Sometimes when we pray as men, we forget to thank God that nobody has to stick their finger up our rectums anymore to look for cancer. Unless you want them to, that is. Unless it’s your thing, which would be totally okay too. Whatever floats your rectum. But now with great medical advancement, you don’t need to endure an awkward conversation before lowering your pants before another man. You don’t ever need to be put in a situation where you unwillingly have to ask another man the embarrassing question; will it hurt? Will I be sore after? Can I see your finger first? None of that, thank the Lord! Unless of course, like I mentioned, it’s your thing.
Now it’s a tiny prick on your finger and a drop of blood for what’s known as a PSA Test. PSA is an acronym for Prostate Specific Antigen. The results come faster than changing a diaper. I’ve done three of these tests since I turned 40 because I don’t want prostate cancer sneaking up on me. Because cancer is nuts.
Last week Nairobi Hospital had a free medical screening camp on Customer Care Week. The message said they’d do blood sugar, blood pressure, BMI and PSA. I was more interested in the PSA so I went.
A tent in the parking lot. A very cold morning that would later turn balmy enough to shake off our jackets. There were a number of women but the place was also full of a good number of much older gentlemen. Older men in hats. Older men in proper old men’s shoes. Older men who thumped messages ever so carefully on their smartphones. Older men with thick folds of skin at the back of their necks. Older men under masks, peering at a world that’s changed so fast but also remained the same. They sat silently, holding their forms, waiting for their number to be called. There weren’t too many middle-aged men because they were busy in offices making money to cover medical bills when they fall sick one day. Youth is a massive mirage.
I got a number and sat outside the tent next to a man who could have been in his mid 60s. I bet he had working kids who had added him to a WhatsApp group, where he shared forwards of videos they had watched before. Maybe he was retired and wasn’t sure what to do with himself or his time. Maybe he was a widower, or on his third marriage, or he had a land case in court. Who knows the history of age? When his phone rang, he stared at the screen for so long before answering. A nurse went around giving out sweets, I don’t know why. It suddenly struck me that we regress as humans and old people are suddenly like children who might need sweets.
The older man pulled his mask down and sucked his sweet forlornly, as if listening to its taste. I thought to myself; one day I will be this man’s age. I will be worried about my advanced age, worried about my health. The back of my hands will eventually resemble his; a tortoises neck. My knees might be rubbish, my eyesight worse than ever. I will wake up thrice in the night to pee because my prostate will be the size of a green apple. Maybe I will even struggle with erections. [Dear, Father]. Or sleep. Or a myriad of other things that we take for granted in youth.
But for now, I’m still in mint condition, celebrating my [happy] 45th tomorrow. And here are some 45 quick observations I’ve made about life.
1.
My thirties were an irony. It’s the period I experienced the greatest growth as a writer but at the same time it’s the season I was greatly troubled. I was troubled because I was struggling to fit into a mould, struggling with trying to embrace who I wanted to be but being pulled by what society expected me to be. I was fearful to embrace who I wanted to be. But then one day you wake up and say, screw this; I’m going to be selfish, I’m going to put myself before everybody and everything else. And it’s difficult because choosing yourself comes with a sense of guilt. But then you break through the clouds and everything you imagined, all the wrong things you imagined would befall you as result of your decision, aren’t as bad as they seemed in your head, in fact most don’t even happen.
2.
I do tons of interviews and I’ve learnt that you will never truly know someone until they tell you about their childhood. Our nurturing explains most of the things we do as adults. It explains the size of beds we sleep in. It explains our relationship with money. It explains how we treat others. Sometimes when someone does something very nasty on the road, I have learnt not to let it get my dander up. I just always say, Oh well, they must have been raised by ducks. I struggle to tell people I miss them. I struggle to express my love verbally. It makes me feel vulnerable and unmoored and exposed. Outpouring expressions of verbal emotions embarrasses me. I know where it comes from; growing up we never told each other those words. I’m only learning them now.
3.
