No Woman, More Cry

"Look, women working by day and late at night, they sing of bright days that were, a long way back and forth forever"

Her songs are overwhelming, heartrending, ravishing and magical to the point of elevating one right up to level of celestial sphere. Even though I don't understand Irish Gaelic, Latin, French, Spanish Welsh, Sindarin, (the many languages she sings in a lot of times),  her songs are like a dagger that pierces through my soul, unearthing and gorging out every fear and doubt, negativity and hopelessness, turbulence and emptiness. 

In them, my mind is greatly motivated to dare dream as wild as I can. In them, I find the strength to forge ahead and hope when it seems all is lost. In them, I grasp the freedom to generally rise above ordinariness to greatness and perfection. In them, I feel the power of love, and believe in the reality of fairy tales. In them I find the clarification in the puzzles of life.

This is the power of music. This is the power of Enya's ethereal waves and synthesized background pattern of music. She is like no other.

I stumbled across yet another beautiful song titled "Ebudae" by her and as usual, I was mesmerized, and as a result, decided to dedicate it in honour, appreciation and celebration of womanhood.

 

The ever diligent hands that generate and supply

Heart full of undying and unconditional love  and care

The unwavering strength

The smile of hope

The Blessing. The Future

Now, I take a moment to commiserate with women who have been subjected to one societal plight or the other out of acts of inhumanity, ingratitude, egoism and/or low self esteem - the woman who endures the pangs of body altering pregnancy, labour and child-birth, and selflessly stays back home to nurture her family, while her efforts are tagged "common" by a husband who emotionally and physically abuses her day and night, cheats on her recklessly or refuses to cater for her upkeep and the child's, the woman who is unfairly demanded and almost compelled to earn 50% of the family's income and still left alone to perform ALL house chores, the traumatized rape victim who not only have to deal with the aftermath of rape, but also deals with injustice and ridicules from unfeeling individuals who think it's all her fault, the widow who must drink the poisonous bath water that was used to bathe her late husband's corpse and other degrading and dehumanizing "cleansing rituals", the boisterous-undaunted and hardworking woman whose great achievements have earned her death threats out of envy, and so on. You shall never walk alone.

In this awe-inspiring song I found the unquenchable inspiration to applaud and worship the wonder that we are - our greatness and achievements. Regardless of our struggles, we're the most stunning of all God's creation, and our worth surpasses the price-tags on the shoes and clothes we wear, the number of friends or followers we have on Facebook or Instagram or the hair/body products we use. In the eyes of God, we are important and worth dying for.

In the lyrics of Ebudae - "Look, women working by day and late at night, they sing of bright days that were, a long way back and forth forever", I perceive a clarion call to us women:

To support and encourage one another in our challenges

To commend and be happy for each other's achievements

To be a source of strength and motivation in hard times

To cherish and value ourselves, our femininity and our worth

To carry ourselves in  dignity

To dust ourselves up and keep trying

To never settle for less than we deserve

To believe and hold on to our dreams, goals and aspirations

To ignore the liar telling us we CAN'T...............

God bless us all!

My PKS Valentine's Model

Hello, pal! 

I'm very pleased to wish you a happy Valentine's day. Of course, you know I got nothing but mad-pure love for you, and just in case no one has ever told you this and from the bottom of my heart, I think you're an AWESOME individual in all ramifications - smart, beautiful, handsome, unique, etc. Never forget this fact. 

It wasn't any of my intentions to post here today, but I guess I got bitten by Valentine's bug, so bad I forfeited some important stuff I was busy with to join in spreading the love. Aint love beautiful? I think so too. Well, I guess I was smitten by a colleague of mine who brought and shared chocolates and candies among everyone at work. I loved her generous/kind gesture, a gesture that obviously brought smiles to everyone's face, and that to me is what Valentine's day should be about.

Pope Gelasius declared this day, February, 14th as  a day to honor St. Valentine, who was a Christian martyr imprisoned and later executed for defiling the Roman emperor's orders which banned soldiers from getting married by performing weddings for them, an act I'm sure brought smiles to the faces of these soldiers. Yet another tale claims he was executed because of his Christian beliefs and that he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius whom before his execution wrote her a farewell letter signed "From Your Valentine." He died because of his love for love.

Therefore today requires you and I to be embodiments of true love which are

1. Patience - No matter how hard, be patient today. Young lady, I get that you're expecting an engagement ring tonight, it's long over due, you reason. Well, I understand your anticipations, but hey, don't pout if he doesn't pop the question today, no pressure. If it's meant to be, he will in due time. And you man, if you haven't put a ring on it, it AINT your right yet, so don't pressurize her, because you want to get laid. 

