Thought Picnic: Everybody who hurts can find healing too

R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts (Official HD Music Video)

In strength and weakness

I may have a listening ear, and to some, who are close to me, I have had outbursts. Much as I attempt every means of self-control and restraint, the dam can hold no more water and it bursts. I have to remember sometimes that I do not have the answers, the understanding, the knowledge, or the wisdom for certain situations.

Even where I appear to be wise, it is usually a gift of inspiration that I cherish a lot, how to put things in perspective, cutting out the unnecessary, the sentimental, the subjective, or just the emotional. Clinical is not always what people want to hear, but the truth is a salve better than the succour of false comfort that barely addresses the issue.

We all need somebody

Then, I wonder, what am I doing for myself? How am I healing and getting the rest I need to have the peace and comfort I desire? The quest for happiness caught in snatches of time, impeded sometimes by the insufficiency of means, yet powered by an irrepressible force of faith and hope, watered with love that thrives in all circumstances. In that alone, I feel blessed.

We bear many burdens, to many we have unlimited resources of strength in mind and character, our figurative and proverbial shoulders stretch like a mountain range, grounded in the core of the earth and found in the lofty reaches of the clouds, covered in snow to cool the heat of things upset and upturn lives in unimaginable ways. Life is not a simple story; we just make every moment count.

Everybody cries, everybody hurts, and everybody feels, all in different ways with myriad ways to express themselves in the things that affect them. The silence might be screaming so loud inside. The smiling might be weeping thunderstorms of distress and turmoil that the face hides in a veil of the indecipherable. What I hide under the finery of my appearance and apparel is a world of my own humanity and vulnerability that probably finds words of expression here.

Seeking to live the dreams

Then I want to find my own foxhole to burrow deep into to hide from the world for a while, to slip into a kind of hibernation of absence where the dreams that play are of the beauty of heaven, the joy of living well, of strength, facility, and immeasurable ability with the daring that blows the mind.

That also does not have to be just a dream, for the dream maker seeks to make those dreams come true beyond anything we have ever thought, wanted, sought, desired, seen, heard, or imagined possible.

I have always thought there is a better way, many times I scramble to find the door and fall on the way, but I will never relent in seeking to walk the path that the mighty have walked to tell better stories than those ever told before.

Thought Picnic: How still I see me lie

Met in thee

There is a calmness that you find to gain some refuge from concern and worry, something that registers from that line in O Little Town of Bethlehem that speaks of the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Thee being the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ as we countdown to the celebration of Christmas, the Sunday past being the Fourth Sunday before Advent. It goes without saying that I am a man of faith, a spirituality that sustains me through times that do fill me with the dread of insufficiency and incapacity, that I fold into a shell of seclusion.

Met with constraints

There are things I would have been quite forward to do that my hand has been shortened by circumstances and situations that exacerbate fears, but all those are held at bay by hopes buoying confidence that change will come and change things so radically.

Occasions have come and gone to which an appearance was difficult, and support could not be provided, then many would not know why, it is just that times failed the opportunity and not for the want of trying.

Personally, there was pain, deep pain, but life teaches us only to stretch to what is available and not beyond the resource to the point of suffering, you can only work with what you have.

Met on experience

Life presents many cycles, and the recurrence of events and experiences does not offer the same solutions, you have to learn anew and then commit that to new experiences, learning is a continuous process for which in my own life, I am grateful that wherever I have been set in my old ways, I find that I am upset into new ways.

Realities are another thing, seeking assurances in a turbulent world where trust is finite that you are questioning yourself about what you have been assured of. This is where communication and the ability to do it well to elicit the information you need matters. How to turn sleepless nights into restful nights full of sweet dreams and the awakening to the freshness of a new day, energised to live and thrive in the moments you are given.

Met to befriend

Most of all, friendship and love are at the heart of the calmness, in love, there is someone to lean on whose voice is indeed a strength and stay much as they rarely realise who and what they mean to me. In friendship, is one that reads me better than I can read myself, whose support is unflinching and ever-present.

From relationships past comes structure and symbiosis, we seem to exist for each other, cheering on with encouragement and praise, we find the words of comfort to weather the challenges that waylay us in our pathways. This is not the stuff you take for granted, it is what you cultivate so that you are not left alone absent of people who cherish you and care deeply for you. The world I live in is about relationships and that is how even in the darkest hour, the dawn would soon be upon us.

It shall pass, it never stays still, for the motion of time is always the harbinger of change bringing us to the living splendour of dreams coming true beyond anything we could have ever countenanced. I strongly believe I have a better story to tell.

The bird in hand is all you have

Long Read!

