In celebration of another year passed, I sat amongst my peers, counting grey hairs and laughing at our changed girths. I remembered how similar we used to be all those years ago in our engineering class. We came from different homes, but mostly we were the same. At least the differences seemed minor. Yet now, the differences were stark. First, we looked at each other and asked how the businesses were, how the work was, and how the children were doing. As we checked our lives against each other, I wondered, where was the junction that had separated us?
Seated across from each other there were questions we did not ask. We recognised that life happened and that we were changed for it, sometimes forcefully and others mindlessly; for change happens even while we sleep. Many were the plans we made, similar even, but our paths had been directed by events we never foresaw. Sick children and parents, debt, struggling businesses, unfair bosses, toxic environments, violent elections, all the things we never think about, all the things that hold us, all the things that change us. Instead, we simply said, “Well done. You’ve made it this far.” I wonder what changes the next 20 years will bring.
The question of change, how we change is deeply personal and one I must admit has been at the heart of my 2022. As I inspect the patterns of my life and the lessons I teach the children, I am peering into the future to see what we are creating. Yet, I am also looking intently into my past, looking for the diversions that led me to where I am. Do we ever stop to ask how we become what we become? How have we come into the life we have now? What do we hold so dear in our hearts that our behaviour is determined? And how do we create a different life for ourselves? What are the things we use to define us?
For this edition of We the People, we invited a cross-section of writers into our shared moment of introspection as we came to the end of the year. Each was tasked with recounting a significant event in their lives and the change it wrought in them and others. The brief said,
“At the end of this process, we should have a picture of the collective (we) as who we are and hope to be; people. In it, we hope to document not just our history or present but to create a record of hope for ourselves; in stressful uncertain days.”
What I expected, at the least, was maybe to read about war, poverty, significant sickness, or life-threatening events, the core of history books. Instead, what we received is a picture of every day. We received an understanding of how mundane and seemingly benign occurrences trigger decisions that multiply into unexpected change and how a stone rolling downhill eventually becomes a cataclysmic event.
When we read A Dance with Charisma, we come face to face with our love for charisma. We applaud those who can move the crowds and are drawn to them even as we suffer the disappointment that comes with their blowing hot air. What happens to the bodies that carry that failure for days, months and years?
Who Repairs Broken Gold assesses the understanding of manhood and its meaning. How does a man navigate everything he is supposed to be within the constraints of the society he exists, and what does society do with that man in the context of these? What, then, do we do with men unable to navigate these demands, who are faced with a sense of inadequacy and are left, in despair, in need of repair?
The Cost in Full declares that there is a price for ambition, anxiety, duty, and expectation. It demonstrates this in a child’s body, the author’s own. The essay deftly intertwines the medical detail with the memory of a teenager experiencing terror in their body, asking us at each step whether we know the price of our choices.
Deciding life goes back to high school and investigates the knee-jerk reactions triggered by fear from verbal onslaughts from authority. We see how these words warp a child’s mind, telling them they cannot, they are not good enough even before they have tried.
The Bully takes us all the way back to primary school and the bullying of a 7-year-old. The story highlights the dangers in schools, how children hurt others, and how adults paying attention can quickly mitigate these.
Stand by Me shows how a child raised with goodness can succeed, except in a broken system. A system that destroys not by doing but by its inability to protect. What happens to an eager young adult with the weight of expectation on his shoulders and fear in his heart?
In These Are Ever Changing Times, the author looks at himself and the change in our architecture and proposes that there is a beauty in the past that we are quick to run away from. While our world advances and changes its architecture, the energy in a space is transformed. The author demonstrates in his own changes the effect that our buildings have on us, often unrecognised.
In the Company of One looks at our homes and focuses on the process of becoming. How our environments create who we are, and how easy it is to create stereotypes. It speaks too about the joy in low-income neighbourhoods juxtaposing this against the lonelier life in high-income settings. It asks questions about community and what is lost in the pursuit of plenty.
Time Happens to Us All, in simplicity, demonstrates the sacrifice that love exacts from families. With a light touch, the essay explores the complications that abound while demonstrating the humanity of the elderly. In the familiar story of caring for the old, we see the interaction between three generations of women; grandmother, mother and daughter.
Shifting Sands talks about having children, the desire for them, the pursuit of them, and their goodness. It does so in a light-hearted laughing manner because we understand that having children upends all our belief systems, making madmen of the best of us.
Introspection is hard to come by and hindsight is saved for the old and for dire situations. The sentiments and stories shared in this collection are deeply personal but also carry the thread of universality. I hope we have shared, indeed, as we set out to do, a picture of what living every day is like in this country, for the young, old, and as a nation.
What I desire for readers to take away is an insight into their own lives, how they have become who they are, insight into the places they can be grateful, where they are not alone, and where they can gain hope. The uncertainty of change, as of life, can be difficult to understand or navigate but these stories demonstrate that even in this we also find strength and possess the ability to create new paths and grow. These stories demonstrate that nothing is stagnant and that just because something was, does not mean it has to be forever. At the end of the day as we take a moment to sit with our lives and recognize the changes we’ve undergone may we understand the forks in the road we took and may we embrace our present as we create the change we desire.
From all of us at Ibua Publishing, Happy New Year to you all and to your loved ones.
Enjoy your read.
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