I looked into the eyes
of a mad woman,
and it took me into her mind,
and it was oh so beautiful,
and serene,
with tender and soft places,
offering comfort
from the crazy world with-out,
and it begged to linger,
take a rest,
put my feet up,
cushion my head,
forget my worries,
and for just one tiny, bitty moment
pretend that the world was normal again....

A big dose of Sunshine; 2010 in retrospect

Hmmmnnnn, it’s been a year of mixed Blessings, with its fair share of ups and downs. It’s been crazy and boring and fun and annoying and a whole lot of other thins! I’ve had people tell me I’m a cheeky monkey and were! A friend read one of my blogs once and concluded that I was a ‘very disturbed girl with a nicely put on façade’ (underneath all that grammar wey him talk na were!) and some other reader was like, “Girl, you’re mahdddd!!!!!” ;D and I've had someone else in tears....I’ve had times that I was really high on life and yeah, I’ve taken one-too-many trips into the dumps, buh all in all, I know that I’ve got more to be grateful for this year….

Kicking off the year was me sky-rocketing up the scale of getting the title ‘mother-o-plenni (a few people to jasi will understand just what I mean! *wink*wink*) and all those Youth Church children who used to scream ‘Vision 2010!', mo luv gbo-gbo yin ti e believe in me! Vision 2010 alone was enough to cancel all the minuses of the year!

Then, I finally got to meet my Babies! I remember the long weekend 15-month old Naomi spent with us. I loved every single moment of it, even though I hardly slept (thanks to her kung-fu sleeping, her odd feeding hours and the fact that she loves to sing and chatter in Baby gibberish in the middle of the night! (Yeah, future X-Factor star!!!) and I soooo remember getting to Westminster station an realising that I had to carry the buggy cos there were no lifts linking District with Piccadilly! That was how many levels down?! :(  It was fun anyways having Nai and Peppa-pig around, and you know, she’s a model in the making oh! At that age, she already knows that when you bring your fone close to her face, she has to pose, imagine! The signature smile is cute though! 
My dearest Tomi who thinks all my school books are story books…

Tomi: Aunty Tope, what are you doing?

Aunty Tope: I’m studying.

Tomi: (thoughtful pause) why?!

Aunty Tope: because I have to write exams luv.

Tomi: (laughs) silly you!

Aunty Tope: (in my mind)  If I woz you ehn?!

Tomi: I want you to read this one, it’s whoops! A Daisy Angel! (Iyen Computer Vision mi naa!!!) and this is fireman Sam and Bob the builder and Rorry the racing car…

Aunty Tope: bami gbe iwe mi jooo!!! Don’t worry, it’ll be your turn one day!

In Tomi’s beautiful world, anything printed just has to be a good story otherwise, what’s the point?! I wish!!! L

Every time you tell him it’s time for bed, he remembers he wants to make mummy a surprise! Or he claims the baby is snoring (all the way from the next room!) or declares that sleep is sooooo boring!!! And immediately he wakes up in the morning, “can I open my presents now?!” thank God Christmas has finally come and gone oh!

Wendi: Tomi, it’s time for your medicine.

Tomi: nooooo!!!

Wendi: but it’s not bitter now!

Tomi: It’s pink! Pink’s for girls!!! Silly mommie!

Wendi: ti nba gba eh?!

Tomi: no mommie, Jenny says no spanking! (Jenny is his teacher in nursery) naughty mommie!

Wendi: ati iwo ati Jenny, ti nba mu yin?!

And finally, sweet, little cuddly Ara with his one sided, dimpled smiles! That smile is sure to capture many hearts one day! *wink* Ara might just be 3 months old, buh he sure knows how to pass a message across when he wants something! ;D Whoever said all Babies do is sleep?! and when he does the poo, mehn!!!