The humbling of life

There is an old saying, “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.” I find myself revisiting some of these old sayings to review what lessons to mankind they might impart to me and my unique circumstances, for as Ecclesiastes1:9 says, “there is nothing new under the sun.”

It is quite poignant that Ecclesiastes has 12 chapters and in the first chapter it dispenses with hopes, dreams, expectations, and much else whilst laying bare the fact of human existence, after the introduction, it says, all is vanity, suggests we labour in vain, that nature always follows its course, and that we pay heed to experiences gone before because there are lessons to be learnt of life.

A further interpretation of the saying at the beginning which I should call a proverb is, “It's better to be content with what you have than to risk losing everything by seeking to get more.”

Failures are paths

This is the story, I finished secondary school at the age of 15 and was immediately admitted to the Lagos State College of Science and Technology (Lacostech) to study Chemical Engineering, at the same time, my mother tried to persuade me to attend Form Six for the Higher School Certificate (HSC), but I was having none of it, my experience of secondary boarding school was such that I wanted to be treated more as an adult with all the freedoms that entailed, even if I assumed very little responsibility.

Lacostech was a fledgling institution, the practical engineering component of the course system was lacking, we were based at a faraway campus and for the practical elements, we attended labs at Yaba College of Technology (YabaTech), the preeminent polytechnic at the time. How I ended up doing Chemical Engineering was a result of alumni visiting my secondary school to give a talk, I was beguiled rather than persuaded. I failed that first year.

However, knowledge from that first year prepared me to change my course to Electrical Engineering at YabaTech even as seeing an uncle thrive in Quantity Surveying had a bit of a draw. It so transpired that I spent 3 years at YabaTech where I failed, repeated my second year, and consequently was asked to withdraw. That was 4 years of higher education lost, I can only wonder if I had gone for the HSC instead and plied a different trajectory in life.

Being a nonsense child

At that point, my father had given up on me, he was determined to put me to work on his farm which was not doing all that well. My father in his active career was a brilliant and successful accountant, usually top of the class, winning awards and prizes, how could I, his first child and son be such a dullard?

The day he planned to ship me off to his farm, I ran away from home with the aid of my mother, and I was first put up with a teacher from her school where she was a principal, then with a brother of a neighbour, before I ended up living with my dear Uncle Cash who passed on in June.

Blog - Uncle Cash!

Not having just enough

There, I began to chart my way back to some academic relevance, already 5 years out of secondary school with nothing to show for it. I took the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations and scored in Physics (71), Chemistry (72), English (73), and Mathematics (45), for whatever reason, I ran out of time with Mathematics and that poor score was significant and it came to 261 when I needed at least 280 to be considered for Electrical Engineering at some of the universities I was interested in as the University of Ife or the University of Benin.

Meanwhile, my mother was pulling strings elsewhere and had with my original West African School Certificate secured admission to the Federal Polytechnic at Ilaro to study Electrical Engineering. To my mind, having been to YabaTech, going to Ilaro in the middle of nowhere was second-best untenable, it never entered my consideration, and no one could appeal to me about it, I was set on going to university come what may.

A bird for a bird

My father came around, and we both drove to the University of Benin to see if he could influence things, it was the second time we had met since I ran away from home over a year before, and at the same time the registration window was closing at Ilaro as lectures were starting too. One thing I remember about that trip was we stopped over at a restaurant, where I ordered a stew with gizzards that my father thought he heard lizard, the look on his face and the laughter afterwards when he realised, he heard wrong.

Herein was my dilemma, I had a bird in hand, the admission to the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro which I was not paying attention to because I had my mind on the two in the bush, an impossible consideration for admission to either the University of Ife or the University of Benin. All my hopes were on university admission when my reality was a backwater polytechnic where though the OND course was accredited, the HND component was still seeking recognition.

Humble is pie is food

Eventually, as the vanity and the futility of my expectations began to dawn on me, I ate humble pie and set off to the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro to start as a fresher and from when I used to be the youngest in the class in all the schools I had ever attended, I was now a higher education veteran, 20 years old.

My humiliation is exacerbated by my first encounter, he was a year my junior in secondary school and the very first person I exerted seniority rights on when I got to Form 2 by punishing him, he was in his final year at Ilaro when I was just starting. I can only wonder what stories he had to tell about his life experiences. The senior that punished him 9 years ago in secondary was now 3 years his junior in higher education.

I had to focus on what I had to do, I was not at Ilaro for him or about him, I was at Ilaro to rebuild my shattered dreams. And much as I kept the prospect of going to university alive, my engagement in the semester was both committed and divided. However, by the second semester, I accepted that my bird in hand was the only bird I had and any other birds shitting on my head from above or chirping in the bush were never going to be caught.

