These days I deliberately seek out and choose to see shop signs, car bumper stickers or even Tshirts with positive messages. I choose to see gestures of kindness from strangers, even brave plants struggling to grow on cracks in the concrete.
With all that Pinstagram and FaceApp and TwitTube and Fake News feeds us on a daily basis it is enough to want to make you run into a corner and collapse into a foetal position.
Mothers sacrifice their wellbeing for their children’s sake. Sure, we talk of taking care of ourselves but give a mother a choice between her child’s needs and her own, hands down a mother knows what path she will take. Never mind whether her actions will be appreciated or not…..
There are certain wisdom that remain true for everyone at everytime no matter your age- whether we are baby boomers, generation X (like myself ) or millenials.
Whether we are male or female, whatever our faith, whatever our current situation, whatever our station in life this advice I gave to my reluctant audience still applies:
In the likelihood of you being right about something like telling your loved one that if he keeps smoking he will eventually kill himself, chances are high that he still won’t listen.
It is his decision and his choice.
It isn’t easy accepting that some of your goals, dreams, your fondest desires may never come true -never mind all the ‘don’t quit’ crap.
Because this guilt that eats at us if we are not constantly on ‘go-go” mode can’t be healthy.
This self reproach because all we did today was tidy up and read a book cannot be conducive to a healthy mind.
But he is not alone in assuming things about people like me. About Coastal Muslim women to be exact.
And neither is this incident the first time I have had to defend myself, my faith and my dress. In this very city I was born and raised in.
Somehow what I aim to say, what has been my aim all along with this platform was to bring a little sunshine to people’s lives in whatever small way I am blessed to make
The mother in me- but mostly the teenage me- wants to shield them all from the disappointments that they will definitely face, the heartache, the rude awakenings.
It is a normal business as usual Tuesday morning.
Then almost out of nowhere, six men, nondescript in their appearance, emerge. Some are wearing the traditional Swahili kanzu; the others are in your standard shirt and trouser. If they walked past you at any other time you would hardly spare them a glance, there is nothing extraordinary about them, they would blend in seamlessly with the scenery.
These last few days of December, as you are looking forward to some R and R, preparing to go back to work, to send your children back to school, to embark on your goals, working on starting a new business- whatever is on your planner your calendar your mind, spare a moment for the city.