Yesterday remembered today

Of days remembered

I probably have a knack for remembering dates and events, though I cannot say I have total recall of everything. Sometimes, things are not remembered at all, or the memory is a bit fuzzy. Much as I had many encounters with diaries growing up, I never saw anyone journalling anything, the most a diary was used for was appointments and at a stretch, a calendar.

Having a blog going back 20 years has offered key points of journalling, though not in the strict sense, I still find myself noticing and making notes in blogs that I can reference as an aide-mémoire.

Yesterday, all my troubles

I thought about writing this yesterday but here I am reflecting on the significance of yesterday today. The 8^th of February; when I joined Twitter, I buried a friend, and it turned out to be my last session of chemotherapy.

Interestingly, the former happened in 2009 in the week that the 13^th fell on a Friday and I joined the bandwagon of those caught in the grip of paraskavedekatriaphobia on what appeared to be the coldest day in the office because someone thought that would be our contribution to helping stem the problems with climate change. We were to wrap up warm rather than enjoy the ambiance of a comfortable office. My first tweet? See below:

I am now a twit on twitter ...

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #European (@forakin) February 8, 2009

Blog - Caught between Paraskavedekatriaphobia and Cryophobia

A sad tragedy, it was

Then in 2010, my friend Dick van Galen Last died on the 2^nd of February, 8 days short of his 58th birthday, and hardly 2 weeks after he defended his PhD thesis, an event I could not attend as I was experiencing the most debilitating effects of chemotherapy two days after, I was so weak and for the first time, I had anti-emetic medication that worked a treat.

I had planned on calling Dick to ask about his defense as he had informed me in late December that he was having his PhD viva voce and I had made my excuses that I might be unable to attend. It was then that he told me he was undergoing treatment for lymphoma, I cannot remember if it was Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins. I quipped; we might meet for tea in the treatment room as we shared the same oncologist.

When my phone ranged on Wednesday the 3^rd of February, the number ID came up as Dick’s phone number, but it was Ousman on the phone who was Dick’s lodger and he regularly came to clean my apartment, the news he had on the phone was that Dick had passed on, but he had refused to have Dick taken away, Dick was lain in his bed for his friends to come and pay their respects until the day of his buried. I cried all the way to Dick’s place.

Blog - Dick: As he lay

A man, a celebration

The morning of the 8^th of February was a dreadfully cold winter morning, I got on my bicycle and rode to the St Barbara Cemetery where we all assembled in the chapel to give Dick a rousing and celebratory send-off, the crowd, especially of the youth that attended with the eclectic mix of different cultures and personalities was a testament to the person he was. The music as pallbearers carried him to the burial plot could not have been out of place at a carnival.

Blog - Seeing Dick Off

However, I could not wait to see him buried as I had another appointment, the 7^th session of chemotherapy, with the 8^th and what I had hoped would be the last scheduled for the 1^st of March. When I arrived at the hospital, the nurses who also knew Dick were quite sad at his passing, one even indicating there was nothing to suggest Dick was at risk of death, he did not have the kind of prognosis I was given at my diagnosis.

It became the last one

Not a vein could be found around my hands up my wrist to insert a cannula for chemotherapy even after warming my hands in hot water than the insertion was further up the arm near where phlebotomists took blood.

Blog - Almost in vain for a vein

I did not know that session would be my last chemotherapy dose until a checkup over a week later in conversation with my consultant that they agreed that the focus should be on recovering my immune system and the chemotherapy had done its job fully as predicted by the consultant in September that the cancer could be treated if I tolerated the treatment.

I could have made much of yesterday and yesterday is a narrative that gives the past a telling different from when you are living in the present. Thank you for the past we can remember in words of triumphal living against all adversity.

Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Hour after hour

The days come and go, 24 hours ticking by with the concern whether much has been done or achieved. How minutes turn into hours as a perpetual movement of the ever-present that was the future in the last minute remains both the mundane and a mystery.

That passage of time is captured in the Today, the Thomas Carlyle poem that is also in the Anglican Hymnal, but I think I first heard it in primary school and that school in Bukuru, Jos was not religious at all. [Poetry Foundation - Today, Thomas Carlyle] [Hymnary – So here hath been dawning]

So here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Out of Eternity
This new Day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night, will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Slipping out of done

That is my enduring fear, the many days that I probably, possible, inadvertently, deliberately, or lazily allowed to slip useless away, with no ability to redeem my time apart from working in the hope that the newly allotted day from eternity slips into the eternal past with a mark of achievement and the fulfilment of purpose.

In my frail and errant humanity, other weaknesses emerge, desires I should tamp down, ambitions I should aerate and allow to find the winds of inspiration and determination to execute. I have been thinking lately where ideas come from, the wellspring of thoughts that can be used to change things, make things, see things, do things, to the benefit of both myself and humanity.

Growing ideas

I have toyed with the idea of returning to school, I have learnt a lot in a structured environment as well as build new networks for connections, projects and friendships. I need to read more accessing diverse topics to broaden the spectrum of my ideas landscape. Maybe, I try too hard when I should ease myself into a comfortable use of my mind.

There are no easy answers, but one thing I know is my honeymoon with procrastination must end, my dalliance with good intentions that rarely proceeds beyond that is unhealthy, I need to regain the joy of adventure in learning and practice, I yearn for a daily record of the useful with the knowledge that next would be better. Somewhere in there is both the joy of living and the inerrant pursuit of happiness.