It came round beautifully

I did the two years successfully, was my class representative, gained an upper credit diploma and even after ran a signature drive of all my erstwhile class to appeal for the HND component to be accredited for us to return to complete our course at this apparent backwater polytechnic that gave us so much for a start in career and achievement.

For my industrial orientation, I walked into a computer services firm seeking employment and was employed on the spot, I even got my class deputy employed too. He went on to complete his higher diploma at YabaTech, I went into desktop publishing consultancy, to help publish legal reports and acquired 30% of a printing firm on whose auspices I paid my first visit to the UK to acquire equipment and software.

That same OND stood me in good stead for jobs that I took up in the UK when I finally emigrated, obviously, I acquired vendor certifications too. It is interesting to note that, I wrote a character reference for a friend with whom I attended Ilaro and the admissions officer at the University of Liverpool contacted me to suggest I was the kind of candidate they were looking for to embark on a Master's programme. I only had an OND and I was admitted for a postgraduate degree.

It is always what you have

The moral of the story is this, all my intentions, plans and hopes were to go to university, I held fast to that expectation even though there was nothing I could show for that ambition. All the while, I had an admission to Ilaro, it was the unmentionable, the one where I thought I would be stuck, the humiliation of meeting a junior who was very much a senior and you know how ranking works in a typically Nigerian community, yet that was the pathway to my career successes. I could not have envisaged the result of going to Ilaro but the consequence of attending Ilaro made all the difference.

It is in the same vein that we are faced with what we think are choices but are hardly so. That bird in hand is the only thing you have got, there rest are pipedreams, daydreams, hopes, and wishes. Until you have secured whatever you want or need, you do not have it. Yet we give equal status to what we desire and hope for to what we already have but do not like for all sorts of reasons that it was not part of the plan and seek myriad excuses to diminish certainty for uncertainty.

I have many instances where choosing the second-best or the worst possible scenario because that was all I had has led to the best possible and even unintended outcomes. It is important to keep the momentum, take the opportunity that is available and work with it even if at the present time everything it represents is not to your liking.

It is never out of thin air

History is littered with people who were faced with difficult choices of which there are no other options have with humility follow what they have and come up trumps, be it Joseph being sent into slavery before he rose to become deputy Pharaoh or Jesus being given the choice of the cross or flight, faced the cross and brought salvation to the world.

There is indeed nothing new under the sun, the voice of the ancients, the elders, the experienced, and even the privileged tries to counsel us on many issues to which we turn a deaf ear because we have other plans, but plans are just that, plans, we remain stuck in the same place with plans and no action, forsaking opportunity for fantasy and in the end losing both opportunity and fulfilling no fantasy.

The question we should always ask ourselves is, what is it that we already have that we are giving up for what we are hoping to have? What you are hoping for, you do not have. At the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus could only use what the boy had and multiply it, not materialise food for the crowds out of thin air. At the marriage in Cana where Jesus turned water into wine, the jugs were empty, he asked them to fill the jugs with water first, he did not conjure wine from the air.

You have to have something to make or do something, that something may not be what you like or want, but it is the only thing you have and if you do not use it, you will lose it and be left in the same place still, full of dreams, hopes, and desires but no further away from where you started.

My hopes say my fears will not prevail

In all my weakness

Sometimes, I have to wonder how I keep pressing on, how despite the many things that cause fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and turmoil, hitting at the door of my composure threatening to break an entry and overwhelm me with the audacity of the invasion of an armed robber.

I am only human, all the more vulnerable, concerned about circumstances that I believe will turn right, though, at this time, things are not where they should be. The vicissitudes of life are an ever-present indicator that ease and difficulty are the ebb and flow of the currents that define the stories of life.

I will not falter

At times, it seems relentless and unyielding, then you think again, I can face this and face this down, this will pass, it will become a distant memory. It is just not that comfortable when you are sitting in the middle of a storm. I know I will weather it, even when I think my strength is totally exhausted, the reserves that buoy me up would say, grace, good fortune, blessing, and favour is on my side.

Until I draw my last breath, I am here to tell a better story. Using the spirit of hope to my fears, they will not prevail.

And I laughed like Sarah

A diversion from destination

About coincidences, I would err on the side of the uncanny, or what would I attribute an encounter I had this evening to? My walk was to take me all the way to River Mersey and Chorlton Water Park, just about 9 kilometres in all until I came to a standstill where the police and fire engines had sealed off the main road that I had to take a detour.