I remember the weekend 4 of the girls were together in Erith and Dee Jay looked me up and down and declared I was skinny! Imagine! I reminded her matter of factly that I was fatter than she was and she got that incredulous look on her face! Imagine, she actually thought she was the fatter one! In her mind!!! Tayo, mischievous monkey, had a good laugh at our expense. L we then indignantly asked Philla who the fatter one was and she dismissively told us that it wasn’t a matter of who was fatter but who was skinnier! (why does this scenario feel familiar?!) hello! Does anyone have eyes?! I most def am the FATTER one! That night, Tayo cheekily announced that the ‘thinnest’ person got to sleep in the middle and that it most def wasn’t her (she’d been banished to the much hated middle spot as the ‘aburo’). I think I took the couch! L and just for the record, I’M NOT THE SKINNY ONE!

Then my interesting lecturers in school, there’s the three-coloured man with ginger hair whose eyebrows are white, and his beard brown! plus he's got mannerisms to go with the colour scheme! Then there’s Nicolas Cage’s look alike and the one with the sexy Spanish accent! problem is sexy and  Artificial Intelligence don’t gel at all and I was always struggling to hear him during lectures! L

Sigh! There were so many moments this year….my fairy-tale birthday, the day my car almost packed up on the bridge, the day my fone beeped and I reluctantly tore my eyes away from the novel and the rush I felt when I saw it was a text from him…yay!!!  and Seun went ‘yeah Baby!’ I miss those nights with her, first in VI and then Magodo and our regular greeting: ‘Any gist?’ *wink*wink* and that time I thought it was surely the end of me and I didn’t think I would get out of it, as in the end l’opin cinema…and then You were there, and I think You were there all along, patiently waiting for me…..and the million and one times that I’ve asked myself who sent me message come school oh! and the plenty-plenty mornings I just did not want to get out of bed! Twas probably cos I was just a lazy child who hates mornings (and who simply hates to go to bed as well! I still can’t seem to understand why we should go to bed at night when there’s so much to do and the night’s so quiet and peaceful, beautifully alluring…), or maybe twas cos it was always cold and miserable in the mornings (small wonder the British love to moan and gripe so much and are so good at it!) and I really do not function well in the mornings anyways! and then there were just those mornings I didn’t have the strength to face another day…and that morning I started awake just to find a wall gecko staring at me! The karate jump I did must have made Jackie Chan proud! I soooo don’t miss those creatures and I’ll endure any kinda cold weather just to be away from them! L

There was the tranquillity and serenity, the weightlessness, the floating happy moments, bouts of rib-aching laughter, the bonding, the cold snobbery, the cold aloneness, the slamming doors, the warmth on my skin, the sun kissing my face even on the coldest, grayest days, the void created by missing you and You, the holes, the deep dark holes, the overwhelming sadness, the loss, the despair, the fast, hot tears, the sparks, the bright lights and fireworks, the thin flat lines…all a beautiful mix of colour, of reds and blacks and pinks and greys and whites and blues and yellows and purples, the kaleidoscope that was my 2010….

There were the diaries, loads of them, those of the mad-mahd woman who’s madder than  the mad hatteer, the memoirs of the faceless stranger, Iya-aburo with her million personality disorder, little miss Purdish, outrageous and scandalous Naya...all books I have  read and written and starred in, minds I have explored, abhorred, loved, flirted with, lost me in… I really am not weird, I’m simply inspired!

Remembring

can a person forget how to breathe?
'cos I have, and I'm slowly dying,
painfully, helplessly, without a hope of saving myself

can a person forget how to laugh?
I'm going to have to stop scaring all the neighbourhood children,
...plus the cats too!

can a person forget how to forget?
I can't seem to turn off the scenes
and they keep playing over and over in my head,
like a badly scratched CD.

can a person forget how to remember?
hard as I try, I can't relive the beautiful times,
there isn't even a faint recollection,
not a stir, not a flicker...

can a person forget how to be?
cos I think I'm stuck in limbo,
halfway between a dream and reality

can a person forget how to love?
cos I'm still trying to figure it all out,
I'm still dazed and flummoxed
and can't seem to figure out the why's and how's and when's
...how could you forget that so easilly?!

Gotta keep singing...

