written in lockdown, published never - covid19

A slap feels like a mixture of heat and ice hitting your cheek at a magnificent speed at just the right time. Your head moves with it because the speed and weight of the hand just drag the face along, sometimes, the entire body. And then, you're on the floor, your hands holding your face by reflex and also because another slap might be coming.

Worse than the slap though, is the silence. The silence that follows. It feels like shame that he let his hands get dirty, but sometimes, it feels like a threat.

Today was one of those days.

The boys were running everyone all mad, jumping on chairs, writing on walls, giving the dogs endless reasons to bark, fighting and crying, asking a dozen questions and running back and forth from the kitchen. This food we bought for the lockdown, it won't last another two days.

When you spend your days around the noise and activity, you get used to it.
If you are not used to it, it gets to you really badly. The different sounds at the same time, from every corner of your space, it becomes more than many people can take. And so, you snap. That is what I think happened.

One minute I was on the phone speaking to my mother, the next, I was on the floor.
I vaguely remember him speaking to me but I had been preoccupied. The child had been burning a fever for two hours and my attention had shifted, I was worried. No one was going to drive out and so I called my mother.  My mother was asking if I was wiping her with a wet warm cloth, I had barely opened my mouth to respond when the phone flew out of my hands, seconds later, something hit me and I fell.

He did not say anything. He walked back and turned the volume of the TV up.
The boys were quiet.
I saw them file out slowly and knew they would spend the next couple of hours hiding out at the neighbours. Every time there was some kind of confrontation, they found safety where they could get it. I did not blame them. Lately, it seemed like everyday, but now more than ever, for just the slightest of things or even nothing at all.

When I picked up my phone, screen shattered, my mother called.

It is the stress of the times mother.
Are you sure you did not upset him?
But how could I have done that? I was on the phone with you!
You know, you shouldn't complain. At least he spends his days at home now.
Maybe he shouldn't.

A deep sadness - that's what it is!

 I finally know the words that describe this feeling that has overcome me for the last couple of days. 

A deep sadness. 

Nothing profound, just a sadness that started in my feet, if that ever be possible, moved around in my stomach for days, if you can believe that, caught my chest and hang onto it, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, swung its way to grab a hold of my shoulders and dragged them down like one who carries sacks of gravel daily, and now, it sits on my neck. At night, I lie awake, not a new phenomenon, but one that comes in a new form. My awakeness is matched with alertness, a tingling that i cannot place, restlessness that holds my nose and causes me to sit up every soften to breathe, headaches at the back, the front, the centre and finally, a weariness. I want to speak to no one. I want to see only my child. The patience I usually exercise even when I have sworn that I shall not suffer fools is gone. I am not snapping at anyone, I am simply refusing to acknowledge them. People are tiring me. Very easily, very often. 

I had thought that it was the need for rest, perhaps I needed time off work. On the last trip, I was joking around even as my feet failed me, I was dosing away even as my brain poked me, I was walking about with my camera even as my heart told me that something was not right. A lot of grief around me these last couple of weeks, could that be part of it? Perhaps, our body processes in many ways. But no, I have felt grief in my bones before. I didn't feel like this, tired and just done, so done, so over everything, needing just.....nothing.

A lunch hour break at work is an important one, saved for a walk that allows for the free flow of tears. Except, there are no tears. Just the sounds that come before them, and that heaving and heaviness as though something is coming out - but its not. It's buried in there because there is no way out. It has not been addressed. It's not like ignoring a pimple, it will be better for you if you do, leaves no mark when left to make its exit at its own time. It's more like ignoring a cancerous growth. It will grow and chances are, it will grow into something ugly.

I have no sense of what it is I wanted to get that, this is probably one of those posts to vent where your vent won't get a response that makes a bad situation worse, it will just sit there, and be out of your system. You feel less heavy and allow for more reflection into your now and yesterday to help you get up tomorrow. One day at a time. 

