Kaleidescope
We were different, we always have been. All stages of our lives have spelt out that word. Childhood; it wasn’t really obvious then, we spent our childhood lives locked up. Not entirely because we were forced, but because at some point, we began to appreciate the serenity, the peace and calm of the indoors. Ironically, the indoors wasn’t so peaceful and quiet. But we were made to see the outside world through a kaliedescope. It looked broken, twisted, and we didn’t want to be there.But inside was a whole different story.
Home, we called it home. It didn’t look like a home, it wasn’t fit to house us. But I got to realise that home is and will always will be, people not place. People, not place. That discovery was capable of covering up a lot of faults; the leaking roof, the unplastered walls, the creepy crawlies. People, not place! Mother was our wall, our defense our warmth and strength. We didn’t need anything else.......
Actually, we needed a lot of things, but in our little world, we had everything.
Everything.....
School was fun. We were all very sharp, brilliant, bright. Big bro was fluent with the pen. He was precise, everything he did was calculated. His small head thought wonderful things. Like all kids, he had dreams. His were very reasonable. Too smart for his age.
I Lucille had a habit of trying to better myself. I was the sharpest in my class, putting very little effort yet arriving outstanding. My head also thought wonderous things, but mine was somewhat dark, as I cannot boast of innocence in the early stages of my life. I admired big bro, his chastity, his love for good. My mouth was sharp, as sharp as my pen. It spoke and sung wonders. What went on in that little head of mine would not be contained. It had to be let out.” You are a star” mother said.
Little bro was born with a very big head and a small frail thin body. He was somewhat malnourished as a child, for his coming was not expected, but could not be predetermined. Hard times, very hard times. He came at a hard time. He clutched mother, held on for dear life until he was too heavy and too old to be mothered. I cast dirty looks at him from time to time. Mother called it jealousy, but I insisted I was never jealous.
I willingly weaned myself, refuesed to suckle at seven months or so. I had this drive for independence. Independence left two year old me staring at a powdered baby, with scanty hair and a big head, trying to comprehend the fact that he was my brother. He was probably too heavy for me, I was a child too, so I didn’t carry him much, for fear that his head would fall and break. For this reason, I grew up not knowing how to care for or cuddle, or pamper little children.
He was stubborn, little bro. Always seeking the outdoors. We had learned that there was nothing outside, nothing as satisfying as the safety of our home. But little bro would not have that. He was playful, adventurous, rough. He was not like us. Special, mother said he was special. He easily made friends, easily got along with people. Then he grew, and the world dynamics and social standards put him in some kind of shell.
Hunger was a well renowned family member of ours. It grew with us but so did silence. So you, you would never know. Mother said not to wash the dirty linens in public, I was obsessed with independence and desired no sympathy, so I didn’t say, big brother was quiet as a dove, and mentally matured, he didn’t say, little bro grew up watching us, so he knew better, but his eyes did not lie.
Father did not need to cast his eyes at us before we knew to respect ourselves. We were the perfect example of self control.
If only they knew the face behind that face, the tears behind those bright squinty eyes.........
I remember when we were to host a meeting. Pepper soup was the dish of the day. We prepared and planned, bought and organised, then the men feasted. We were inside, the meeting was in full swing, then a certain man had a goat’s stomach in his bowl, he was munching, the huge glob was so appeasing, little bro could take it no longer, he cried and cried for it to be given to him. At first I called it bad habit, but looking at it from a different perspective, he probably didn’t remember the last time he ate such food, having it served by his household to a couple of strangers was difficult to comprehend.
It’s not for children, we would hear, it will turn your stomach, they would say, I will not take you out, you will disgrace me. Not that we went out, childhood was devoid of the treats we were meant to enjoy. But for face and name, our household was good at hosting parties, we offered the sweetest food and richest drinks, we weren’t stingy with the meat.
But we purposely missed out on other people’s parties. If people were picking two, we were to pick one or none at all, and smile and say “thank you” because “thats how things are done”
So we stomached it all, we didn’t cry and whine like other kids, we grew up to stomach and swallow the nonsense hook line and sinker.