These words aren't mine, they're the lyrics of a beautiful song by MercyMe. I love that song so, so much so I decided to put it up here, to remind myself everyday....


Another rainy day,
I can't recall having sunshine on my face
All I feel is pain,
All I wanna do is walk out of this place
But when I am stuck and I can't move,
When I don't know what I should do,
When I wonder if I'll ever make it through...

I gotta keep singing,
I gotta keep praising Your Name,
You're the One that's keeping my heart beating
I gotta keep singing,
I gotta keep praising Your Name,
That's the only way that I'll find healing

Can I climb up in Your lap,
I don't wanna leave,
Jesus sing over me,
I gotta keep singing

Oh You're everything I need
And I gotta keep singing.... 

I've been telling myself for 3 years,
reminding myself,
singing it like a mantra,
that God never makes mistakes,
and I know without a doubt that that is so true,
but truth is,
I still don't understand!
It still feels so wrong! so un-real!
like a big, big mistake
and I'm still struggling to comprehend,
I'm still feeling dazed, still wondering just what the heck is going on!
I still want to scream at someone, demand to know why!
I still want to crawl into a hole
 'cos I feel like there was sumtn I coulda done, shoulda done,
a tiny-big part of me still carries the guilt,
still feels dt sumaw, it's my fault...
I still come up confused,
bewildered,
lost and hollow,
and the scenes still play in my mind like it was just moments ago,
and I so wished I could talk to you,
really need to...
and if given just a tiny-bitty chance,
I would swap places with you....

TYB

A pocket-full of not-nonsense

It's so quiet, the silence is screaming in my head.

Were!

You walk on across the street, avoiding my eyes, averting your gaze, hiding your look of pity but I can read your mind, oh yes I can!

Ah, O ma shey oh!

I don’t need your pity! Who are you to shake your head at me while biting your fingers? You think you’re better off than me or that your fate is any different from mine? Now I’m the one laughing at your madness. Weep for yourselves! Lament about your situations! You’re the ones filled with delusions, you’re the ones who lie to yourselves, who put on masks and go about each day pretending all is well. Now, just who is the mad one I ask!

I miss me!

I miss me so, so much and I just wished this unknown stranger would do and go away! Sometimes I just have flashes of aw it used to be, who I used to be and damn, I miss that silly girl! Hurry up and get your backside back here, you hear? ‘cos with all your weirdness and sillybilities and eccentricities, I still miss you like crazy….but in the meantime, I need to deal with these disillusioned people who think I’ve gone bonkers.

Eleru town-council!

I’m carrying too much baggage and it’s weighing me down. They say this is the first characteristic of a mad woman. I’ve picked up several pieces along the way and each one is important, or so it seems. Well, just because I’m totting these bags around don’t make me mad. At least I’ve got something. Most of these finger-pointers have nothing. They’re just wandering through life aimlessly, without purpose or reason, with nothing to hold on to, nothing to cherish…no wonder they have time to mock me and laugh at me, pschewww! I admit that I have a little too much, time to shed some weight, but I still need my stuff, the things that matter, that makes it all matter…truth about life, that so many fail to see, including the mad-ones-who-call-me-mad, is that we all need some stuff, otherwise we wouldn’t care, would be meaningless, would just drift on…but then don’t take on what’s not yours to carry…some baggage is best left for God to carry…

so, split it all up, like you would sort through the groceries, 

dried rats in one pile, fried fish in another...

Asinwin, agba-were-mesin!

So what else is new? You’ve given me enough names already, a new one makes no difference at all!

Turn out the lights!

Flick the switch,

let the darkness fall,

let it chase away the shadows and the demons lurking around corners,

let it silence the screaming,

soothing, hypnotic, illusory…

..I wish falling asleep was as easy as turning off the lights,

 end this madness in dreamless sleep…

See you beyond the sun...

If tomorrow starts without me,
and I'm not there to see the sun rise,
I wish you wouldn't cry,
or think that we're far apart
'cos everytime you think of me,
I'm right there in your heart...