Today

Today, a little more than yesterday, I admit,
I have been beaten, beaten and emptied of all ability to reach for hope
I feel stretched, my patience squeezed out same way you put garlic in foil, heat it and squeeze out the juice. They burned me until I was soft enough and then they tore me to shreds.

It shouldn't be like this.
No one should ever use, use and discard another human being.
The times are hard on us all, my conscience says this is the best time to show compassion
The devil though, lives among men

It is time. I know it is time.
I wonder though, where do we go from here and where does the new journey begin?
Hearts can fail, courage can play hide and seek
Hope...It is right there but I cannot reach it.

How are you holding up?
There is shame in the most honest answer now
How dare you steal the pity from the ones who badly need it
Who's to say that we do not all need attention, a shoulder and an ear that will not judge your truth?

I am not holding up at all.
I am tired
I am angry
I am frustrated
I am disappointed
I am worried.

To be Held

If the pieces of my heart should scatter at some point today
Know that I tried to keep them together.

There is a strange sensation in the core parts of my being
I feel exhaustion and emptiness,
But it is not the kind that takes away the ability to do
It is the kind that tears away at the layers of tape and allows the broken heart to crumble
My hands keep close to my side, perhaps there is something they can do
My chest tightens at each heart beat, it is afraid

I cannot remember what happened
Yesterday seemed like a day as any other
This morning, I stared at my phone and chose the blanket
Since then, it has been like this
Movements in the corridor to nowhere and back
No sense of time or action

Perhaps it is catching up with me,
The aloneness that I choose
It feels like it has acknowledged me
And now wants to show me what it means to truly be alone
I am afraid. Perhaps I lied to myself,
Perhaps I need to feel again, to be held.

When I was Younger

These last couple of days have run through my head so much that I have suffered a couple of migraines and my eye is beginning to act up again. Last week, I could not see with one eye since it had decided to shut and refused to open. It was quite the experience, apparently, I was winking at people and giving mixed signals. It was not intentional. Anywho, Dr Agarwal's eye hospital choked my pocket, but opened my eye.

That is not the point of this story but since we have gone this direction, let me just say, Please, my friends, I beg:

Dim the light on your computer

Take a break from your phone

Do not touch your inner eyes with dirty hands (That one seems silly but we all kinda do it)

Do not NOT finish the eyedrops the first Ophthalmologist gives and

Wear the spectacles if they told you to wear them.

Back to my story

So these migraines

Usually for me, a sense of deep loss, frustration and pain trigger them.

You remember that run in with law enforcers and journalists this week? That one.

When I was younger, I wanted to be two things.

A journalist and later on, a law enforcer. Journalist, because I have always loved to write stories from my head, (I have a couple of blogs for that), but also to tell peoples stories.

Law enforcer because, TV I think, and the discipline I saw of the law enforcers in outside countries, made me want to be one of them. Someone who walked a straight line and protected others. The sense of discipline soldiers and police had - in my head - was to be admired.

My favourite time of boarding school was S1 and S5 because we got to do Muchaka Muchaka. I will tell you it was no joke. There was this particular afande who made us roll in that swamp along the fence of our campus and Kabaka's lake, then cane us heavily while our clothes clung desperately to our bodies which reeked of fear and sewage. I still loved it all. To have us all in line marching and and just holding up those sticks and singing songs together...that was something.

I like peace, order, discipline,...those things.

Fast forward to today.

Do I still want to be a journalist? Yes.

Might that get me into all kinds of coffin facing situations? Perhaps.

Will that get me bruises and broken teeth from stray rubber bullets, perhaps even midnight phone calls or visits with weapons of war pointed at my face, strangers asking me to get off social media and hold my tongue? Your guess is as good as mine.

I am not in the field much anymore. Now, I sit behind a desk or run up and about, some days in high heels, other days in pumps. I only smell the teargas when the journalists sent out in the morning show up at the station after hours offline because their phones went missing in the scuffle and so did their teeth and perfume. I admire them. I fear for them.

Do I still want to be a law enforcer? LOL