When I first started my walks almost a year ago, I did circuits around Alexandra Park, that it came to mind, when I returned home to pick up a notepad and pen, was interesting, but it was not my direction of travel. As it transpired, my detour led to Alexandra Park and walked into the park and took a seat on a bench.

A nod and a greeting

I made a few phone calls and played a couple of Sudoku games on my mobile phone before I got up to return home, first needing to dispose of some litter in a bin. To my left as I walked up the wide path, an older black man nodded in acknowledgement towards me before I answered back and then he suggested he might have met me somewhere. I could not say.

He asked if I was Nigerian, I responded my parents were and he volunteered he was Nigerian, from the West, from Abeokuta. I had visited Abeokuta twice as my father used to work at a brewery that had offices there. One of those visits allowed a tour of Olumo Rock.

I laughed like Sarah

Typically, he asked if I had a wife to which I answered I have not been blessed with that kind of companionship and I have learnt to be content with the situation I am in. It was at that point that he averred that to God nothing is impossible. I intoned, he made me laugh like Sarah. This referring to a biblical story where Sarah the childless wife of the patriarch Abraham was promised a child in her old age within the year. She laughed at the incredulity of it, she did eventually give birth to Isaac. [BibleHub: Genesis 18:12]

The conversation continued, on the theme of the omnipotence of God with verses from Jeremiah, the Psalms, the book of Job, and the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. This was interspersed with testimonies of success, inspiration, and ideas for progress in his life.

He had many stories

He was a career soldier who diversified into poultry business, suffered a failed first marriage yet got introduced to his second wife by his first and through his new wife’s British citizenship, he shuttles between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, pastoring a church in both countries. His repartee was engaging whilst serious and meaningful too. A good deal of it was in Yoruba.

I am wary of being proselytised and avoid the prospect of ritual, I have done too many from childhood into adolescence, but much of what he shared would be useful for meditation and consideration. We ended with a moment of prayer before asked to show me his wife’s store on the main road and after walking together a few hundred yards, he veered off towards his home as I did mine.

To laugh like Sarah

To laugh like Sarah is not so much an expression of disbelief but one measures a current situation against a promised outcome that literally seems impossible, yet, it is put in the scheme of things as possible, if you dare to consider it. To laugh like Sarah is to prepare yourself for something good, something long longed for that you might have now given up on it. To laugh like Sarah is to begin to write a different story in anticipation of the transformation from the ordinary into the extraordinary.

To banish all my fears and realise my hopes with my wildest dreams coming into a reality I could not begin to imagine. There will be much to laugh about, the laughter of joy, the laughter of goodness, the laughter of the miraculous, the laughter of gratitude. We can all begin to laugh like Sarah when we are told what we thought can never be is just about to happen. I am laughing like Sarah.

Rise with your hopes or fall with your fears

Guard your ears, till your heart

Our fears can so limit our ability to thrive, some fears fed by a passing comment in our past that takes root and grows into a humongous impediment to progress and success. The caution we must exercise in who we lend our ears to is one of eternal vigilance, for the grounds in which seeds can grow in our lives, are more fertile than we ever realise.

Words from the mouths of our parents triggering involuntary responses that determine the course of our lives and can make a difference in a lifetime, you wonder, how do you escape the clutches of what you have taken to heart? There are damaging consequences, from people of considerable influence that you can still hear their voices decades long after you have forgotten who or what they look like.

We can be different

We should not however concentrate on the negative, there are other inputs that engender the amazingly productive, that word of kindness, of encouragement, of hope, of prayer, of beauty, of praise and the good of our humanity, lighting up a path for us to travel, rescuing us from danger, infirmity, or calamity, bringing a sense of determination that girds us and strengthens us that we have no choice but to win. Those voices are begging to be heard but we are too attuned to the contrary.

As individuals, we fight our uniquely arranged battles, but when we enter into partnerships where our fortunes are pooled, we can rise with our partners or sink with them because of the baggage that burdens our inability to either live beyond our fears or the grip of the impending defeat sowed by experiences or words we have heard before.

Imagine where you can be

The greater disaster is not to see the newness in life that gives you hope against all situations to write a better story and create a worthy narrative of your life beyond the fears and low expectations of others who stole our power to thrive with their selfish perspective of what your life might be if it turned out different and successful.

If I am saddened, it is with those who never tried to dream of the extraordinary and when given the opportunity take off from the ground, rise to have the wind beneath their wings to soar with the eagles. It is possible, only if we uproot the forests of fruitless trees that took hold clouding the warmth of the sun with the fear of a future we do not know. Fears based on broad stereotypes when they should have based on the uniqueness of the individual.

