I’m stuck between choosing who of the two was my favorite. Was it Muthoni Garland or that other guy who performed after her? Whose name I didn’t manage to catch?
Muthoni told her story really well. Like really awesomely. You could tell she wasn’t doing this for a living but rather to bring herself alive. You know those things that we do and our demeanour just can’t hide how our souls feel? The way the face lights up and the smile is glorious.
That is how she was. And unlike other story tellers that had taken us to other lands and given us a glimpse of ourselves in the form of hyenas and frogs, Muthoni made us one of her characters. Like halfway through the story, in case anything bad happened to that character we all winced in pain. That sounds really normal, until you realize that for books to do that, that’s pretty okay. Khaled Hosseini makes us his characters so damn perfectly.
But for an actual verbal story teller, to not only take you to “Once upon a time” but to make you a breathing living character in that story? That’s a fete I’ve rarely seen. And Muthoni Garland did it perfectly. I remember seated there and enjoying her story telling so much that I thought, you know the way people have celebrities come sing in their parties or weddings or surprise parties for their loved ones? Just call for me a story teller, and spice it up with a folk song or two. I’ll be in heaven. Not just kind any kind of heaven, my kind of heaven.
The other guy. He didn’t look like a story teller. Neither did he look like a “Today we are dundaing” kind of guy. He seemed one of those guys who work in a semi interesting job, with a nice family somewhere. And with some jokes, not the funniest guy in the room, but like he cracks some jokes often.
Until he took the mic. Maaan! Dude made us imagine the funniest scenario. He brought alive the most mundane things. He took us to the kitchen and personified all the kitchen utensils. Made a baba sufuria, a slender feelanga hot for herself mwiko, a pregnant match box, noisy toto sufurias etc. And then now that we had personified them, he told us a story of one of their most tragic days.
And after my ribs had cracked, my laughter had almost choked me and wiping tears off my face, the man, who ended up being the serving spoon that lived to tell the tale, took a seat. And all I could think of, is unlike all other stories that made us think after it ended, this was one didn’t have an agenda. It just was. Spending 10 minutes of our lives bringing kitchen utensils alive. It was the most beautiful useless 10 minutes I had ever spent in my life. Doing or imagining nothing useful yet so damn gratifying.
And as people all around me bash new year resolutions, i’m busy making my number 100 resolution (he he). Those things work for me. New year Resolutions that is. Not the i’ll lose weight next year, i’ll do bla bla bla. I think people never go through with theirs coz they are trying to become who they think they should be. Slender, richer, more educated, more travelled etc. Instead of trying to be who they really are, fully.
For me, I look within. What would we desire to do more, stop doing or start doing in the next year? And that is based on the kind of improvements we( me, myself and I) would love to see in me. Which is based on being a little more free, a little more love for myself, a little just wanting a better emotional, mental and psychological state for myself.
So it isn’t usually more about do this or that, but the person i’m becoming with every ounce of those actions. And that’s usually my motivating factor. For this year, I had two major resolutions, one saw me leave church( something that at that point seemed like the opposite of my resolution) and another saw me cry, crawl, stutter, stumble and weep. All in the name of fulfilling what I said I would do at the start of the year, all in the name of being a better me. An un-depressed Mercy. It wasn’t easy, but I wanted to be better, to live better. Otherwise I didn’t see the need of being alive then. And though it was heartbreakingly hard, here we are. Jumping out of 2018 into 2019 with so much excitement one would think I’ve been promised stories each day by Muthoni Garland and that other guy in 2019( he he).
But as I was saying, for me its more about the spirit of those resolutions than the actions. Its like our constitution. The reason I can say we are suffering as a nation in regards to the constitution, isn’t because it isn’t adequate or enough to cater for arising issues like corruption, but rather that it’s spirit “We the people” isn’t being followed. If all our actions were in the spirit of “We the people”, we would barely need courts.
All my goals are usually aligned with either waking up the child in me, reliving her of her pain or just finding a better life for her. Because ultimately if I got all the money, became a walking thin stick and travelled to all places, if she isn’t okay, I’ll have done all that in vain.
And so as I sat down with many white kids who I don’t know if they could relate to hyenas and elephants, I knew that one of my goals the coming season, would be to take myself more to this kind of spaces that bring me alive. Before you ask what I’ve been doing so far, it hasn’t been that intentional. Its like only by chance that I ended up going for that event.
To put my soul in places that make it glow with warmth. To meet often the other souls that light up my world by just being. Yesterday I came to sleep a little tipsy. And as it caught up with me in the middle of the night, all I could think of, was how worth it it was. Not the tipsiness. Spending time with people who effortlessly make me feel some typa way.
And as I look for that Guy’s name, so that I stop calling him that guy, I know that my soul is up for a good ride the coming year. If nothing else, it’ll laugh a little more. If nothing else, it’ll glow a bit more often. And if nothing else, we will be choked by laughter and the ribs pained by joy.
And as you end your year, what are those things that make your soul come out to play fully? What are those people or things that you think about later, and smile genuinely? What are those people or things that you tell someone about and your whole demeanor is just lit up?
If you change nothing else in the coming year, can you at least do them or meet them a little more often?
Mwende Kyalo 