Thought Picnic: In the rivers of black identity

The river as it flows

I was invited to listen to Leon Bridges River; which also appears in HBO’s Big Little Lies original TV soundtrack, with the thought that the song was a significantly meaningful reflection for the black race, but there was a pause as that statement was made with the feeling that across the pond and history, things might not necessarily have the same import that they thought it should.

Attentively, I listened and tried to grasp the essence of it, I felt obligated to see things from their perspective as the lyrics though unseen but heard clearly did speak but did not catch on. In all honesty, it was best not to feign pretence as we were exploring the deeper issues of black identity. It hadn’t heard of Leon Bridges before.

River does evoke much about history and redemption, but in the words of the refrain, “Take me to your river, I wanna go”, the river was a place of routine, where you bathed, fetched water, washed clothes, and had fun, it did not carry any form of sacredness associated with cleansing and baptism as my interlocutor surmised. [Genius Lyrics: Leon Bridges River]

The river somewhere different

I felt that as there was no restriction to go to the river that flowed by the village, its great value might have been lost in its apparent familiarity. At my first hearing, meaningful as the song might well be, it would take more listening to it to have the deeper understanding being asked for at that time.

Later, I thought about where the river could mean just as much to me, it involved a different qualification in The Holy River by Prince, from the Emancipation album; there he sang, “Let’s go down to the holy river, If we drown we would be delivered,” that alone in its introduction was taking me to a special and sacred place of discovery and miracles. I was taken from the time I originally heard the song. [Lyrics from The Holy River]

Blog - Thought Picnic: Find your holy river in which to drown

This river was not a place of fun but a grotto of sorts, it was filled with a different kind of symbolism and mysticism, a place your approached with some dread and yet the anticipation that if everything seemed to go wrong, it would come out right regardless.

The subconscious of eternal existence

I found myself thinking of enclosures and openings, why I am totally averse to wearing anything like ankle chains, and then finger rings or neck chains. I wear a bangle of betrothal, but it is open-ended. I could give a reason, but I felt a profundity in the fact that the time we spend on earth is but a subset of the eternity of our existence.

We are in genetic and ethereal terms the result of an ancestry that doubles up each further generator of our origin that goes back from two parents to four grandparents, to eight great-grandparents, to sixteen great-great-grandparents and so on. If we do procreation, we begin a new chain that is a subset of our progeny.

It had me wondering where a tendency to fussiness or aversion comes from without influence or education, quirks and traits that attend to similarities with people we have never encountered but are strong in our personalities that some might even be inclined to the belief in reincarnation. I do not assume to suggest that I am competent in any form of existential philosophy, I would consider myself a total novice.

However, what I came away with was once again how so diverse and divergent the cultural and historical identities of the black race are, where the search for one's roots is a journey of discovery and the acceptance of self with being comfortable in one’s skin is a process of continuous learning involving complementation and jettison in various measures that we evolve and restate who we are depending on where we are.

I guess there is more to meditate on.

Childhood: The railroad back to my roots

The railroad back to my roots

One train journey remains vivid in my memory and it was one I took some 35 years ago. We lived in the Rayfield suburb of Jos in the then Benue-Plateau State of Nigeria.

My parents wanted us to spend the summer holidays back with extended family in the South where I had one paternal great grandmother, three of my grandparents, now all departed, lots of cousins and the potential for new friends.

There was still the residue of colonial efficiency in matters Nigerian and things still seemed to run as they should, we had tickets and clear reservations that no one was going to bump us off.

No falls from on high

We had one half of the cabin for 4 of us, my mother, my sister, my kid brother who was still being nursed and I.

We could sit 4-abreast and at night the back rest folded out into an upper bunk bed where I slept with my sister. In fact, I am amazed that I could sleep on such as high platform because not too many years before, I was called a coconut because I just naturally fell off the bed at night.

The railroad cities

The notable places we travelled through were Kaduna Junction where the railway split for directions far north or to the East of the country. These were haunts my mother was familiar with, she grew up in the North and could pass for a Northerner from her looks and her command of the language.

At Kafanchan, we shopped for refreshments we never had from home, as my mother told us stories of when she was a child and how her reminiscences of her guardians brought waves of gratitude and revulsion of outrageous child abuse that these people got away with, with impunity.

The crossing of the River Niger at Jebba could have happened in 1940s sepia, the experience was as eerie as it was memorable, the bridge went on and on as it we were never going to ever complete the crossing and soon after the crossing there was a long break before the journey continued.

At this stop we tried the pounded yam warps with stew, it was never boring nor without event and after 2 and a half days we arrived in Ibadan where my mother’s brother in law married to her big sister was on hand to pick us up in his trusty Peugeot 403 and take us to Ijesha-Ijebu where the welcome party continued until when I could no more keep my eyes open anymore.

I still love trains

I never had the pleasure of another long train journey like that again, in fact, as I started secondary school and had to travel from Kaduna to Lagos, where my schoolmates from the North were put on trains without chaperones, I was put on a flight with all the trappings of privilege that no more exists.

But, I have not lost my fascination for long train journeys, they are no more like that, now, you get on a train, find a comfortable seat and just as you recline into much needed motion-induced slumber the purser comes round offering you a drink; the mixed emotion of gratitude for succour and anger for disturbance gets assuaged with a can of Perrier.

In two hours, you are in Antwerp, in three you are in Brussels or Cologne, in four you are in Hannover, Paris or Frankfurt, in six you are in Berlin, for longer you can get further on continental Europe and travelling 1^st Class does not have to cost you an arm and a leg - they even have wireless connectivity on the trains now, no fear of being off the grid.

Looking out of the window as we cruise passed the meadows and green fields interspersed with stations of renown, I would not be buying diamonds as I approach that city that has a pillow on which ones head would lay.