Even more, the pity is you and your partner are left down in the dumps in an unproductive life just because fear robbed you of the spirit of hope and the experience of better things that you could ever have imagined in your wildest dreams.

Hearts do leap

Plans in cans

One can view the year 2020 as a veritable tale of the completely unexpected and completely unanticipated. You can only wonder if any of the resolutions made for the year by those wont to such activities even found the opportunity to kick off.

Even so, consider plans to marry, plans to travel, desires to see, do, get, give or transact some business, event, or any kind of endeavour, literally hamstrung by situations outside our control. Such is the effect this pandemic has had on most of the world. There is some return to normalcy in places where the leaders, the people, and the policies worked to contain and manage the Coronavirus, but we are nowhere near seeing the back of this plague.

Consider the disorder

Yet, we must find ways to live our lives and go about our business with a precautionary inclination to protect ourselves and our communities from being ravaged. Whatever people might believe, and some have sniffed and scoffed about this pandemic, 1,570,333 people as of today who saw in 2020 are no more due to COVID-19 disease. If that does not evince a pause for thought, probably nothing else will.

My tender heart over the years has loved and lost, there were times when I was at the point of acceptance that this thing called love happened to other people until I was unwittingly swept off my feet by an Adonis who in my wildest dreams would not have reckoned a fleeting glance of sight, talk less of being noticed.

Alert my heart

He became the prime mover, out of interest and daring he observed me for a while before approaching me and saying hello. A conversation, a lunch date, a meeting of hearts and minds, a burgeoning relationship and 2019 was livened with his company and companionship, I convinced myself beyond any doubt that this is the one. I found love in a hopeless place that gave life to hope I could never have had the courage to entertain.

My heart races, a feeling of expectation and anticipation, the preparation for a rendezvous is apace, we have many hurdles to surmount as things we did on a whim now requires planning, scheduling, deliberate consideration, and strategy, all of which we hope to breeze through to the point of our loving embrace. I am buoyed, love is beautiful, life is good, and God is on our side, for which we are all extremely thankful. 

Thought Picnic: Dreaming the possible from the impossible

Thoughts for living

I have dreams and I have prayers, all of which I want to come true for I felt it from deep inside today, a yearning, a desire, almost lovelorn by circumstances beyond my control, yet hopeful that this all would pass.

I see myself more and more elsewhere and with someone, my need for the touch and embrace is overwhelming to the point of disablement of ability that could frustrate if one does not come to quickly enough to consider what is within reach and what is the stuff of miracles made obvious.

My walk to Alexandra Park gave me time to think, to rationalise and to expect. I cry with my voice from inside. Sometimes without even making a sound, take me to the place where the amazing is indescribable, where hopes are exceeded blowing the mind, where love is so deep the bottom cannot be seen, where joy enlarges the heart to touch the world in a different way.

Notice at the entrance of Alexandra Park, Claremont Road close to Princess Road

Notice at the entrance of Alexandra Park, Claremont Road close to Princess Road

Alexandra Park lake

Chorlton Lodge

Alexandra Park lake

Alexandra Park lake

Alexandra Park lake

Alexandra Park lake

Chorlton Lodge

Heineken Brewery

After 2:25 hours of walking

At rest with a few aches

Thought Picnic: Scrambling from subside to upside

A meander between cities

Just a week ago, I went for a long walk through parts of my somewhat twinned city that I had never been before. My adventurous walk which brought me to parks and meadows I never knew existed also led to the discovery of the fact that the river that divides the city of Manchester from that of Salford is a meandering waterway that you could cross multiple times almost in a straight line.

If one was not aware of this feature, you could with the bearings you originally had of first crossing the river, think you are walking in one direction only to find that you are not. The good fortune of having my phone on me, even as I tried to use skyscrapers as my focal compass points that left me a little lost, was my salvation when I eventually crossed the River Irwell four times on my way back home.

A thought to unthink

Then, one night of crossing the river visited an end-it-all thought, a jump for the finish that was resisted with the thoughtfulness that the story I would love written about me should end differently. You are challenged by situation and circumstance, plenty of hope coupled with the lack of means, the privation that shows on the scales as you run out of belt holes on the shorter end in realisation and situation.

This is turbulence, severe and shaking, the jolts are demanding of your ability to reason and demands are made on resources running scarce and you begin to seek the comfort of self-assurances that you cannot account for. Daily, opportunities come for which you project and prospect in the anticipation of interest that leads to interviews that come and but for the grace of God you flunk. Uncertainty begins to wield and hold sway.

