Hurts like brand new shoes...

The irony of new shoes. They hurt. They are not as comfortable as your worn ones that 

non-judgmentally welcome your corned toes. Your poor feet practically sigh in joy when slipped into this pair that your cobbler frowns when you return yet again…for another small fix. He knows your shoes. He remembers the sole he replaced. He knows when you prefer gum over sewing because your heart would not take the defacing of your precious shoes! He is resigned to the fact that you will always want same day service, nay, instant service because surely what does he expect you to wear?!

Shoes are a literal reflection of where we walk and of our life. For those with a few more choices, they are a reflection of our style, even mood. Some even go further to sacrifice sensibility for shoes, we can discuss wedding line-ups another day!

They mark important moments. For some generations, a start in formal education was the astonishing moment of having shoes for the first time at the relatively young age of 10, 12 thereabouts. Then there are the DIY middle-borns whose lives are distinctly marked by handed-down shoes. The fresh officer proudly receiving their boots to serve, earnestly struggles to do so…until the cancer of brute power and corruption spreads in their system and those same boots physically harm innocent civilians. The hopeful graduate endlessly polishing, the one pair they own, the night before the interview, leaving them in sight as they barely sleep in nervous excitement at the wondrous opportunity of employment. Trudging jaded years later in the same pair, which has no choice but to ‘tarmac’, yet have to stoically represent their desperate owner and be judged harshly for the inevitable wear and layer of dust. The special collection, which only the mega-money-maker church can assemble in the usher, prayer warrior and Praise-n-Worship leader shoes, if we may call them shoes. Shoes that any respectable cobbler would firmly refuse to fix again. And no saying can be more apt than ‘if you were in their shoes’…

The news emission on a struggling economy that without fail shows a sweeping view of citizens walking rapidly in all manner of shoes in varying stages of tear with the camera rising to capture the resolute expressions of faithful patriots as they endure yet another benevolent government. The feet of a straggling line of refugees…the mental image of a semblance of shoes, of former plastic creations barely held together by odd pieces of string unsure of reaching the next border safely and intact on the same body. The shiny, fashionable, imported pairs walking to the press conference, delicately delivering the compassionate leaders, who are doing their very best (!) to improve the situation of the exploited, unwashed, dying, shoeless masses.

There is a woman in Somalia

There is a woman in Rwanda

There is a woman in Sudan

There is a woman in the Congo

And she hurts like (and she hurts like, and she hurts like...)

Brand new shoes.

~ Pearls ~ India Arie feat. Dobet Gnahore [Originally by Sade]

Sometimes you have to go through some ice-cream...;-)

I just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search For Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia".

This super dose of womanness came to me as it should, in the form of a well-thumbed copy passed on from a darling friend who let me keep it for for-EVER (only to read it non-stop when i finally picked it up!)

Elizabeth, as herself, shares the intimate journey that is womanhood, in the pursuit of life's purpose, laughter and love; of losing all three and finding them again. I enjoyed this book for its forthrightness especially in those difficult dark moments we all struggle with. It is her story to restoration, unabashed. There are parts i felt were a thin line between humour and sensibility, where the latter risked being offended in a cultural perspective.

Her quest is still inspiring and the woman she becomes admirable. A wry reminder that in whatever moment of life, spiritual search, relationship or career a woman finds herself, she has it deep within her to be the amazing being she is meant to be.

For those who, like my sweet little sister, confess to falling terribly ill if they have to read books, there's the movie! Starring the inimitable Julia Roberts (who else?!), see the trailer here. I'm yet to watch it (voting books always!)

Book or movie, what's your most defining moment as a woman?

And as you tell me, some excerpts i enjoyed below.

And three, of course, is the number representing supreme balance, as anyone who has ever studied either the Holy Trinity or a simple barstool can plainly see. p. 1

...i have been walking endlessly and aimlessly, and i did finally find a tiny little place that a friendly bus driver informed me sells The Best Gelato in Rome. It's called "Il Gelato di San Crispino." I'm not sure, but i think this might translate as "the ice cream of the crispy saint." I tried a combination of the honey and the hazelnut. I came back later that same day for the grapefruit and the melon. Then, after dinner that same night, i walked all the way back over there one last time, just to sample a cup of the cinnamon-ginger. p. 38-39

Needing to be cheered up after the game, Luca Spaghetti asked his friends, "Should we go out?" I assumed this meant, "Should we go out to a bar?" That's what sports fans in America would do if their team had just lost. They'd go to a bar and get good and drunk. And not just Americans would do this - so would the English, the Australians, the Germans...everyone, right? But Luca and his friends didn't go out to a bar to cheer themselves up. They went to a bakery. A small, innocuous bakery hidden in a basement in a nondescript district in Rome. The place was crowded that Sunday night. But it always is crowded after the games. The Lazio fans always stop here on their way home from the stadium to stand in the street for hours, leaning up against their motorcycles, talking about the game, looking macho as anything, and eating cream puffs.