As a child, I never lacked crayons. Not the fake tiny wax crayons they sold in every shop, but the thick original ones. I put them to good use too. I started doodling on books, then when I was bored I would doodle on the ground, then I upgraded and doodled on the walls. My work, my masterpiece. As I grew older, I would look at my scribbles and compare what was on the wall to what i could do at that moment. I was getting better, slowly. I would ask myself what I was thinking when I did all that. What was in my head when I decided to pick up the crayon, what was my inspiration?
A certain day came when a family friend noticed my work. She instructed that it be washed off. So big bro and I did what our little hands could do, we bruised the unpainted plaster wall, but only a little was achieved. The crayon was stuck. I was disappointed that some memories were lost. What was her business anyway. It was like a museum for my childhood fantasies, she had no right to strip me of it. “It’s not looking good.....”
But she wasn’t the only one who wrecked our childhood fantasies. At church, there was a singing group who became familiar with my mother, they were from the same state. They needed a place to sew and we had an uncompleted building, (we would later rent it in its sorry state) so my mum agreed to let them sew there. But that was our kingdom of imagination, which we fondly called Eagles city. Home of all our handmade paper action figures of the comic we invented, they had us rip it apart.
Tiptoe
All our lives we knew to stomach things. To swallow them hook, line and sinker. It was expected of us to accept the shortcomings of life and smile, and express gratitude for it. Because people had it worse. It was mother’s genes. Her cool, calm demeanor found its way to our temperaments. Though I feel it reduced with my coming. I am both meek and mad.
I have had to walk on hot coals for a long time, enough time for me to realise how insignificant a certain condition can make a person.
At times, I am unrecognisable, even to myself. I keep hiding the potential, the talent, the me in me, while walking on those hot coals that I eventually feel they have disappeared, or were never there to begin with. I am a nobody, I mean nothing, I am not beautiful. I begin to welcome the shortcomings, as part of the things that make me who I am. That when I look in the mirror........
I do not know who is staring back at me.
Tiptoeing. The art of not making mistakes, the art of always meeting a certain stsndard, certain expectations. Even if it means cutting parts of your personality to meet their criteria. This impossible skill is what I have had to learn all my life. It’s like an inbuilt mechanism that activates itself whenever I am around them, they, the negatives, toxics, people. Whenever I am confronted, I tiptoe. Because it is the only peaceful way to live? No!
Because circumstances have deemed it so. Plus, I have tiptoed so long, I may have forgotten how it feels like to walk, on my feet, like a normal person. I’m not normal anyway, so it’s no news.
I remember the first time I tiptoed. It wasn’t the first per se, but it was a significant one. I was eleven or so. I tiptoed, and I wept. For I was not used to stomaching nonsense to that extent. I cried because I had held those tears for too long. The fact that I had to smile and act all appreciative..........
After that first one, I was partly disappointed. Not in they, but in myself, for crying. Had I not groomed myself for this?
The next time I tiptoed, I was stronger, I was tougher, I tiptoed so well that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I could not believe who I had become. Pleasing all sides almost at all times and managing somehow to displease myself only eighty eight percent of the time.
I deserve some credit for that. I became devoid of emotion, I could not be hurt, I could not be torn emotionally. And even in my quiet place, the tears did not flow as they were supposed to.
I had a prepared apology for everything I did, didn’t do and was likely to do. What was needed was a show of remorse, a sincere expression of guilt, an admission o f wrong, a promise never to repeat the same mistake. No big deal, I did it step by step, and the desired result was achieved. “Part time careless”.
I couldn’t be carefree, neither could I be too careful. I would offend a party on each end. Perfection is achieved with a fault. So I achieved perfection, while tiptoeing.
But before I would tiptoe again, I would need to gain my lost sense of self, my personality, so when I look in the mirror, I would see, me.
But my next tiptoeing is done with a blurry view of who I am. The effect?
I do not know who I am. Everyone has a version of me in their head. But the original version is left inconclusive.
Toxic! This reason I tiptoe. Because the world is ugly and beautiful, and they have resolved to see the ugly side alone, and force that view on me, myself and I.