An anchor for a soul in turmoil

It is then that you seek a hold, a stay for your sanity, a grip for your mental state, an anchor for your soul, the reading that you will not be overwhelmed, that whatever it is would not leave you completely overcome and overwrought with infirmity; the inability to get a result. Pushed further down by those seeking more out of you in the pretence that they have something useful to offer.

You then appear to find that assuredness in the amazing sturdiness of certain congregations of faith where the numbered is of the ethnic minority as if this matters not much to the indigene but a few. There I was greeted, as a grandfather, I probably looked like one in my dressing and with my cane, and still, there is such reserve in me not to be drawn into the sentimentality of the genuflected and the emotional.

A best on its way

I find it familiar and maybe too familiar to old experiences that have made me too sceptical for assimilation whilst recognising that there is something radically different in the message that provides succour and confidence making you wonder about the significance of it all.

Deep in my premonitions, I know this all will pass, it does quieten me, relieve me for certain aspects of productiveness and even upsets me, but I calmly assure myself, things turn and they will turn, I just have to banish the fear of the worst and face the prospect of the best that is yet to come and quite well on its way to me.

Thought Picnic: A changing state of mind from fears to dreams

Of fearfulness

Fear is paralysing, sapping you of resolve and purpose as you entertain a foreboding, a premonition or some anxiety.

It is an uncomfortable feeling that serves no particular purpose than to create a dark cloud over the sunny disposition of life and introduce uncertainties that upset and restrict.

The fear that something is not done, the fear that something might happen, the fear that an end looms without having set things in order, both rational and irrational fears taking the mind from peace to worry and the worrisome.

Of freedom

Yet, as you realise that this is not where you want to be, you work and hope that the cloud passes, seeking an outlet of encouragement, excitement, hope, resolve or just release.

Fear is a prison, a claustrophobic cell of walls collapsing upon you with the possibility that paralysis might rob you of the will and strength to escape. I have entertained this guest for too long, it has overstayed its welcome, it is time for fear to leave and never come back.

I need a breath of fresh air, the exhilaration of freedom and the rejuvenation of youthfulness making me see beyond the clouds to the light, warmth and joy of living.

I have to tell myself, don’t let your fears hold you back when your dreams can set you free.

Thought Picnic: Having life is not enough

That journey travelled

It dawned on me this morning how far I had come from the Tuesday week four years ago, when I was admitted to hospital with a life-threatening condition.

By the time we discovered what it really was, I had the difference of between 5 weeks to live or survival, which involved intensive chemotherapy and a very long period of recuperation.

However, I must not deceive myself that four years on, with the ravages of disease come serious life-changing circumstances, some so radical as to fill you with hope-destroying desperation, despair and depression.

Finding more to life

Having life is not enough, there has to be quality and purpose to it, yet, one must be thankful and grateful for the gift of life and the opportunities it presents, to have hope and to be encouraged to continue the tough journey that lays ahead.

Yes, it dawned on me, when I realised I could not help someone I would have had no problem helping only 5 years ago.

With means, opportunity, ideas and insight, I had the capacity and the ability to spare nothing to set things in place and sort things out – Alas! I was no position to do so apart from find the crutch of my recurring sob story to lean on.

This story needs help

With the encounters of a harder life I have recently experienced in the last few years, I pick myself up and as many times as I find that I fall into exhaustion, relapse and tiredness as if one is losing the will to live after all that I have been through.

Whereas, all I need is a light, someone willing to take a chance, open to the risk of engaging a person with much to offer even if the first point of interaction does not create an amazing impact.

You stand at the cliff-edge wondering whether the myth of flight can be a reality or a walk back to face what presently gives no joy is a better prospect.

You ask yourself again, where would this long scary story end?

Thought Picnic: How Much Time Do I Have?

Preparations undone

Almost four years ago, the answer I got was five weeks if it came to the worst that is if the drugs don’t work, else I would have the chance of a good recovery – I did.

However, the question still lingers in the mind and every new result that shows slow but steady progress belies a sense of vulnerability I do well to try and ignore.

Many times, I wonder if I have set things right, I have an idea of where I want to rest but I have not laid out the plans to any detail as to if I will get that wish fulfilled.

Uncertainty needing clarity

It is morbid with all the foreboding that comes with it, but they are thoughts one should entertain just to be sure that what needs to be done gets done and the many other things might well be left unfulfilled - plan, purpose and prioritise seems to be the guiding focus.

In a call this morning, it appears more tests are required, nothing conclusive but enough for me to review, reassess, understand and appreciate that every breath I take, I die a little and at the same time like I have said many times before, if you have life, live it and live it well – until that time when you are no more living, live.

In a few weeks it would be clearer what the situation is, whether there is much to fear to which I mostly respond with a determination not to be overwhelmed and what the prognosis might be in terms of options, choices, decisions and acceptances.