I love Italy. p. 73-74

"Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword" On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword..."all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." 
p. 100

You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions. The [other] problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. p. 139

"The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and arguments, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go." p. 149

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If i want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, i'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? p.186

I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to it's good attainments. p. 272.

This is a practice i've come to call "Diligent Joy." As i focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. p. 273

She wiped the last of the green herbal goo off my leg, then sort of jiggled my kneecap around for a bit, feeling for something. Then she felt the other knee, closing her eyes. She opened her eyes, grinned and said, 
"I can tell by your knees that you don't have much sex lately."

I said, "Why? Because they are so close together?"

She laughed. "No - it's the cartilage. Very dry. Hormones from sex lubricate the joints. How long since sex for you?"

"About a year and a half."

"You need a good man. I will find one for you. I will pray at the temple for a good man for you, because you are now my sister. Also, if you come back tomorrow, I will clean your kidneys for you."

"A good man and clean kidneys, too? That sounds like a great deal." p. 271

She said, "I know cure for broken heart." Authoritatively, and in a doctorly manner, Wayan ticked off on her fingers the six elements of her Fail-Proof Broken-Heart Curing Treatment: "Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your heart that this is destiny." p. 276

So what will become of me and Felipe? Now that there is, it seems, a "me and Felipe"? He told me not long ago, "Sometimes i wish you were a lost little girl and i could scoop you up and say 'Come and live with me now, let me take care of you forever.' But you aren't a lost little girl. You're a woman with a career, with ambition. You are a perfect snail: you carry your home on your back. You should hold on to that freedom for as long as possible. But all i'm saying is this-if you want this Brazilian man, you can have him. I'm yours already." p. 327

I think about the woman i have become lately, about the life that i am now living, and about how much i always wanted to be this person and live this life, liberated from the farce of pretending to be anyone other than myself. I think of everything i endured before getting here and wonder if it was me - i mean, this happy and balanced me, who is now dozing on the deck of this small Indonesian fishing boat - who pulled the other, younger, more confused and more struggling me forward during all those hard years. The younger me was the acorn full of potential, but it was the older me, the already-existent oak, who was saying the whole time: "Yes - grow! Change! Evolve! Come and meet me here, where i already exist in wholeness and maturity! I need you to grow into me!" And maybe it was this present and fully actualized me who was hovering four years ago over that young married sobbing girl on the bathroom floor, and maybe it was this me who whispered lovingly into that desperate girl's ear, "Go back to bed, Liz..." Knowing already that everything would be OK, that everything would eventually bring us here. Right here to this moment. Where i was always waiting in peace and contentment, always waiting for her to join me." p. 345

You know, it's a funny thing. The only Romance language Felipe doesn't happen to speak is Italian. But i go ahead and say to it to him anyway, just as we're about to jump.

I say: "Attraversiamo."
Let's cross over. p. 346

We have a massive problem

We have a deep-seated problem. If men calling themselves uncles can rape their 3-year old niece to 'punish' her mother and Uhuru Kenyatta, who calls himself president of this thing called Kenya, blames the mother...we have a massive problem. If you think that gender-based violence against women is a non-issue, you are the problem. If you do not respect a woman's yes, no, her space, her body, her rights, you are the problem. If you abuse your wife (including marital rape), your girlfriend, your female relatives, your female colleagues or any girl and woman you don't even know, you are the problem. If you support stripping of a woman, recording of her humiliation and her rape in public because you think her dress is your choice, then you are the problem. If you cheer on cowardly hiding behind social media, sharing these videos in demented perversion, then you are the problem. You are the rot that is Kenya today. Let's take this outside...i need men to tell me what they are doing to be honourable towards women, to be the positive influence in their male circles, to respect girls and women and to groom boys to do the same. Tell me.

I will lift her up

"A friend is the one you connect with, the one you trust, and the one whom you share your confidences with, knowing it's safe. You talk to her regularly about everything and nothing in particular. You even call her just to complain. A good friend acknowledges that you need her to vent to. If you are going through a difficult time and you don't call her and tell her about it, later she says, "Why didn't you call me?". It's not about solving the problem, or getting advice or answers. It is about sharing and being there, being present for your friend."  

