Sometimes, when
the heart breaks, it breaks softly, like a rain drop on a hard surface, shattering
into a million pieces; an anguish vibrating at a frequency too high for the
human ear. Yes. It is in that sense that I answer, “I am fine” when what I
really should say is, “It’s been a difficult year”. But if every human spirit is
a forest, within that forest are many trees destined to die in drought, no
doubt. But also a tree or two with roots so deep they bow their heads to hurricanes
and raise them again when calamity has passed. For as fragile as we are – bodies
of clay, clinging desperately to a spinning planet – we are built to last; because
we carry within us – forget sun and wind – the most renewable energy source of
all.
Yes. So no
matter how tired you are at the end of the day, the tireless sound of children
at play, their laughter naturally immune to the vicissitudes of life, could still
be all it takes. Or catching the whiff of something on fire, you know? This could
be all it takes – the whiff of akamu, pregnant with the memories of many a
childhood breakfast. Did you not know? There are excitements you think you have
forgotten, pleasures you think you have outgrown, until you hear that sizzle,
the one boiled meat makes when it is sitting in a pan of hot oil violently
protesting its conversion to fried meat… Ah! This could be all it takes to
re-charge the heart, sometimes.
More powerful, I
tell you, than the most powerful machines man has ever built. For, tell me,
which jet engine, after a grueling cross-Atlantic flight, can be ready to fly
again just by closing its eyes and listening to ‘Mo Sori Ire’ on repeat? These
people who think that money makes the world go round have never tried to heal a
heart so broken it cannot eat, or drink, or tell the difference between two
pillows, one stuffed with ostrich feathers and the other with mama’s old
wrappers. On a day like that, it may be only Bob Marley who can turn the soul
from despair. Tell me, which one of us has not sat in the darkness before,
singing songs from the past just to re-awaken a zest for the future? Eh?
So, do not underestimate
the power of sitting up to watch the sunset or sitting down to watch it rise.
Or of driving kilometers into the past to visit the home you grew up in, where your
parents still live perhaps, and even if they do not, my sister, do not
underestimate it still, just how long the spirit can linger over the places True
Love has been. Yes. Do not underestimate the power of scrolling through your
phone, in search of those you really should call more often, for sake of those
magical conversations you used to have, longer than any kerosene lamp could ever
burn. Did you not know? Getting down on hands and knees so the children can ride
horses, simple as it is, can heal the spaces the WorldWideWeb has built between
us. So that when we get back up and log back on, and type ‘Lol’, it would be
because we have actually – and genuinely – laughed. Yes.
This, my friend,
is the sort of Holiday I wish you when I say it, from my heart – Merry
Christmas.
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