My first memory of my mum

I have known my mum for a long time, almost since my first day on earth. Now, people with good memory probably remember knowing their mum since the very first day but for me it took a while to catch on. My first memory of my mum is when I was 2 years old maybe. I remember I woke up one morning feeling hungry and I was like “let me wake up that woman that feeds me”. I used to sleep in my mum’s bedroom but on a separate bed. So anyway I was hungry and I wanted to wake her up. Before I could do it I thought it would make sense to come up with a name to call her because I might have a better chance of waking her up if I was calling her something while I shook her this way and that. After studying it over for a while I decide to call her ma-mi – I have always been about keeping things simple. So then I walked to her bed and shook her as hardly as I could and shouted ma-mi, ma-mi a dozen times over until she woke up.

As she woke up – yawning and wiping her eyes – I could see tea, bread, eggs and all the things I was accustomed to having at breakfast coming my way. Wait… I am not sure if that is what I saw, I think I might have started having that type of breakfast a few years later. I saw food at any rate, a great deal of it. I always loved seeing my mum, you know; it always assured me of eating. Now I love contacting her because it always ensures that I get money or help in another form when I am in a tough fix. I admire my mum, she has always loved me, notwithstanding the fact that my behaviour makes me very hard to love. Not only that but she raised me well; clothed me, fed me, cared for me in good and poor health and even sent me to school – a thing that I did not agree with. See, I couldn’t stand education when I was young, I can now, as long as it’s someone else getting educated. So, aside from the fact that she persisted on the matter of me going to school and enhancing my knowledge, her child raising record is mostly flawless. I honestly think if she was not responsible for me having over 15 years of schooling in one form or another I would love her more but still I love her plenty, even more than I love myself and that is saying a lot by the way, because no man, woman or any other living thing as ever had more self love than I do.

My first kiss

I grew up on romantic movies. With the exception of myself, the house I grew up in was filled entirely with girls and you know how they get with that stuff (romantic stuff). Try as I may, I could never get myself a reasonable amount of time on my video game or my favourite movies because the girls would always want to use the TV – we only had one – and you can’t say no to girls right? Actually you can and I would always do so, but when you are in the minority – one against half a dozen – your voice counts for nothing. With my case being as it was, I ended up surviving on the entertainment that my wonderful sister and beautiful cousins were into.

The thing about the stuff they were into is that it always had to do with love and romance, in one way or another. They would watch; Beauty and the Beast, While you were sleeping, Prelude to a kiss, Bed of Roses, City of angels and many other movies of the like. The first time I ever saw two people kissing was while I was watching one of these movies and it was absolutely magical. The scene had everything; it was a night with a full moon and a lot of stars, music was playing in background, time seemed to be moving slowly and when the two love birds in the scene closed their eyes and leaned forward to kiss, just about the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen graced the sky to accompany the kissing. The kissing continued, at one point with the girl’s right leg in the air. I was in awe of what I was seeing and to me it was the most amazing thing on the planet and I immediately wanted to experience it for myself, even though I was only 4 or 5 years old at the time.

After that spectacular introduction to kissing, I would sit in on all the romantic movies the girls watched and my desire to have an experience similar to what I saw in the movies increased with every kissing scene that I saw. Along the way I developed the idea that a kiss was the most beautiful, most powerful thing on earth. That it could move mountains, change the weather, evoke music or even alter the movement of time. To me, every time you kissed, regardless of the time or day, place or circumstances, the beauty of the world around you would manifest itself to make the kiss as enjoyable as possible. Like maybe a half moon would turn full and the stars would accumulate even if none were to be seen before that moment. It was simply magical and I couldn’t wait to experience it. I ended up waiting more than 10 years though.

I had to go through plenty of toil before I could finally get to experience my first kiss but I will touch on that in another post. At present I will skip along and get straight to the kiss itself, a kiss that did not live up to the expectations that I had build up from the movies.

