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Morning Dew: Changing The Narratives

The battle to define YOU personally is raging and tragically, you can often pull the definition of who you are from what society says you should be, what your parents expect you to become, what your friends say is permissible and so on. However, at a specific point you have to change the narrative of your life and come to grips with the potential that lay dormant on the inside.

A certain woman, a second wife in a polygamous setting ended up in an inconvenient relationship where the first wife repeatedly verbally abused her. The husband and supposed provider of love and affection turned out to be a wife beater. Having purposely hidden his fits of rage and temper management issues during their encapsulated courtship, he showed his true colours as time went on in the marriage. He and the head wife, a lawyer, taunted her everywhere she turned.  All she had to look forward to was an unhappy, defensive life, caring for a young child under unfavourable circumstances. Her biggest wish was an opportunity to be her own person but she had no fire left in her to fight any battles. The only thing she was good at was the craft of tying “gele” and even that gave her little joy.

But the repetitive practice of tying “gele” yielded great pride in the end for this lady. Earlier in life after her secondary school education, she found herself working in her aunt’s business, exceptionally working the head wraps for customers with great compliments and oversized tips. It was through this skill that a certain explosive encounter would happen.

For the wedding of her niece; a senior lady customs officer who often struggled with tying her “gele”, found herself under the expert service of our abused lady. With each effortless hand movement she tied the “gele” producing an ever so delicate weave of material with the width and glory of a peacock on display.

The Customs Officer marvelled at the ease and expertise of our abused wife and a conversation ensued. “This is amazing work, I am very pleased, where did you learn to tie gele so well?” She asked, but then quickly followed with, “you always look so forlorn and deeply troubled what is it?” She asked. 

Now normally this second wife wouldn’t have shared the desperate nature of her family situation but today’s verbal bashing had been particularly painful; being described as illiterate and bush had been hurtful and disarming. So she opened up for the first time ever.  The tears flowed like rain.

”You mean you have been going through this for 10 years; you seem very gifted and intelligent, where is your family?” The Custom Officer asked.

The shame was, it wasn’t a very unique situation to hear one’s parents explaining to a returning daughter that “all sales are final”; and explaining that all your distress is common to all women, soothing your confused look by telling you to return to your husband’s home and cook him his favourite meal because the way to a man’s heart is through his belly, and a male child.

The senior customs lady explained: “After the death of my father, I hawked second-hand clothes with my mother till we saved up enough for me to go to University of Lagos. Our situation was very dire as we had nothing, no hope and no one to support us. It looked like our situation was set and there was no changing the path of our lives but we decided to fight through and we got to settle into our destiny. Try never to believe the word of your negative situation.” She stressed.

With those words ringing in her ears she sought the help of her sister, who had always tried to liberate her from the clutches of her disadvantageous position. Finally she had built up the nerve to make a change; the determination not to take what life offers.

Although life is to be lived and savoured, it can also be gruesomely unfair; friends can be cruel, relationships can go bitter and you could work in a hellish job!  But there comes a time in one’s life when one has to change the narratives; in one’s favour.

The way I see it is, too often low self-esteem, insecurities and people pleasing tendencies, rob us of our abilities to be fully formed, confident and strong. It should be noted that most of the women we admire were not created as the finished product that we see. At some point they chose to change the narratives.

Morning Dew: You Can’t Pin This On Me

As I write this, I am in solitary confinement; Bed rest!!!

 I am very dramatic. I don’t know why I am not in Nollywood. I arrive Nigeria in style courtesy of my friends at Virgin Atlantic and then I land in hospital.  I get discharged eventually, but not acquitted.  “Let me out, I need to go back to work,”  I begged.  But my plea falls on deaf ears. “Without work, I am dead,” I plead. “Without rest, you’re dead,” I am reminded. Sigh! They are right.  Bodi no bi wood.

I have spent the last hour trying to bribe Segun, our Head of Creative to bbm me the April photos of Genny; “Let me just take a peek,” and he stubbornly refuses, reminding me that I am on leave. Am I not supposed to be the ‘oga at the top?’ Obviously not!

Defeated, I take the rest. See you on the other side of rest…Whenever!!! 

For now, I am a feather in the wind. I go where He directs. It’s a good time to reflect…

 After my daughter’s graduation a couple of years ago, I thought the natural sequence of events would start with her relocation home, joining us at Genevieve and unleashing all her inner craft and brilliance on the brand. I had anticipated that moment so much that I could see it in full technicolour. I was desperate to have a succession plan commence. Everyone always said I was too hands on and needed to take a chill pill, so I thought that was my opportunity to do just that; it was perfect! Having her on board, as editor was the inevitable next step, RIGHT? Well, I may have jumped the gun a bit there.

“Mum, you can’t pin this on me!” She said firmly, but politely.

“Excuse me!” I went through different stages of emotions that began with shock and ended in RAGE!

 I finally managed to say something like: “I thought the plan was to return home and…” (was there really such plan? Really?)I felt let down. How can she stay back in the UK when Genevieve was waiting for her back home?

“Mum…,” she said helplessly, “we never discussed my plans post graduation. You just assumed…,” she said miserably. “Mum, I am young and I want to explore all my options and the opportunities I have in front of me. I have not decided what I want to do, career-wise. I love you mum and I think you have done a great job with Genevieve and there’s more creativity where all this is coming from; Genevieve is your baby and I would like to be a part of it but not just yet. I want to work, build my skills; I don’t want to just be handed this without earning it.”

