Quickening my steps from silly fears

How did I get here?

There are places my legs have carried that my feelings have taken on exciting alertness in the anticipation of danger whilst I rationalise in my mind and thoughts that there is nothing to fear, for where I am passing through would soon be behind me.

Then, I do not think that works that well for me when I find myself near old churchyards or graveyards. Something from my youthful past when my imagination was triggered by conversations, I overheard that presented apparitions of deep conviction no one else could perceive.

I quicken my steps whilst trying to keep my mind clear of inspiration or vision of the paranormal. You wonder how these things seem to have an enduring effect even though one is spared the experience that makes horror films tame.

Maybe I should just stop being irrationally timid, so I am not limited by foreboding, premonition, superstition, or intangible fright. It is a work in progress still and that is part of living and experience, the stuff stories are made of. I know I can find perfect peace for my mind and my wildest thoughts.

The damage done when parents fail to listen

Present and past meeting

I am not one to watch horror films, but I happened upon the compelling viewing of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark which against my wiser instincts I watched.

What occurred to me was the very familiar story of a child seeing things and that child having serious problems convincing their guardians of their experiences.

We have been schooled with the view that kids tell tales or tell lies for opportunity, advantage or attention, even when those things begin to affect the emotional, social and mental stability of the child.

Choosing not to believe

Sadly, the issue of child sexual abuse, nightmares and ‘seeing things’ fall into the same category of experiences that parents or guardians flimsily dismiss as trivial and fantasy, leaving the child to suffer until more damage is done.

At times, they will find some rational or logical explanation, and for their benefit, they may be right, but it should never be grounds to dismiss whatever the child has been through. At the very least, trust the child and strive to verify exactly what troubles the child. Maybe get professional help, not elders, not pastors, not rituals - PROFESSIONAL HELP - Like psychotherapy.

I had a similar experience when I was 10, during the day, my aunt and our houseboy shared stories about unexplainable events, those stories which I heard and can still recall to complete detail became seeds fuelled by the vivid and fertile imagination of a child. My nightmare was about to start; we only needed the dark and the quiet to enliven it.

That evening we had guests, my mother’s childhood friend and her husband, she was also the step-mother of Tola Awobode, the Lare of Cock Crow At Dawn (Music video).

I can’t continue

Let me digress, I will have to write this story fully another time, in fact, every time I have attempted to write this story, I have been distracted. It is possible, I do not know whether, the story will really be written, and I’m in shock.

My memory serves me well, that only yesterday, as I wondered how I remembered parts of the home address of my friend, he asked how far my vivid memory goes and I answered, back to about the age of three.

I began this blog to write about the need for parents and guardians to pay greater heed, sometimes against their better judgement if that comes into play to certain radically life changing experience of their wards, the scars of which I still bear and part of what sometimes still informs the way I interact with my parents.

The need for professional therapy

My experience was dismissed as fantasy by my father, my mother however was anxious, he left her to throw whatever she could into the situation to help me when probably professional therapy would have helped rather than visits to spiritualists of different persuasions, which with hindsight heightened my anxiety and weakened my ability to deal with the situation for decades after the event.

I read Psalms over bottles, cups, or buckets of water, seeing religious service as a fearful dreadful experience that required you pay for any comfort or peace through some laborious routine of service, recitation and ritual, it was not a lovely episode in my young life that continued into my first term in boarding school.

I guess, I have gotten the substance of my intent across without touching the detail of my personal experience.

However, in digging up this memory, I just now found out from the Internet that Tola Awobode had died just over 4 years ago. We knew her as Auntie Tola, it was a pleasure to watch her perform as Lare on Cock Crow at Dawn, I never knew what else she did – that is what I have now just read in her obituary.

I will tell your husband

The grip of memory

As I watch the repeat of a Hardtalk Extra interview with Gene Wilder, he recounts some experiences as caring for a sick mother, compulsive praying and other childhood things that I could identify with, humans live amazing lives even in stranger ways.

Introspectively, I have always been concerned if not fearful of the memories that I could retrieve and recount, one wonders if they should be left in the dust of time lifted out with the wry smile of what once was and where one is.

In some cases, I consider it merciful that I cannot remember the trauma of birth having escaped from the womb in a fit of claustrophobia at just under 27 weeks in a Macbethian wonder of survival.

I was told I fitted into the palm of my father’s hand, the lasting effects of that episode are relayed in the fact that I now use glasses, apparently, a lot of light is shone in the eyes of early babies, some doctors said my eyesight should improve with age but they did not notice the astigmatism that was developing till no one did anything about it.

However, I do have vivid memories from about 4 years old, I can faintly remember some earlier ones but they are not as striking though no less contributory to the framework to the framework that has become me.

Children have more than eyes

What I have found annoying in the culture in which I was brought up is the way our elders always felt we could be shielded from the activities going on around their lives by keeping us out of view.

It is as if they thought we only respond to the world visually and never develop mentally but only as errand kids and probably bookworms and suddenly at 9 or 10 we are supposed to be responsible people with extraordinary initiative, if only they knew what we knew then, arrested development in the midst of the overflow of life.

Was it a vision?

One good evening, I was a bit under the weather, I was just over 8 and my mum was nursing my kid brother in the adjacent room when this lady I knew so well entered my room through another door a and sat on me – the hairs on the back of my neck still stand on end as I remember the event – as I gasped for air, she was heavy, I said, “I will tell your husband”, which my mum heard next door and anxiously enquired what the matter was.

As I tried to tell her, she came into my room as the lady quickly left and my short term memory deserted me as to whom she was. It was probably another 10 years before I could remember that she was the wife of the veterinary doctor who was a family friend, however, that was my experience which some expert might explain away as hallucination, vision or poppycock.

Climb every mountain

That episode launch me into a new world, we climbed every mounted, sailed every sea and forded every river – excerpt from Sound of Music - seeking prayer men and their portals to God none of which prepared me for greater terrors I experienced from the age of 10 through 12. This may be written about in due course.

Parents are a wonder in the way they hold a protective shield over their children, their sacrifices, their prayers, their anxieties and pains just to make sure that our lives do not walk the paths of pain that they might have walked, it does however, bother me though that in some cases, they might also have inadvertently entered into covenants over which they have no control leading to unexpected consequences.

Surely, these things cannot be unique to African societies, and if I do still find the opportunity, I will tell her husband.