My special moment…

With my hands firmly around her, I went for the kiss head upright, our noses bumped. I backed out a little then tried again with my head tilted and this time I got her lips. Well, I didn’t actually get her lips, but rather I got the atmosphere – most likely nitrogen – and her lips on my cheek. I repositioned and went for it again; the third time was the charm! Now that I had got her lips, I begun to swivel my head back and forth while kissing her softly – like I saw in movies –  but she looked at me weird so I stopped. At this point I remembered that I needed to close my eyes, the eye contact thing was making me shy and uncomfortable. We continued kissing for a while, this time with our eyes closed and during the all experience I kept waiting for her lips to start tasting like something you would write a poem about, like my favourite chocolate or something, but nothing of the kind happened. At one point I tried to lift her off her feet but my arms were weak so I dropped her instantly and she landed awkwardly. She was not impressed by my stunt and just like that the show had reached its conclusion, no encore or anything. She said she was in “no mood” for smooching it up any more, maybe we could “just seat down and talk”.

I had waited years for that moment but after it had come and gone I did not feel like the luckiest dude alive or like I had just experienced the sweetest moment of my life. I felt quite normal, which was disappointing, so I mumbled some few words of endearment to the girl, got my excused – while apologizing for the ‘lifting stunt’ –  and left for home, to “finish my homework” I claimed.

False alarm

I have a friend who is obsessed with screaming “oh my God!” at any little thing that happens. When he sees a cute girl he screams “oh my God”, when he sees a bad looking one “oh my God”, when answering his phone “oh my God” and when hanging up his phone “oh my God”. Not a single incidence goes without him signing it off with “oh my God”

On earth this may be nothing more than weird or annoying but you can imagine what ruckus this constant false alarm must cause in heaven. Well, not a ruckus as such but real confusion for sure. Oh my God is something delicate, a trigger phrase, a phrase that prompts action on the part of God. God is a very busy deity, he has to attend to so many matters at the same time and losing even one second comes with severe consequences like: people getting hurt, dying, missing opportunities, losing faith, losing way, stealing, lying, cursing… so many unwanted consequences. Such being the case, it is important that no time is lost; otherwise the world might damn sure go out of balance.

Now, enters my friend with his nonstop “oh my God”. On any given day, God has to prevent a lot of bad things from happening and he has to ensure a lot of goodness comes to life. Being unbiased, God attends to every single person’s request with equal enthusiasm and without delay. This friend of mine going about screaming oh my God all the time, must be use up a lot of God’s attention, hmm…all for nothing.

Possibly as a kid the dude would scream “oh my God” all the time and every single time God would look forward to showering his love on the poor creature and fixing the matter, be it what it may, but… he  would always strike a disappointment. No doubt he kept it up as he grew older and God kept his love and grace all the way, love and grace he has kept to this day. The thing is, forsaking the dude even once may come with any or all the consequence mentioned earlier, possibly even more. With the dude screaming “oh my God” all the time, there is no telling when he is doing it for a serious reason and when he is doing it merely for pass time and so all his screams must be attended to without fail, hmm… every single God damned time. The all thing must have God going back and forth all the time but to no avail. It must be powerful infuriating I reckon. If it were me I would have learned to ignore the dude by now, but luckily God’s love endures.

Sharing is caring

As of last week, it had become a trend for people to go to my favorite restaurant during lunch time merely to converse and play with their friends and/or spouses. As I am a nerd without a friend or girlfriend, I found myself adorning the honor of being the only one “left out”. Also, with everyone happily conversing and barely eating or drinking, the place did not resemble a restaurant any more than North Korea resembles a democracy. I decided to intervene.

Now, yesterday afternoon I went to this same restaurant to have my lunch as per usual and found the place buzzing with happy people, but with no one eating or drinking as per “new usual”. Never minding the situation too much, I ordered fried rice and chicken and took an unoccupied seat in the middle of the restaurant. Minutes later my food arrived and when it did, I stood up in front of everyone and said “look here, hmm…everyone, I am charging our good Chef here with the task of bringing food for you all, order what you want, in any quantity you like! When Colstar Web is eating, everyone should eat!”

The Chef looked at me, surprised, and gave a questioning glance that showed me that he was not very pleased by what I am sure he considered  my “poor attempt at being funny”. However, what followed a few seconds later overwhelmed him and erased any of his doubts on the matter. What happened was…wait, it’s getting a little fuzzy here, hmm…oh yah I remember now, a girl seated in one corner of the restaurant shouted “God bless this big headed fellow, a burger for me Chef and throw in some French fries too”. Everyone else joined in with “God bless the big headed dude” and a few lines regarding their respective orders. At the sight of this, the Chef was inspired to get busy and he immediately got to work, serving everyone with the food they had ordered. And so just like that, everyone was busy eating and not caring much for talk.