Denial is not a safe haven

Acceptances indeed, I find myself just about to scale the five stages of the Kübler-Ross model again, I have been in denial many times before, never been overcome with the rage of anger, I have bargained but the professionals could not diagnose depression even when all events presented a perfect storm for it, however at the point of acceptance, I was ready to move on with my life – whatever time is left of it.

Knowledge matters and hopefully they will know enough to inform me when I ask the strange and difficult questions – I’ve been there before though I do not know if I have learnt enough to have the strength to face this as I did before – time will tell.

Let’s live

If anything, I keep doing what I know to do, taking each day as it comes, dreaming the dreams of the wonder of man, hoping beyond hope that the uncomfortable will pass and sharing as much as I can dare – maybe it might help others.

There have been pains, I have learnt to live with them, sometimes I ignore their inconvenience for the prospect of getting on – when the truth is manifest, we shall know as we are and wherefore one might dare to peer into an uncertain future – How much time do I have? If we knew, ill or well, we would have lost the very essence of our humanity.

We must live like there is no tomorrow to fulfil what we must today and live like there are tomorrows of endless time that we do not rush to conclusions that require time to understand better.

My Christmas Carol

The throes of Christmas

As I walked to the road to visit my friend, I saw a lady, all well dressed with a small child in tow, it would have been sight to gladden my heart. I am always moved by the closeness of a child to its mother, the sense of safety, of protection, of assurance, of trust and of faith.

I did not see this, there was something wrong, the lady was so upset, she was on the phone bawling out inconsolably, I thought, there was a bereavement, my heart went out to her.

Then I saw the son, the poor child seemingly oblivious of why his mother was distressed and there I felt even more for the son as they walked as if directionless to some place non-descript.

The hurts of Christmas

Sadly, this was Christmas, the time of the year when we all sing songs of peace and goodwill to all men but in many families around the land, they gather and the deep-seated hurts; anger and bitterness come to the fore with emotions running wild with resentment and unresolved conflict.

It was family, mother, sister, and partner that had ganged up on this woman bringing her and her son to a state of despair that upset me much.

The memories of Christmas

Then in an instant, a number of Christmases past flashed before my eyes, the recent ones of plenty and much penury, of joy and sadness, of comfort and pain, of seclusion and adventure, it’s been a wonderful life.

It was terrifying and a sense of defiance consumed me as I remembered things I will rather not yet write about but are now at the tip of my tongue to say to those who were not there when it really mattered and now deign to interfere to order my steps after all that I have been through.

I have family and I have friends, the ones who have been closer than a brother that have kept me from reproach as loss and more loss compounded even more losses that I can no more count what is left.

The hopes dispelling the fears of Christmas

In all this, one still finds hope and encouragement, beyond the fear is courage to face things that will make the hearts of others faint because one should for the spirit of Christmas banish the haunting ghosts of Christmas past and find the joys of Christmas present.

It reminds me of a very poignant prayer my pastor prayed yesterday that had such great meaning, as I never thought before. The reason why many people hate Christmas is not so much because Christmas is horrid but because of the people with whom they are gathered to think of the birth of the Prince of Peace.

He prayed that a light of peace might radiate and dissolve the conflicts, the bitterness, the pain, the hurts and despairs to give way to what the joy of what Christmas is – it was powerful in what it meant to those it mattered to.

I end this just as Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol comes to an end and with it I say to you, have a Merry Christmas and may the joy of Christmas be with you, your kith and kin.

Thought Picnic: Driven by desire

Driven by desire

I know desire though not like the desire many might have. The things of life that make you think you are not fruitful, productive or going somewhere no matter how hard you try.

There are things people desire for me that I cannot desire for myself, our goals do not match even if one can recognise where they are coming from.

Have I ever desired a wife, not really – I knew there are things about me that meant not burdening others with it too. As wonderful and loving as children are, I could never have them for all sorts of reasons I refused to allow become an all-consuming passion that could lead me to distraction – It is not important.

My peace is most paramount

I have been fortunate not to be subject to societal pressures demanding conformity without acknowledging my individuality though the end of the matter is hardly there – too many people do not have enough to cater for as they mind my business along with theirs.

To be honest, I have given up fighting them, they complain and rant, they abuse and curse, they rail and revile, they blame and excoriate, they contemn and condemn – I see them, I hear them, I read them but I answer them not – not to spite them, not to ignore them, not to belittle them but for the little peace I can find within myself to take each day as it comes and make the best of what time I have left.