If you see a sign written ‘Do Not Walk on Grass’ please keep off the damn grass. Planting and growing grass to the point where it’s green and carpet-y isn’t easy. It’s painstakingly arduous. It took so long for my grass in the village to grow to a point where it looks like good grass. It took two landscapers, two heartbreaks, very many wrong decisions, a sack of money until I finally met Duncan Wangombe. He’s the grass whisperer. “Grass can grow anywhere,” he told me almost metaphorically. He travels the breadth of this country, planting grass and flowers and building ponds and artificial waterfalls. This is a special mention to him. If you and your grass are having issues, call Duncan, to mediate that relationship. Email: [email protected] or 0726810517
4.
The soundtrack of my 44th has been, Waves by Robin Schulz Remix Radio Edit.
5.
We imagine that people spend a lot of time thinking about our lives and our choices. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about you and your life. People are busy thinking about their own lives.
6.
What am I afraid of? Poor health for my children and myself. Being sick for two or three years, wasting away down to my bones, people coming to my hospital bed with empty words of encouragement, bringing me Ribena and fruit baskets. Folk eating your hospital food. Then one rainy Saturday night, with a drip hanging over me, I die with my mouth open, my lonely death officiated by a nurse called Dorah. I’m afraid of an ending like that.
I’m also afraid of poverty. Of carrying an alms bowl to people; sitting outside their office waiting for them to tell me no, they can’t spare some money. The indignity of that level of poverty can be like a stain in my soul.
Lastly, I fear not making any mark at all in the world. I came and I left and the world was never any better for it. What’s the point? What would be the difference between me and a plantain?
7.
When I want to write some really sad sentences I first listen to Oliver Mtukudzi.
8.
Twelve years ago my editor sent me to Pinklakeman Ecolodge at the shores of Lake Elementaita to write a travel story. It felt denser then, the acacia trees rising higher and higher, the lake closer and wider. There were birds and wild animals. You lived in a small handsome log cabin. I fell in love with wood immediately. That’s how I met Francis Macharia. He lived wild, in a log cabin, his dogs trailing behind him, building unconventional things. At night, in pitch darkness – because the nights at Elementaita can get pretty dark – he drove guests to the hot springs where they skinny dipped, the only light coming from the glare of his headlights. Later, he told stories by a bonfire until late. I have since been to the lodge over 15 times.
He sold the lodge, moved to higher ground by a gorge where he built a treehouse using his own hands, using recycled materials, using his imagination. I admired him, how he lived simply but intentionally. He has influenced a lot on how I live my life now and how I intend to live it in the future.
Yesterday, as he saw me off after a brief visit, we were discussing that main picture and others I took of his place, he said, “wouldn’t it be funny if it turned out that maybe you were not really a writer in the first place but something in the visual arts?”
He says things like that; lightly but provocatively. He’s unaware of it, how he challenges you to get off the beaten path, off what you know.
I have thought about what he said before. I think we shouldn’t be just one thing in this lifetime, not to limit ourselves to just what we know. You can be a doctor who also rears pigs. A coder who brews beer. A chef by day and a drummer in a band by night. You can make music and also deliver babies. You can be a pilot and a carpenter like Captain Kamanja, who I met recently. A banker who restores old cars. A lawyer who rescues stray dogs. Life is long enough to be many things because there is what you do and who you are.
9.
My greatest flaws as a human; gross impatience, my inability to forgive those who break my trust and quickness to anger. I’m working on them and struggling while at it.
10.
In Nairobi your friends will buy you a bottle of whisky but will not contribute when you are dying in hospital. If you feel some type of way about that then you are the problem. Manage your expectations of your friends because 75% of friendships sit on quick sand. [I just pulled those stats from my fanny]
11.
Plants will die, but I refuse to be those people who speak to plants. Because once you do that there is no line you won’t cross. No boundaries you won’t scale over. I have had a trail of plant deaths. I’m starting to think it’s me; my rosemary is currently at its deathbed. My lemongrass died months ago.
12.