Later, I decided to add in some “juice” to my lunch and so I ordered fresh orange juice. I looked around to see if anyone else had bothered to order a drink. No one had. I stood up again, this time saying “hmm…everyone, please feel free to order soft drinks, tea, coffee, fresh juice, anything to drink, when Colstar Web is drinking, everyone should drink” This time my speech was followed by very loud cheers, well wishes and comments like “long live the big headed dude” and “ugly face but beautiful heart” One beautiful lady even went as far as saying “I love you Colstar Web…like a brother I mean”. Then she ordered her drink, like everyone else. The Chef gladly obliged, serving everyone drinks according to their orders.

Finally, time had come for me to settle the bill. The Chef brought the bill to me, with a little bit of a worried face that read something like “how stupid I have been, believing this fool is actually capable of buying food and drinks for dozens of people”. See, the Chef had billed me for everyone else’s food and drinks and was worried I might not have enough money to settle the bill, the poor fellow. Such being the case, I stood up to speak and put things in perspective.  I said “our good Chef is now going to serve bills to all of you, gladly collect ladies and gentlemen, don’t feel shy, help your selves if you may, when Colstar Web pays his bill, everyone else should their bills”.

Good God what followed this speech was so…but never mind, I don’t think it matters much.

A chasing after the wind

This is an incident from my teenage days.

I was seated alone in the TV room feeling sad and lonely while putting on the facial expression of one who is in a tolerable dilemma and does not know what to do. Just then my grandfather walked in and noticed my pitiable state. Being a naturally curious man, he was very interested to know what on earth the matter was, and so he inquired, while taking a seat next to me.

I had long been waiting for an unsuspecting someone to pour out my troubles on and so without any hesitation I proceeded to fill him in on my poor luck with girls, lacking resources for fun, limited time for rest and so on and so forth. I then went further to share with him my desire to grow older, move to a new place, make new friends and make all those changes that would in turn make my life much more of a joy than it was at present. When I was done, he looked at me, with a suppressed smirk on his face, cleared his throat and said the following:

“Look here kid; there is one you should know about life. The thing is…., well, we go through life with the belief that the best is yet to come and the present is not quite good enough. When we are kids, we dream to be teens and tire our brains with wild fantasies of an exciting, boundless and exceedingly happy life stored for us somewhere in the near future. When teenagers however, we discover that teenage hood is not quite as fun as our childish fantasies made it out to be. Of course we have immense fun breaking hearts and having our heart broken in that whirlwind they call love, but outside of that we see ‘too many limitations!’, ‘too many rules’, ‘too little opportunities’ and ‘too little freedom’.  We cannot wait to reach adulthood and make our own money, make our own decisions, make our own babies and just…make any other thing we like, any time we choose”.

“But when we eventually reach adulthood, how does it turn out? Well, the lucky ones among us do get jobs and make our own money well enough, but they are such jobs that are so boring that our teenage selves would pay enormous amounts not to do. Jobs that leave us exhausted and out of our wits whenever we are done with them. And often we never get to earn enough money to spoil ourselves and play to our choices, no, instead we make only enough to stay alive, barely that is.

And as for babies, those cute chubby things that seemed so lovable in our teenage days, they become less cute, less lovable and in fact turn out to more like a burden, a distraction or even a nuisance if we do actually ‘make them’. Meanwhile ‘any other thing’ we like becomes too far out reach and all our attempts at adventure and rule breaking end up as considerable failures.  Initially we don’t lose heart and keep trying with the view that eventually our dreams will come true. But by and by we finally settle for reality after suffering uncountable disappointments. At this point we throw away any of our remaining dreams or fantasies and buckle down to labor like horses until we grow old and frail. It is not until old age that we look back on our past with fond memories of all those beautiful moments we never truly cherished at the time, and regrets of all those opportunities we were too blind to see then”.

“And we…., but never mind, as you can see, we spend too much time fantasizing, thinking, wishing and… indulged in other forms of time wasting. We spend only a trickle of time actually living! Kid, give the future time to become present if you may. Who knows? It might turn out better than you think or it might turn out, well, worse. But give it a rest and try to make the most of today”.

I sat listening without saying a word and when he was done I felt so much relief and was filled so much motivation, spirit and enthusiasm that I jumped from my seat, left my house without saying a thing and went out joyfully to swim at a nearby lake, an endeavor that ended up with me nearly drowning and swallowing up many a liter of lake water. But I had enormous fun all along.