Birthday Notes
1.
A child is one who has yet to reach his conclusions. Left to roam, he inspects objects, feels them for temperature and texture, and circles them to get a sense of dimensions. He tastes leaves and flowers his hands can reach, in case they bear secrets their colours have not already betrayed. He tries to interrogate animals, but quickly learns there is no sophistication to their testimony. They are always begging — to be left alone, to be fed, or to be crossed. For things not physically present — far off places, people and gods — stories and songs have to suffice.
While washing his face with Imperial Leather, he tries to keep his eyes open, lest Sani Abacha’s ghost suddenly materialize, and put an end to his investigations. The General never does, and from this he gets a sense of his own scale. He has already looked at his brothers and seen himself. He has already looked at the neighbours and understood his allegiances. And by the time these preliminary exercises are complete, there is no need to look in the mirror. An “I” has already emerged.
2.
I have chased the same goals since I was twelve or thereabouts. They are very different endeavours but rally in search of two textures of the same thing: Truth. I want a lyrical I that makes keen realizations about the true nature of things. I want a scientific I, fated to be subsumed in the “we” of typically large labs, that makes demonstrable realizations about the true nature of things. I frequently chide myself for being so unfocused, so double-minded. But on some days, I patronize myself, and think myself in the league of other poet-chemists of consequence. As an apprentice in a tradition that stretches back to Davy, who also covered lab notebooks in verse.
3.
The mistake I repeatedly make is working at making my own life from scratch, winning every inch of it as in chess — a game in which nothing is hidden, given, or left up to luck. The truth is one sometimes has to beg for his life — be handed it, as the saying goes, on a plate.
4.
Eyin Boiz have now played together for an average of twenty years. Active friendships demand comfort with the risks of proximity — the risk that a joke doesn’t land well must not prevent the joke, the risk of an argument devolving into ad hominems must not encourage a false peace, and old stories must be retold till the embarrassed parties forgive themselves. Friendships of this sort defy time.
Consider this passage from Kierkegaard — “only he who works gets the bread, only he who was in anguish finds repose, only he who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved, only he who draws the knife gets Isaac”. In it, he sets out to characterize the ethereal world as very much unlike the material world where “bread” can be stolen. Friendship cannot be had on the cheap. Only he who wrestles his friend can hug him.
I have now supported Chelsea F.C. for just as long as I’ve known the Boiz. The reason for my declaration was superficial — the colour blue, which I had also arbitrarily adopted as a favourite colour. Football provides for us a story that never ends and therefore makes for arguments that never end. The fates of our respective clubs serve as ready feedstock for conversation, but lately has begun to go even further. The therapist’s questionnaire asks if I feel pleasure in doing things. Awoniyi asks the better question — “shey you still dey watch Chelsea sha?”.
5.
The “last seen” of some friendships stretches back years. Everything suggests such friendships exist entirely in memory since only old photos and other such antiques remind of them, and there is no urgent feeling to reach out, not even when a status update or post crosses the timeline. They remain friendships only in a speculative sense — since we were cordial when we last spoke, the cordiality must still exist and is merely awaiting reawakening through contact. But this is delusional. Silence is not a preservative. Time is neither vacuum nor deep-freezer. Privately, each party sets about, interpreting. Silence becomes more than neglect, becomes betrayal. In silence, time conjures physical and chemical forces towards the decay of things left too long alone. What is left is rust. What is left is putrefaction. But every now and again, contact is made by virtue of the absurd, and we find all time has wrought is fermentation.
6.
Beyond the exposure to the poems of others and passive lessons in craft, a poet is constituted by the attitude of his family toward him. If a poetic disposition is not recognized or tolerated, all is lost. I am grateful that my family has let me throw my hands up like a poet, wash plates like a poet, and cry like a poet all these years. A poet is built of excuses.
7.
Ọmọ erin Ìrò
Ọmọ ọ̀ṣọ̀rọ̀ baba òjò
Ọmọ alaká gbe eji
Ọmọ agùn lórí eṣin m’ọ́yàn obìrin jẹ l’onaa Ìgbèdè.
Ọmọ a l’ago bẹ̀rẹ̀ ìsìn
Ọmọ a mú àgbò s’ọ̀sẹ̀
Ọmọ a mú màlúù s’ọdún ìgbàgbọ́.
Ọmọ Ọwá, ọmọ Ẹkùn.
Ọmọ amúdà s’ílẹ̀ f’ogun ẹnu p’ani.
Ọmọ ọkùnrin Àkúrẹ́ t’oko bọ̀, ó f’àgàdà p’erin
Ọmọ obìrin Àkúrẹ́ t’ọjà bò, ó f’òsìlò p’efòn
Àkúrẹ́ l’ómi méjì, ó pè ‘jèèjì l’Alà
Bí eré, bí eré, Àlà d’omi ẹbọ.
— (Paternal/Akure orìkí)
Ọní p’òjíjí ni Lomí
Níí w’újà àwẹ̀ y’ọ́jà
Ọmọ m’ákàrà s’ábẹ́ ẹ̀wù jẹ
Ee ṣ’ojúu rìro, ìṣẹ̀dálẹ̀ wa ni.
Ọmọ amú abẹ́ẹ́rẹ́ gúnyán
K’àdó gbèrègbè má mọ̀.