Born to tell a better story

Airing the mind in the wind

Some days come as if they will end with nothing really done, a spirit of despair hovering like a cloud, ready to settle on you like the morning dew that will not dissipate of the heat of the day does not come soon enough.

In the midst of this, you must find a hold, the grasp that you have reached for not to be drenched with the acid rain of discomfiture because some niggling thought suggests you are running out of ideas. I must trust that I can find inspiration in the unconventional, that sudden lighting up in the mind that is so original, it spurs and yields the unexpected.

The walls of circumstance finding they obey the laws of gravity seek to cave in, a virus unseen like the wind we do not see, but its effects too consequential to ignore. Such that I sequester myself in the hermit’s abode, for the tools to fight that battle are not as weaponised as those many others can find to defeat a marauding enemy.

I have a light that shines from within me, that the dark can try but never succeed in overwhelming me. From a source that neither affliction nor adversity can touch, I rise unbound to always tell another and better story.

Thought Picnic: Making days matter

Losing the snooze

Each day appears to be unstructured without the routine that demands the alarm rings in the morning. Not that when the alarm stirs you out of slumber you jump out of bed that the first sound. For some reason or the other, some sociology or psychology when into electronic alarm clock design, it is called the snooze button.

That button you press once to silence the alarm, originally for about 10 minutes, but now, there is a variable duration for which you want the snooze to last before the next alarm strain sting your eardrums into an ambulatory response. Mine is set to 7 minutes, whilst the first alarm time is set irregularly rather than to exactly the quarter points of the clock at 00, 15, 30, or 45 minutes past the hour.

Living free of it

My alarm is musical, never monotonal and I have been conditioned to knowing that the music is an alarm rather than my radio playing back an obscure classical composition of dubious provenance. Yet, in reality, my life is not as regulated by alarm clocks except in uniquely exceptional situations, I would probably be awake before the alarm goes off then wonder if there is enough time for a power nap to the time of the alarm.

When I have abused the snooze button, I would have probably preferred to have a mallet to smash the clock to smithereens, but the said clock is usually my mobile phone, as so, I would hate to be as destructive as sudden inclination might aspire me to.

Do the day well

As to what to do with the day, you need to find purpose and achievement, the direction that brings benefit. From the poem Today, by Thomas Carlyle, which I have known more as a hymn, my spirit demands, “Think wilt thou let it slip useless away.” For each that that comes, there is much to learn, formally and informally, there is a lot to understand better, there is the possibility of the creative that we rarely tap as much as should be done, for the satisfaction is rarely in any tangible reward, so we let it slide.

The mind cannot idle without function and application, we rise to deploy thought, deed, talent and resourcefulness to things that matter, to change things for the better, in person, in event, or in ideas, it could be in all those things at the same time. A day must bring a new kind of fulfilment, whether it can be measured by others is beside the point. You know that by the time the day has become part of the eternity past, you have left a mark, not to regret the one that follows on.

Eighth of February in my mind

Time waits for no one

Between observing the heavenly bodies and hearing the ticking away of the clock, we set a watch or order that counts the seconds, minutes and hours, for what we see as day and night that in its number is the week and the month and ultimately the year.

For some the passage of time is arbitrary, yet there are cycles, the seasons, the movements of the weather, the expectation of sun, cloud and rain, we exist on earth to count our blessings. For there is birth of one and events in life, some significant, others less so, all woven into a story of existence and experience, we serve a sentence of living tethered to mother Earth until the day we are no more.

Time is for memories

We become a memory, some good deeds lost in the sand dunes weathered by winds of change and some ugly deeds etched indelibly in rocks that never age, we can only endure by those we’ve touched by love, by indifference, through our humanity or the lack of it. Memories are wells from which bitter or sweet waters are drawn to drink or flush, each reckoning journaled for eternity – the passing of time from infinity to infinity, we harbouring a section in that unfathomable spectrum.

In the counting of the years are matters of import, of holidays and anniversaries, of remembrance and ceremony, the dates and days carry different meanings and symbolisms, age is not just a number that changes as we slumber.

On this day, just eight years ago, I posted my first tweet on Twitter.

I am now a twit on twitter ...

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) February 8, 2009

Time is for reflection

On this day, a year after that, I buried a dear friend whose 58^th birthday would have been two days later. It was very sad and he is fondly remembered.

On the same day, the service was in a church on a freezing February morning, well attended by many from far and near, it was a worthy sending off because Dick was a man of many talents and influences and he drew people from all countries, cultures, and walks of life. We exited the chapel after his remains to the world music of a Senegalese performer, he probably would have wanted us to dance.

Blog - Seeing Dick Off

Time is for remembrance

After the service, I could not wait to witness his committal to earth, for in the early afternoon, I had an appointment for what was my 7^th chemotherapy session.

I got to the hospital and for all we tried, having come in from the cold, they could not find a vein to pump in the poison that killed the cancer and spared my life.

When they finally did, I sat through 45 minutes of it and though 8 sessions were scheduled and a 9^th was being planned, that session of chemotherapy became my last and the beginning of my life after cancer.

Blog - Almost in vain for a vein

And so, that makes the Eighth day of February, a day of blessing and stories, did I say that 26 years ago, today gave us the first day of significantly heavy snow in London? How do I remember these things? I’m a man of the times that pass and the memories that stick. [Weather 1991]