Celebrating Friendship Among Women: The Power of True Women Connections

Margery Kabuya

My mother called me last evening. I could tell she was tired, she could tell i was spaced out. I really was not focusing on what she was saying but on her voice. Each word and intonation conjured a mental image in my mind; of the crinkle in her brow at the start of the conversation, of the clearing of the crease lines as we spoke about the upcoming family event, of the animation on her face as her errand list for me grew (and remember to do this...get that!) and finally, of the full-bodied laughter as we got to her favourite subject: her precious grandsons. By the time i hang up, my depression over the continued violation of girls and women's rights had lifted slightly, not entirely. I found myself thinking: Mama, will the nightmares go away? When will society respect us?

I thought of my sisters, female relatives and girlfriends whom i laugh with, argue with, cry with, journey with. The women who love me, cheer me on and understand me. This special sorority that knows what it is to bleed yet forge on in the face of adversity.

I smile when they smile, i rejoice when they rejoice, i am broken when they are broken. It is this deep connection that makes me understand the damage any violation causes to any girl or woman. It hurts me to see any girl or woman suffer abuse of any kind and humiliation that crushes her spirit and puts off the light in her life. It is what propels me to stand up for her in a society that is increasingly failing to protect us! It is what gives me courage not to be shaken even if there are those who think we are weak! It is what gives me clarity of mind to know that the greatest goal lies ahead, and no one shall detract me from it! That goal is a safe society for all girls and women. I refuse to be part of the rot that fuels our indignity. I tell it to any man or woman who is quick to violate us. I will say this again and i will not tire of saying it: when my Sister is down, i will lift her up. #16Days 

#‎MyBodyMyRight

On Monday 17 November 2014 at 10am i will be at Uhuru Park, Nairobi to protest the humiliation Kenyan women are being put through by men stripping us in public. My heart bleeds particularly for the woman who recently suffered this in Nairobi. I refuse to be a part of an undignified society.

The words of Meshack Yobby speak for me in this time when rage and deep disappointment have strangled my voice.

"I am gravely disappointed in how men (please forgive the generalization) were raised. If you think a lady who dresses below your standards of decency should be stripped and fondled in public to 'teach her a lesson', please unfriend me. This is not a matter for debate.
If you secretly think that 'she deserved it', please unfriend me.
If you think a lady in a mini skirt invited rape on herself, please unfriend me.

I'll tell you why I have no time for you.

You are a pervert. Men don't strip a woman naked in the streets because she is indecent. They strip her because they want to see her nakedness. It is not because of morals. Those same men are not saints. They are probably cheating on their women. They have their sins.
They are cowards who rely on the cheering of other perverts to get the courage to rip a woman's clothes off.
No, it is not about decency. Men walk the sane streets in tight trousers that outline their manhood. Men sag trousers till their butt cracks are seen. They are never stripped.

It is perversion.
It is looking at women as sex objects.
It is sexual assault.
It is the lowest form of scum.
If it happens to women they love...if your wife was stripped naked...

Women are human beings. The way we are behaving, every notion of decency and morality is judged through the eyes of men, not women. Never women.

A decent man will keep his loins calm when a woman in a miniskirt walks past. If you can strip a woman naked because of her dressing, then you are the rapist who justifies the act by claiming a woman was dressed provocatively.
Nonsense. Control your hormones. I have no patience with you. Scum."

Meshack Yobby (Facebook), Wednesday 12 November 2014

#‎MyDressMyChoice #‎KilimaniMums

The human battle

Inspiration to re-think one's existence and one's purpose can come from different sources. I'm a big believer in finding joy in small things but i also occasionally seek something bigger, something greater. Sitting in listening to Wole Soyinka give his tribute to Wangari Maathai and delivering his challenge to us, i returned to that well where my spirit was invigorated.

In a world where we seem to be caught up in more suffering than celebration of life, in spaces where we no longer feel so safe, in wondering about what we can do to make it right...the words of Wole Soyinka couldn't be a more powerful reminder: "Perhaps it is high time we declare ourselves fundamentalists of human liberty!"

Get Wole Soyinka's full lecture "Parables from Wangari Maathai’s Trees" here.

Photo Credit: Anyu

Light

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. 
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

Martin Luther King Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Photo Credit: pushbacknow.net