My Love Affair

I have a love affair with words.

I love the way they draw a picture by their very nature. The right word has the ability to describe a situation so completely that there is no need for explanations, or clarifications.

2 of the words I’m currently in love with are Infused and Suffused. Infused always used to talk to me about food; you know all dem over complicated oyibo cooking shows; where they talk about an “infusion of olive oil with the essence of rosemary”, as far as I was concerned, it was just a long way of saying “we stuck some herbs into this oil”.

However, the more I thought of it, the more enraptured I became with the thought of the process; the transference of the essence of something to something else, the entirely new flavour that is created by the absorption of this new thing into the status quo. I’m caught by the mental picture of one thing slowly and gently absorbing the essence of the other, taking in this new substance until they are irrevocably blended, becoming something different from the separate elements that created it. The thought of taking something in till it is completely a part of you …which leads me to my second word – suffuse.

When you say something is suffused, it has taken so much of the introduced body that it is full of that new thing; the new thing effectively runs through it.

Now I promise this isn’t an English lesson. I’m just fascinated by the process of transference that happens when we become so steeped in something that it becomes a part of us. Like when we grow up with a prevalent mind-set that gradually and slowly becomes normal; until it is part of us, until we are suffused with it.

Infusion talks to me about the things I absorb myself in. the things I sink into; things that if I stay long enough, become a part of me. I’ve noticed that the more I stay around certain things, the more normal they become to me, until they become a part of me. I like to think about the things I’m infused in. Like there is a lovely lady in the kitchen where I work who is determined to fatten me up. She is also a huge fan of garlic. And sometimes, after a particularly garlicky meal, as I make my way home, I’m convinced that if vampires existed, I’d easily be the human version of that Mortein plug in repellent…but for vampires. Totally suffused.

On a more serious note though, I realize that when I want to write, all I need is to go on my twitter page – I happen to follow a lot of amazing writers, and I immerse myself in their thought process, in the things they post, in the articles they put up, I submerge myself until words almost burst out of me of their own accord.

When I need inspiration, I open myself up to my environment; becoming one with it. Listening and watching and absorbing, turning my brain into a verbal camera, creating pictures of what I can see, feel and experience. And by the time I am done, I am full of the world around me; its beauty, its purpose, its pain, its truth and realities.

I’ve learned to end my day with peace, to soak myself in serenity. Sitting in my old comfy chair – typing, reading or just reviewing my day, gradually slowing down my mind and doing the various things that erase the stress of the day and leave me open and ready for the inspiration and ideas that flood my sleep and ensuring I am charged and ready for a new day. I’m learning to consciously draw peace into myself until I am so full of it that I can almost feel it radiate from my spirit to those around me.

I guess I love these words because they say so simply to me that I am a product of the things I take into myself. We become what we absorb into ourselves. And the longer we stay; seeping, absorbing, the more infused we become by the things we surround ourselves with; until the time will come when we are suffused with them; mind-sets, opinions, experiences, beliefs. Full of them, so completely taken up by them that they have become thoroughly a part of us. Till everything we do is coloured by them.

I guess I love them because they create for me so clearly a picture that keeps me focused and conscious of my influences and the product that these influences create. They remind me to surround myself with the right things, the things that build me and improve me and make me daily a better version of myself.

Thank you for allowing me to share my words with you. It’s Friday, have a lovely weekend! God bless!

OF JULY AND FRIENDSHIP

This is why I need to write more often. I’ve been trying to write something for a good while now. Everything I wrote felt very navel staring- ish. So I have stopped and decided to write to myself instead. Then I can stare at my navel as much as I wish without feeling or seeming self-centred. What should I write about?Well, it’s July in a week or so.

Let me write about how much July means to me; because it was the month that my life changed trajectory yet again. Remember sitting with my sister this time last year and telling her that I simply could not make it one more day. That God would have to carry me because I could not take it one more step.I was tired literally tired of the cards life had played me. Or rather, the cards I allowed to be played to me. I was exhausted.

Fast forward to 1 year later; and I’m bursting with ideas, dreams and visions. So many things to do, so many plans, so many hopes…Is it possible that one’s life could change so much in one year? And I know I haven’t started yet. How did I go from being unemployed and depressed to having a good job with a gradually developing and increasingly surprising life plan? How did I go from not knowing where my day was headed to all these intricate and ambitious ideas for all the things I just know I have to do? How did I start dreaming again?

This last year has been an awesome time for me and one of the most significant ways was also one of the simplest; I gained and lost friends, and learned some really hard lessons about people on the way. Like friendship should be a choice, not an accident; because there are people in your life that can quite literally derail you from your life path and ensure you never achieve what you are meant to. I drifted with a lot of people; people who had no clue who I was or what I wanted from life, and so who had no sense of where I was headed. Many of those friendships had me on another path that would have ended up in tears yet again but God so mercifully broke them, one after the other, until they were all gone. And as they disappeared from my life, with the clarity that hindsight brings, I realised just how dangerous these people would have been for me. It was an eye opener, and one that made me determined to be extremely careful about my choice of friends, so when recently, someone called me “guarded”, I smiled. I need to be guarded; I’m not about to let the wrong relationships and interactions spoil my dreams and derail me from my purpose. I’m grateful to God for spoiling thosefriendships before they had a chance to impact on me too much, and I have learnt not to chase every friendship, but to constantly assess; weighing and evaluating as I proceed. Deciding at each point which friendships I must nurture and which ones I need to let go of. The right relationships are destiny defining – the wrong ones too actually.

I am today surrounded by a circle of young achievers with visions, goals and dreams as big as mine. We are change makers; with the mental and spiritual wherewithal to take our nation and generation by storm. They don’t mind when I’m busy – they’re busy too. We meet up for chats and catch ups; there’s no time for gossip about who’s sleeping with whom and who cheated on whom with whom, they’re far too occupied with this plan or that project. It’s so inspiring, I talk to them and come away hungry for the kind of success that only a year ago, I would never have dreamed possible. Our friendships are a gift and a privilege; to me as well as to them.

Today, I spoke with one of them and we shared ideas. As I listened to this woman talk about a project in the works, I found myself re-evaluating yet again. How many of my many gifts and abilities am I actively using? How many of my talents are being constantly honed and refined? So I’ve found myself motivated to pick up my pen (or in this case, my laptop) and start writing again, “stirring the gift that lies within me”, trusting God for expression, that I use this means to achieve what I am meant to.

These are the friends I have now. Just one of the many changes in my life; one of the things I have picked up on this journey from where I am to where I intend to be.