2. Kindness - That's right. If she's your wife/girlfriend, for once today, be a gentleman. Are you planning to have a romantic dinner at an exotic restaurant today? Pamper her, open the door  and  pull out the chair for her. Write him/her thoughtful poems in Spanish (if you can :D), in Igbo, Yoruba, Greek, whatever. Buy each other presents. That's right girl, buying gifts is not only his responsibility. How about a nice tie for your suit loving husband? Cufflinks, wristwatch, socks or you can cook his favourite meal, whatever. Do what you can and appreciate the other's efforts. "Oh, what the hell am I supposed to do with flowers"? Well, my dear Nigerian sister, pot it and water it..., flowers are beautiful gift of nature from God. a pair of Louboutins/Rolex watch isn't (:D). Appreciate it. It's what it symbolizes that matters. LOVE.

3. Selflessness - Before now, I noticed a lot people (ladies majorly) were more preoccupied with what to receive from their partners, and not necessarily what they will be giving. WRONG!!! It's not your birthday and therefore not only about you. Be concerned about how to make your partner happy as well. It is not just in relation to today's celebration, always seek to give, not receive. Seek for ways to impact on other people's lives as well. It must not be monetarily, your kind/encouraging words, smile, help, genuine attention would go a long way in elevating others. Why not try it? There's nothing as fulfilling as seeing that your effort is the reason someone feels happy and blessed.

And just in case you're single, only you can make yourself happy. It's your job. So, don't WAIT on a man or a woman to do that for you today. Give yourself a treat to the things you love to do, and in anyway you can, give of yourself to others too.

Have a blast the rest of the evening.

Too Lazy To Think of A Beffiting Title

Today, I decided to squeeze out time to post something new here. It's been a while, right? I know it's cliche, but this chick has been really busy - too busy to notice the recent reform in our power sector sef.

I told you about my difficult January, right? So, add stress to the busy year it's been, and I'm sure you'd get an image of a pimple-faced woman on the brink of losing her mind, but still resilient enough to make a blog post, regardless of challenges.

Maybe it's not as serious as I make it sound. I mean, my sister thinks I tend to blow things out of proportion. In fact, I tend to blow things out of proportion. That or it's just a writer's inclination to spice up gists with embellishments. However, that doesn't nullify the existence of a zit on my right cheek. And when zits start rearing their black heads, I know I have unknowingly(most times) bitten more than I could chew.

Well, enough of my zit whine, how have you been? Perhaps, it hasn't been as difficult for you, I hope. Whatever, you and I can look forward to more blessed and stress-free (manageably at least) days ahead. Cheers to a fabulous month of February! *Raises my bottle of Fanta*.

So, back to the power matter. Two days ago, I received an honouring offer to update on a special website run by a genius friend of mine. In his exact words, "we need someone who can adequately represent our goal, not just a reporter, for it (the website that is) goes beyond reporting." Which reminds me, I GOTTA quickly finish up with this post, because I have a poem to write (for the first time ever). LOL!

I know, a little diversion, but I couldn't help but recall a line of similar offers I've been receiving lately. The weirdest of them all from two of my girlfriends, (my sisters from other mothers) who set me up with this poetry competition, and they weren't taking the fact that I had never tried poetry as an excuse. "You never know what is left untapped in there", they argued. Really, what's with these people having faith in me? Can you tell I'm gloating? :D.

I love y'all AWESOME PEOPLE for your supports and belief in me. 

Where was I...? Yes, the offer from my genius friend. Before the offer, he asked what I knew about the power sector. He sounded like there was something worthy happening there that I should know about. Of course, I noticed power supply got a lot worse since the beginning of this year. The maddening constant noise and choking fumes from generators had lingered on in the hot air longer than usual, plus I have had to pay N150 more in every one of my weekly salon visits, in provision of diesel used to power the generator. It's so frequent that at a point, I suspected there had been light the times the generator was left running.

Sometimes, the noise and fume smell became so overwhelming that I fantasized about vanishing to Spain, securing a job as a sports reporter in Barcelona, get to hang out with stars like Alexis Sanchez, Messi and Busquet during interviews, probably become a controversial reporter after I had told Martino he's the most "swagless" coach to walk the face of the earth. Other times I wished I was airborne and infinitely divisible so I could fly about the entire neighbourhood simultaneously, depositing piles of salt into every fuel tank, and wrecking every carburetor/engine until they couldn't be repaired anymore.

Well, because I had eavesdropped on some people sometime last year discussing about the presidential agenda to privatize the power sector albeit uninterestedly/unintentionally coupled with recent deterioration in the supply of power, I quickly concluded these could be the significant factor to my friend's question, so I answered in that line. Afterwards, he proceeded to giving me an eloquent lecture on the current commercial financing and investment in the power sector by private sectors. This urged me to read further about this reformation.

Despite the fact that the almost 150 paged blueprint for the reform process in the power sector ranks as one of the most boring pieces I've ever read (what with all it's graph representations and having to stumble across figures as 40, 000MW more frequent than not) , it was quite educating, and I dare say promising. Yes, I believe the reformation in the power sector will equally yield beneficial results, in the same way reformation in the telecommunication sector did. Like my friend said, we'll all have to be patient.

Knowing what I know now, PHCN will finally rest from my curses every time power comes on and goes off every five minutes.

I understand and will cut them some slack from now on.

You should too, ok?

Relax, burn some more fuel, or candle whenever Koko is in the block. :D