One time Tamms asked me, “did you always want to have children when you were my age?” I was driving. I said, “not exactly when I was your age, but yeah there was an understanding that you had to get married and have children and get really broke because children are always eating” I said this and looked at Kim in the rearview mirror. He was unbothered, staring outside.
“But you knew you wanted children.”
I said I did. “I thought I’d get three daughters, but then that one came along and he had nice eyes so I said I might as well keep him.”
She chuckled and said. “I don’t think I want children.”
“Why?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. But I just don’t think I would like to have children.”
“What about marriage?”
“Yes, I’d like to get married one day.”
“So you’d have to meet a man who also doesn’t want children.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh God. So I have to rely on that one for grandchildren.” I nodded at Kim.
She laughed.
“Yes. Well, maybe I might change my mind in the future, but for now I know I don’t want children.”
I nodded and said that was okay, nobody HAS to have children.
She’s 14 years old. I’m very proud of her. That she’s forming into a woman with bold opinions. I just don’t understand how she and girls her age wear hoodies even when it’s so blazing hot outside. What are these kids hiding?
13.
Last time I was in shags, it stormed, raining and gusting furiously. In the morning I discovered that one of my favourite acacia trees had been felled in the storm. I found it on its side, its roots resembling a botched root canal. I was gutted. The tree was a home to birds. It was next to what will be my bedroom. We stood there looking at it with Steve, my shamba boy. The bird nests were still intact and birds perched on the branches. Unbeknownst to them, they would have to find a home soon.
He suggested that he chop it into firewood. I said, no leave it. Let them leave whenever they are ready to leave.
I don’t know the moral of this story. You can create your own moral around it.
14.
You haven’t lived life until you have dealt with fundis. Everybody should build something in their lifetime. Anything, really, a barn, a toilet, a gazebo. It builds your character. It teaches you that nothing ever goes according to plan, that you don’t know anything at all, that people are inherently dishonest, that most people would rather cut a corner if given a chance, that even the best laid plans mean shit.
15.
I ran into a former schoolmate who I hadn’t seen in years. How we met was I was from the Text Book Center at Sarit, riding up the escalator, absentmindedly thinking about solar panels. He was riding down when our eyes met and locked and we both had that flash of hesitant recognition seeing as it’s been over 25 years and we have all changed tremendously; he’s much heavier than the 17 year old I last saw and my forehead is more pronounced. [Like a solar panel.” “Biko?” He asked as he passed and I said, “boss!” which is what you call someone when you have forgotten their names.
I rode back down because that’s the rule; the person who forgets the name has to ride back down. He was holding the hand of a boy who turned out to be his son. I could immediately tell that he had Down’s Syndrome. He kept playfully swinging his dad’s hand while making aeroplane sounds as we caught up.
He was in his second marriage and the boy was from the second marriage, he told me after we had talked about boring things like work. He has three more from the first marriage, he said. We stood there talking about children like they were fruit trees. ‘Yeah, I have two. One is this high and the other has hair that looks like a wild bush.” ‘My middle one eats his nails. Maybe he lacks vital minerals.”
As he talked about the one swinging his hand he looked down at him and smiled so warmly the whole time. I could feel his love for him move underneath the floor we stood on. I could feel the pure energy of it all, it’s a love that could wash away bridges and demolish walls. “When it all ended everybody thought I was a fool,” he said, “leaving my family for a single mother with a son with special needs. I thought it was nuts at first but I think God had been preparing me with my three children to be a father to this one in my middle-age.”
I’ve never forgotten that last statement about God preparing him.
Makes you wonder; what is God preparing you for?
Anyhow.
For my birthday I’m opening this comment section up for 30 more questions, but I can answer more, time permitting. Nothing too personal, surely. Nothing YOU wouldn’t answer. I will be seated at my computer for the next few hours responding to these questions.
Thanks for always reading this blog for the past 12 years. You have kept me company through many milestones. You guys rock.
Happy Birthday to my birthday-mates; Connie Aluoch, Florence Bett- Kinyatti [who has a dope new book out about money], my nephews Tony Ading and Garvin Ading and lastly Kwame Miyayi.
Libras to the world.