Remember to forget

If you’ve ever tried building some muscle at the gym (high o, low o, local fitness o, gym na gym), you’ll know how addictive and rewarding it is, especially when you start seeing the results. Even if the world doesn’t see it as much, your camera roll go hear am! In the same flip, you also know how annoying the other side of the coin is, where you start to deflate like a felele ball that hit the barb wire on the fence of your “rich” neighbor’s compound when you stay off your reps for an extended period of time. Why isn’t there some permanence to these muscles? Before now, everytime I attempted to share a part of myself with you through the letters of Queen’s English, the final sentence or paragraph always sauntered through my mind early on. These days, not as much, and the shalaye above speaks to why. I no gym, yet I won see muscle. Leemao! (laughing in cobwebs on this blog).

   

A number of things fascinate me, the concept of knowledge being one of them. I get super excited when I meet people who just know stuff. The constellation of “how?” and “why?” follow in so much admiration. Maybe it’s because I like knowing as well, maybe it isn’t. In the early days, whenever I met ‘someone’ new, the question “what is your fondest childhood memory?” would always rear its head from within my mouth or the tip of my fingers, knowingly or unknowingly. Sometimes, it was met with silence which was followed by a grin then a story, other times, it was met with the resistance of an Unsullied soldier named “why do you ask”.

   

I remember everything. That should be a good thing right? But it isn’t exactly so, especially if your mind is as imaginative and as buzzy as mine is. I wonder if I am the only one who can, but I sometimes cast my mind into the river of memories with a depth of up to 20 years. Like why do I remember stuff that happened 20 years ago so vividly? The fine details: who said what, sometimes the exact words, the colour of clothes, exact smirks, all the intricate details. I listen to songs and I remember the exact thing I was doing whent I first heard it, who I was with and where.

Me a few days ago

   

If you know me, you’ll know a couple of things:

   

I. I love Amala. I think it’s the eighth wonder of the world. (Yen yen yen! If you think Amala is trash, that’s your wahala. Your eighth wonder can be anything as long as it’s not Semo or Macaroni, anyways, it’s kuku not my eight. 

 

II. I like art. I am a very visual person. I see aesthetics in everything.

 

III. Fanta is my go-to soft drink.

   

What many persons do not know are the whys to these whats:

   

I. I sat shirtless in the frontage of Grandma Abiola’s house in Okitupapa when I was about 11 with beads of sweat all over my body like a thief who had just been caught after an endless chase by the vigilantes in the dusk of the night. That night even the mosquitoes could not stop the greatness of Mama Abiola’s neatly prepared Amala seated in front of me. I knew something happened, but I didn’t know how much it’d affect me. I had pupuru and black soup the next day, but there was something about the day before.

   

II. You see, I always knew I liked stories and wanted to tell them. Those tales by moonlight stories we were told growing up, of people sitting in circles under the trees and moonlight, maybe I took it out of context or I was too naive to believe it hook, line and sinker, but for whatever reason, I believed it to the letter and I wanted a part of it. Someone might ask, if I love stories that much, why don’t I write as much anymore, the answer goes thus: my why is no more.

   

I admire artists sha, the higher vibrations involved in creating. It is the confidence to say I like it enough for others to see it. Have you ever tried painting? Do you understand how hard it is? Now imagine people having images in their head and stroke after stroke, they put it to life. In secondary school my fine art and biology notes were my first canvas. The texts might be incomplete but those diagrams, naaaah, we died there!

   

In the end, nothing excites me and washes my childishness ashore like art. Art being nature, food, stories, the female body, paintings, sleep, exercise, music, an experience, all of its endless oceans. It is why I am a multiple award winning Grammy bathroom singar. There is singar and singer. Omo, my voice in there, naah shet mehn, no trouser, no cap! It is why I collect art. It is why a huge chunk of media in my gallery are pictures of the sun rising or the clouds forming, or inconsistent lines on walls. It is why Pinterest is my favorite app. It is why I like to look people in the eye, to see what stories they hold and are sometimes too afraid to tell.

   

Someone once called me an “experience junkie” and at first I struggled to understand why, but these days, I think I get it. I want to live a dreamy life where I collect and curate art. I don’t want to be famous at all, but I really want a life that feels like a tour – a well-curated one. Live in different cities, do very random stuff, be different persons in the same body, just be. Like actually experience stuff. I want to remain a child at my core.

 

This forms my life’s mission statement:

Mission statement as at October 2023 (e fit go later evolve sha)

 

This also spills into my imaginary eulogy:

I wrote this 04122019 in SBE & it still stands

 

III. If we’re out and you ask me to select between Coke or Fanta, I’ll probably say “malt”. I used to think it wasn’t a carbonated soft drink until recently. LOL. Then if that option is not on the table, I settle for Fanta. Fanta being a drink that holds a lot of memories like the first time and only time I came first in secondary school. (Jedi jedi is not good, I kuku know. I’ve tried to cut out soda, but as always, I struggle with consistency.)

   

Kin ma paro, kin ma jale [I should not lie, I should not steal], I lied. I lied when I said I remember everything. I do not. I do not remember names. To those people that say “you know ABC street, turn….”, I laugh in forgetfulness. I sometimes imagine life without Google Maps. Technology, ese o! It’s why when I meet people, I sometimes try not to ask for names because I think it’s rude asking every 30 minutes and when I do, I try to connect the name to something in my memory.

   

I try to remember not to forget.