Àdó ì rí hun m’áṣọse
O d’àlà b’osè
Àdó ò n’ùlè oni
K’ọ́be sìlọ̀ m’ọ́nù
Àdó suhàn suhàn
Àdó reni reni
Sùgbọ́n àìṣẹ̀nínú oni
Níí jẹ́ àdìn Àdó rè mí tán.
— (Maternal/Ado-Akure orìkí)
8.
Isn’t defeat always lurking somewhere around the corner? Why then are all these people so comfortable in the self-congratulatory attitude always alive in the autobiographical mode? “Here is my life, it is worthy of your interest, it is chock full of wondrous doings and even its failures are instructive”. Perhaps there are victories that cannot be effaced. Events whose didactic import cannot be denied. I find the diary is a more honest mode. The thought or event happens, and you put it down, raw. But Ayeni’s advice from all those years ago to write diary entries with a certainty that they would be discovered stays with me. Suddenly, I find myself cooking.
9.
In JSS2, I decided that to be a real poet, I simultaneously had to become, at least, agnostic. I felt that in order to say whatever I wanted to say, in order to be saved from the possibility of scandal, in order not to have to edify the brethren through my work, I had to be irreligious. Time, with its bags of paradoxes, has revealed that the scandalous is always at hand. That no matter what sect one renounces in order to speak freely, there are always things one is not permitted to say.
Milosz relates the lament of a young poet who tells him — “I imagine what X or Y will say about it, and I change the ending.” Every writer knows that feeling of the gaze of humanity, in the form of colleagues, family members, comrades, or even a past self, on his back. In a podcast discussing Milosz, Cynthia Haven says about Milosz’s defection from the Stalinist government of his day — “All his friends deserted him, with the powerful exception of Albert Camus”. I type out the quote and send it to Olu without annotation. What is implied is clear — be a powerful exception when I eventually fall out of step with the orthodoxy of our day.
10.
People often advise that on bad days the best course of action may be retiring to bed early, in order to wake up refreshed, ready to attack the problems of yesterday with renewed gusto. I took the advice — I went, I slept, I woke up refreshed, but to my utmost surprise, I found my problems refreshed as well.
11.
A dull pain in the chest. I quickly determine that it is not on the left side and it is therefore not an outright message from the heart. Perhaps it is something in my lungs — a result of all the chemicals I have been measuring out? I contemplate booking an appointment with the clinic for a full investigation. For the definitive gavel bang of a diagnosis. Another pain radiates from the abdomen. What organ could this one be a message from? But soon they fade. It is the gift of youth — pain cannot withstand it while it lasts, and soon even the exact locations are forgotten. But some pains return with a regularity that jogs the memory. One day, one of them will refuse to leave.
12.
I am turning thirty. It’s a big age! Any moment now, I will lose all my knowledge of the slang of the day and join the class of the 30-plus. Briefly, though, I will be its youngest member. I have drunk the copium Zagajewski offers when he writes in Self-portrait- “I’m no longer young, but someone else is always older” for the age anxiety common in the class. I have also copied this practice of writing something, to whoever is kind enough to read from Olu, who has penned notes on his 28th, 29th and 30th. Thirty is a big age. It almost demands that one begins to speak with more gravity, that one starts to publish findings on investigations begun at childhood. That one begins to be set in his ways.
13.
Self-Portrait in Autumn
For Moyo, obviously
I rejoice for the fallen leaves a small cyclone takes
on a merry-go-round.
What, afterall, is dead
that dances?
I rejoice for a gust of wind
that chases another through the fake grass
and a row of wild alders,
and for those holding hands
as they run for the train.
I rejoice for the bird that narrowly misses
the glass.
The street is full of mirrors
but it was not deceived that it wasn’t alone.
I have ambled between Solomon’s ant and David’s sparrow,
but why not this finch?
I rejoice, of course, for those who are rejoicing
and those who the Frisbees find
and those who the Collies find
and those who the kisses find
For those who take these for granted
and for those who can still cry.
14.
A child is never rushed to reach his conclusions, but as time passes, he feels a pressure to make definitive statements. I set out one year to sample ready-made systems. Why seek a bespoke conclusion when, as Yiyun Li puts it, “living is not an original business”? I was not looking for a perfect system. I just wanted a good fit. In the same way one tries out shirts, jobs or situationships. A clothier promptly appears and recommends materialism. “Look at the material!” he says. “Look how it contains the past, look how it is always so ready to accept the future”. “And you know it’ll fit you and your mechanisms”. I was sold. “How much?”. The answer stops me short of pulling out my wallet — “nihilism”.
15.
I always felt the screams of people on roller coasters were a bit exaggerated. You know you are securely fastened to the seat. You know the stats of this machine predicts nothing untoward could likely happen. You just saw a set of people go on it. Why are you still screaming? I concluded that the screams were merely a ritualized performance of fear that added to the experience of everyone on the ride. When I finally decided to try it, I was holding on tightly to handles, screaming for my dear life, with my eyes shut all through.
I think occasionally about this lesson from the episode: at any moment, a roller coaster in the shape of people, events or even music can jolt us out of our neat conclusions. As I now launch into my thirties, in which a stiffening in tastes and ideologies is said to be commonplace, it suggests a healthy reserve of flexibility.
Acknowledgements: My Parents, Uncles and Aunts for graciously taking time to remember and contribute the orikis. Olu, for reading through the initial draft of the piece.
