day before getting on the plane, I knew she would never accept it.

I came back to the city and somehow life pushed that night a little less out of focus. It was subdued, yet very much present. Today KS called me and said something that put me at ease. He said that his cousin was an unrefined young lady who had little or no etiquette to talk to elders or anybody. He elaborated on the few things she said to his mother that was much out of line.

As he did so, I could hear her say I was muck that last summer in that callous tone. I knew what he meant because I was there too, in a similar situation with her. I never had the courage to tell him the things his cousin had told me that night because I was afraid of things I can’t explain. Today had nothing to do with me but I learnt something, being shadowed in flamboyant sanctity doesn’t make up for deficient decorum.

Once upon a time.

Here

Fragments of my fears resulted from all the summer evenings on the front yard of my Mother’s sister’s house 4 hours away from my town.

I’d sit down with my Mother, her sister (my aunt) and her daughter beside the Hibiscus shrubberies and listen to repetitive counsels on the importance of a ‘good’ life partner.

When I was young, my Mother would tell me bedtime stories – Gulliver’s Travels, Little Red Riding Hood, Buddha etc. She would sing lullabies too on many occasions.

Eventually the stories stopped as I grew and they were replaced by ‘vital’ advices every now and then.

It was on a winter night when I sat on the floor facing her on the bed that she told me a story just like the Little Red Riding hood except here, I wore the Red Cape.

She elaborated on the big bad wolf and how I should turn around and run if I ever encountered one.

My Fear then substantiated because I was already in Love with the big bad wolf, and he was beautiful.