I could see and feel her anxiety but I didn’t care; instead I tried to deploy emotional blackmail to get my way. I wanted to remind her about all the sacrifices I had made on her account as a mother but changed my mind. (I almost reminded her how I waited six years for her birth. I was desperate enough to have tried that line!).

I was sad, sad and miserable; my plan that she would graduate and join me to run Genevieve just went up in smoke. I had it all planned (I thought) but my   cute dream of succession was crashing before my eyes like a pack of cards and I could do absolutely nothing about it. If she were younger I would have ordered her back home but at 21, she was no longer that child that believed that everything that came out mum’s mouth was gold.  She was her own woman with every right to her own decision and life. I needed to respect that. It was wrong of me to make an assumption of such epic proportions. Genevieve was my dream, not hers, she had a point but I sulked. Oh I sulked!

You can’t pin Genevieve on me mum?  That girl has the nerve, I complained to my husband on the phone after I’d literally accused him of being in the know about her staying back in the UK. “How could she do that to me?” I fumed.

I survived the blow and learnt to live and let live. It was best to let her be, I rationalised.  Then a year went by, and I felt her slowly easing into a role in Genevieve, often giving constructive criticism on our stories, covers, and very occasionally, writing articles. And on impulse I sent her a bbm asking; “How would you like to come on board Genevieve as Assistant Editor-UK Correspondent?”

I held my breath, closed my eyes and waited. God, please! It was a prayer. I couldn’t take another rejection.

PING!!!

“YYYYAAAAAAYYYY… Yes mum, of course!” It read.

 YESSSS!  I echoed slicing my elbow into thin air in that jubilant way that winners do.

And here we are. I learnt the hard way that as a parent, there will come a time when you must let your child fly, make their own mistakes, discover their own calling. You hope that at some point, it leads them back to you and hope that their dreams, in some way, are your dreams for them. In this case, I am happy to say, it did.

Bottom line?

Mother doesn’t always know best.

It takes Grace. 

Betty.

Morning Dew: Answered Prayers

I was 26 when I got married to the love of my life. I remember my wedding day clearly as if it was last week. We first had a court wedding with about 20 people in the house. I don’t think we spent up to N20,000 on the whole in all. Our Church wedding took place 12 years later; it was also a time to renew our vows in full glare of a much larger audience.

Let me digress here a bit… I was raised by a single mum, so as you may have guessed my life was not a sheltered one. From a young age I knew what it was like to be in charge of the home while mum went out to work. I was the Cinderella in the house- not the Cinderella that went to the ball in all her finery, but the one who did the household chores. I cooked, washed, ran errands and also chased my little brother, Fred, round the house, to make him take a bath. I got in trouble if he didn’t take a bath, and the boy just didn’t like water unless he was playing with it. I also helped my mum with her business. It was a hard knock life for a young girl but mum saw it as “home training”. And in a way those experiences contributed to shaping my life. I often boast at Genevieve that in the event that all my staff resigned en masse, I would single-handedly get the magazine out on the street. Now that I look back at my childhood, I believe I was shaped by what I learned.

I remember this particular day when after spending a good part of my weekend going to the market and slaughtering a duck, an aunt came to dinner and after all the compliments on my culinary skills said offhandedly, the man who marries you will be very lucky. But all I kept thinking was “I am not doing this all over again when I get married”.

Did I moan about these tasks? Yes, I moaned but mum then tied my night out on the town to my tasks. If I wanted to hit the town partying, which I did a lot, I had to ensure there was enough food in the house first.

I guess it was therefore understandable that I grew up with an intense dislike of the kitchen. I can cook but I’d rather not and I hoped when I got married it wouldn’t be to an overbearing and demanding husband who expected me to go as far as Epe fish market to buy fresh fish or Ore (Ondo State) to buy huge snails and then pound his yam by myself because he can’t stand domestics… Ah Ah! So, you can imagine my joy when I married the most understanding man ever. A man who does not make unnecessary demands of his wife, a man who makes no fuss over anything and understands that a working woman occasionally needs a break from the kitchen. (Ok, my time out of the kitchen is more than occasional)I couldn’t have been more blessed with a good man… it’s not everyday you meet a man who totally and unconditionally accepts you for who are without making you feel apologetic about your shortcomings.

Marriage is different things to different people and unfortunately our young ones have redefined what marriage is, with less emphasis on love and more on the things money can buy including love (but I then there are still many women out there who believe in unconditional love like the one Davido referenced in his hit number AYE: she no wan designer, she no wan Ferrari, she belongs to me and I belong to her o.

Marriage, like life, is what you make of it. There’s no manual on how to be happily married because different people have different expectations and preconceived ideas about marriage. In some quarters, marriage has become one big theatre of the absurd… some venture into it with a mindset that they can always cheat or take the next exit out at the first sign of any inconvenience.

The truth is, any marriage built on a wrong foundation is likely to come crashing. A sustainable marriage has to be built on true love, mutual respect, truth, patience, commitment and staying loyal to the wedding vows. Merry Xmas all and see you in 2015.