This is going to be a quickie.
Two quickies, actually.
First quickie.
I woke up today and thought about that night in 1996 in Brunei when fans got to the Bandar Seri Begawan amphitheatre and waited hours. The young and the old jostled for space. The sick were brought on stretchers. The place sat humming under a fog of anticipation. Up in the VIP section sat the royal family of Brunei. It was a free concert and so the place was sardine-packed, it swayed and creaked like a great ship of humanity. You can’t start imagining the scale of 60,000 people in one large space. I can’t.
The place was brought to quiet – as quiet as you can make 60,000 expectant people get. Suddenly a figure lurched from underneath the stage like a rocket and when they landed on their feet the place descended into anarchy. It was Michael Jackson. It went ape-shit. The crowd started going loony. Women and men cried. Girls jumped up and down, extending their hands towards the king of pop. Women fainted. Women grabbed fistfuls of their hair as if something foreign had possessed them. The crowd heaved towards the stage and the security consisting of hundreds of hired muscles and a barricade pushed them back.
Meanwhile, Michael did nothing.
He just stood there. Hair hanging over his face.
The more he did nothing the more the crowd screamed. And fainted. And shouted his name. MICHAEEEEEL! MICHAEEEEEEL! I LOVE YOU MICHAEL! I WILL GIVE YOU BABIES MICHAEL! I WILL AIRFRY ALL YOUR CHICKEN MICHAEL! MICHAEL IF YOU EVER NEED A KIDNEY, TAKE TWO OF MINE! I DON’T NEED THEM! MICHAEL MY HEART IS YOURS! MY WOMB HURTS MICHAEL! MICHAEEEEEEEEL!
Complete basket case. 60,000 people.
Michael stood like that for a whole minute. Not moving a muscle. And the crowd kept going from wild to deranged.
Then Michael slowly removed his sunglasses and if you thought the crowd wouldn’t get any more animated, now it was fever pitch. It was uncontrollable. Girls were falling back, crumbling, because they saw the god’s eyes. It was like staring into the sun.
Then Michael lurched, did the thing he does with his leg and the beat dropped and then it was straight to the musical twilight zone.
I don’t know why I thought about Michael this morning. I don’t know why anybody thinks about dead strangers. But I lay there and thought of Michael in Brunei.
The second quickie.
I just came back from the village.
I showed up without any announcement. Sneaked up on my Emmanuel, like a thief in the night or a thief in the day. If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it. The sun was high above. He just opened the gate. He was in his gumboots. The moment I got out of the car, I knew something had changed. I knew my grass was happy. I removed my shoes (thanks for the earthing tips, Victor) and walked on the grass. Even without looking at the grass, you can tell from the soles of your feet when the grass is happy when the earth is satisfied. I touched the leaves of my young trees as I walked down the garden. I said a kind word to a young palm tree, a slow grower. “You are enough,” I told her. I brushed past the Lady’s Thumb and nodded at her slow but sure progression in life. A late bloomer, like me. So I understand the path they are on. At the cluster of bamboo, I saw many more bird nests. A riot of weaver birds said things to me at the same time. Weaver birds love attention. I raised my hand and said, “One at a time, ladies.” They couldn’t stop. They continued with the ruckus. So I just stood there. I felt like Michael Jackson in Brunei.
Everything was what I wanted it to be.
I felt my heart swell with joy. With love. And contentment.
I felt like the sun was shining in my heart. I felt every breeze through my pores. My feet started growing in the ground. I had a keen feeling that I was a plant in my former life. A cactus, Moonlight Cactus, to be specific. Something that grows in the wild and doesn’t get thirsty. A plant with a modest shadow.
Emmanuel waited on the pathway, buried up to his knees in his gumboots.
I walked up to him and said, “You have done an amazing job with the place. I’m very happy at how this place looks.” He smiled broadly and said, “azante, boss.”
I said, “This is the minimum standard of this place. This is your minimum standard.”
He nodded.
We both looked around like two colonialists about to start scrambling for the land they just discovered where other humans have lived for generations.
“Good job,” I said to him, but also the grass. Because it must be hard being grass in shags. It must be hard being my grass because I just won’t let you have low days. I want you to stand still and be bright.
So those are the two things I wanted to share with you today. I just wanted to encourage you to never give up on your grass. Or on anything you cherish. Or on each other. Most importantly, don’t give up on yourselves.
Talk properly next week.
Allow me to go to an embassy and beg for a Visa.
***
In case you too are at an embassy and need to pass time reading something great, grab a book HERE.