But what I have I longed for in the midst of the many misfortunes I have lived to see the loss of in health, in wealth, in home, in work, in peace, in ability and in purpose – a new sense of purpose and a chance to prove that I am more than you can lift off the pages of my thoughts.

Thought Picnic: Reflections of where life ought to be

Reflections of

There are times the mirror held up reveals things that need closer attention, some inspection, probably an investigation but hopefully not a diagnosis.

Those are things that can be seen, deeper in the person is a bigger mirror that processes the elements of personality that may never been exposed through actions or words but are churned in the industrial workhouse of the thoughts prompted by circumstances, reading, hearing or feeling.

That nuclear core where boldness takes its source of courage and niggling fears are baying for that opening to overwhelm you in a sudden pall of despair.

The place where you comfort yourself continually that things would be right even when there is no clear conviction of evidence to support that hope and aspiration.

Reaching for

You reach out as if you were in a ditch in the hope that someone saw you fall in and is there at your point of need; that wish that if it were in the wilderness your cries for help have rung out to those who can help and help you well.

Tunnels unlit loom with no perception of the length of that journey before the bright light of the day raises expectations that soon the warmth of the sun would be the refreshing end to an ordeal that has not scarred you for the worse.

Cocooned in your own world it is almost impossible to see where others need your hand, you look for strength that assures you that what you see in the mirror is you, it is fine, it is good and there is nothing to fear as you grasp that hand, exit that tunnel and find succour well beyond your buffeted expectations.

Life is such a long story; would we ever find the time to tell it in peace?

Nigeria: Cast as the football prophets of Baal

Showing up ourselves

The Nigeria-Greece World Cup match was being played as I made my journey to Berlin yesterday, I inadvertently and rightly missed the sorry case of red mist that flung in football terms the always promising country into ignominy – the game yesterday was a clear reflection of the country in its 50^th year of independence.

We had such high expectations of ourselves but very little in preparation and confidence to meet those expectations – the haphazard management of the football association that in times does need political interference for the fact that left to their devices and the leadership of FIFA is a joke through to the selection of a coach to plan our strategy to fail catastrophically.

If anyone thought just because the World Cup was being hosted in Africa African teams must perform, they would now realise that football is a game of two halves of skill and ability not one of wishful thinking celebrating sentiment.

The prophets of Baal

I was so amused on Saturday when I read a tweet that talked about prayer warriors praying up Nigeria’s ability to run Argentina off the field – for a team and people who did not appear to have the kind of faith and resolve that snatched the Olympic Gold Medal off Argentina in 1996 – the prayers were in vain.

For a country so steeped in religious genuflection to the point of self-harming flagellation it all looked like the battle of gods on Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal and the Elijah only that Nigerians were re-enacting the part of the prophets of Baal who appeared to be doing everything humanly possible and got nothing.

In response to that tweet, I said the time for praying was over and the time for demonstrating our skill at playing was now - it was time we believed we could do it. By the game with Greece, people even dared think it was possible.

The prophets of false hopes failed to foresee that red card but were offering prophecies of a semi-final berth, who pays these purveyors of dishonesty and why do we ever give them a hearing at all?

Playing for I

As I arrived in Berlin, I was told that Nigeria was out of the World Cup, the next match would be playing for consolation and maybe pride but really I am glad that I do not have to watch performances with my heart always in my mouth wondering when 90 minutes would end as if it were a minute just to spare me a worse fate.

The advantage the country gained was given up by a selfish, ill-thought, ill-judged and bad-tempered act of one person and that has always been the issue in football and the country. A team carrying the hopes of 150 million people has the members playing as individuals hoping for personal praise and ending up doing the irresponsible.

Once again, we must return to the fundamentals of selecting a viable national team that has the ability to surprise, very much that the team that won the Under-17 World Cup in 1985 – no prima-donnas, no corrupt influences and in faraway China they brought the goods home to the chagrin of the great sponsors who expected the cup to go anyplace but a third-world country.

Preparations 2014

That was 25 years ago, since then whilst we have taken the spoils in junior World Cups with the disputing about age deflation those amazing whippersnappers do not seem to be able to take it to the top.

In my opinion, we need hungry-for-success home-grown players, indigenous coaches with some international exposure and a better commitment to developing football for Nigeria rather for the talent pool of foreign countries.

As Nigeria prepares for 2014, I would now concentrate on the activities of the other interesting but sometimes unfortunate prospects of my country of birth, England and the amazingly promising prospects of my country of residence, Holland.

Did I feel so proud wearing an orange tie on Monday when Holland showed the world they were coming – This World Cup will surprise and it will be so unpredictable but some of the known names are shining too.

Bring on Wimbledon, I need some excitement.