Mimi's Thoughts

Su’eddie

Last night my entire maternal family (OBF is what we call ourselves) held our breath as we watched and waited for the revealing of the winner of The Nigeria Prize for Literature.

One of ours, Su’eddie Vershima Agema had emerged among the three finalists for 2022.

We waited together on our whatsapp group as we kept ourselves occupied with discussions and jokes from the live broadcast of the Grand Award Night. The tension was really high for us all; we really wanted our Su’eddie to win. Besides the honour of being named the winner, winning came along with a “token” of One Hundred Thousand US Dollars.

The moment came, the winner was announced. It was not my Su.

Su as I prefer to call him is my brother and my friend. He is also my mentor and muse when it comes to writing. He is a pain in my neck whenever I go long periods without writing something. He still remains a pain concerning an unfinished project I have been working on. He is the same way even with himself, he starts a thing, he pushes himself and he completes it. He is a hard worker. He is diligent.

OBF took the news well, we went ahead to congratulate him because to us, being top 3 is a big deal.

Dear Su, I know there are more finalist positions, nominations and wins ahead.

Love you loads.

Replacement therapy

A close relative of mine who we had known to be a heavy drinker for most of his life, having faced a serious turning point in his life, decided to ditch the bottle. This came as a surprise to many of his relatives. He openly and proudly made this announcement to the surprise and joy of everyone. The only fear that kept revisiting my mind was the fear of jinx. What remains funny about my fear of jinxing a good thing is the fact that I have never really decided if I believe in it or not. I hope for his sake that it is a myth.

I noticed over a period of weeks that his appetite for food had somewhat doubled. We had a family commitment that lasted 3 days and I got the opportunity to be in close proximity with him and his increased appetite became more obvious to me. He was popping meals as frequently as a deer poops.

That was when I started to wonder what the matter was. I was with my friend Helen and we reasoned together. She said it seemed he had replaced his drink with food. Immediately, I thought how that was easy and good therapy… or so it seemed at that time.

Replacement therapy is simply replacing one addiction or habit with another one. The replaced addiction is often perceived as a bad one that needs to be stopped. Sometimes it is not the case. Sometimes the new addiction isn’t really always the best choice for us.

Is replacement therapy really good? I think it isn’t but I think sometimes it is the only solution.

In a long term change plan, I think it is not the best option because some day, the new habit may not be strong or sufficient enough and then the old one could resurface and come backs are often stronger.

However, if there is a strong need for a temporary change, one can easily replace one thing with another while they wait for time to pass. For example, we can replace carbonated drinks with lots of water during a detox or we can replace social media with novels and movies when we are on a social media fast. I have effectively done a few replacements myself and the results were quite fulfilling.

What do you think about replacement therapy?

A book for November

“Mimi always does the coming over” . This is what one of my sisters said. I don’t know which of them said it, but after that had been said, they all agreed to come over to my town and spend my 40th birthday with me.

My three sisters live in the same city; almost 300 kilometres from my own town. Every now and again, I get to go over to the city for family events and celebrations. My dad happens to live in that same city and some of these celebrations are about him. Most of my close cousins and niblings live in that same city too. So yes, Mimi always does the coming over. I usually enjoy the trips because they give me a breather from my usual life schedule.

Two of my three sisters were able to come and they spent my 40th with me. I was super excited to have them around and I will never forget how it felt. My eldest sister had to take a work trip to London in the same week and she couldnt make it. She kept on saying how sorry she was for having to miss being with me on that day.

She brought me a book while she was away. A book by Alexander Potter titled Confessions of a forty something f##k up. Having been used to reading e-books for a while, it felt good to have a paperback in my hand, plus, the title suited just fine.

I went through the summary, praises and reviews of the book and I must say that I am super excited.

Thank you Dough. I will jump right into my book after blogtober.

I think of you (Part 2)

A few months ago, I wrote in I think of you (Part 1) about my cousin and how he always popped into my head whenever it was 6:47 on the clock.

Even though it is clear that the brain forms connections between the neurons and it makes it very easy to connect one thing to another, I still can’t get over the fact that i have a face for almost every thing. It’s always one thing or the other. It could be something as little as a song or a word. Like the song Yellow by cold play, the place called Mbayion, the scotch whiskey Glenfiddich, the word ‘gallivant’, the animal ‘racoon’… I have a face for almost everything.

One other thing that gets me thinking of people is their birthdays. I have found that I never forget birthdays. Once I know it, it sticks. I have some birthdays stuck in my head for as long as 30 years.

At the beginning of the year I made a resolution to reach out to people as often as I thought of them. I am very bad with keeping in touch with people and just like many other new year resolutions we make, I failed to go through with this one.

While I hope to make good my resolution, I will continue to enjoy the thoughts of my friends and family as they pop into my head.

Why do people cry?

I have never pondered on my tears with this question but recently, on my 40^th birthday, I got so many questions as to why I cried so much that I started to wonder. Why do people cry? I really want to know.

I started to cry from the moment my furniture guy walked into my house that morning with an entry-way furniture I had shown him almost 2 years ago. I had shown it to him and made plans to make it for myself but somehow I never went through with the order. I guess I could say that I cried because I realised someone could be thoughtful enough to remember exactly what I wanted.

I had one person ask me if I cried because I was remembering some old stuff. I am still not sure what the question means. Someone else asked if I felt I wasn’t worth all the love I was getting. I thought about that for a bit and I said ‘No’. I deserve every love I get and even more.

Then why did I cry? I am still trying to figure that out but I think I cry because I am a really emotional person and emotional tears come from strong emotions. If I feel appreciated and loved, if I am extremely happy, if I am deeply sad, if I feel misunderstood or any other emotional feeling, you are going to bet that I will get teary eyed. Maybe I will cry.

Someone asked me if I cried about everything. I didn’t have to ponder on this one, I know the one thing I don’t cry over. I don’t cry when I feel a physical pain. I still don’t know why.

Some people cry more than others and we don’t know why, there have been a few guesses that involve a few biology lessons.

I don’t know why people cry but I guess I know why I do.

Assumption

I recently started a job and the office premises had not been fully furnished and so one day, when there was a very important meeting of the top officers, my department had to vacate our office temporarily for a couple of days. Our office was bigger and better equipped for the purpose of that meeting.

While we were displaced, we had to make do with a room that had only chairs and no surfaces. On the second day of being displaced, one of the staff who had worked there longer than most us had, came into our temporary space, beckoned to me and said; “madam, please come”.

I was instantly upset because he didn’t wait for me to accept, he began walking up the stairs to the floor where his office and our vacated office was. I walked behind him, murmuring silently. You see, we had tagged him already as a person who was very full of himself. He was the kind of person who had an air of importance and spoke with a kind of pride we did not understand. A few people had even complained that he didn’t respond to their greetings.

When we got to the floor, he said to me: “Madam, we have an extra table and I want you to have it. you can move it down to the space you have occupied. You can return it when you move back to your office”.

I said thank you and went to get someone to help me move it.

When I settled behind my new table, I started to wonder, what if we dealt with people without assuming. Easier said than done right? I honestly didn’t know why he called me, but I just assumed it was for no good. It turned out it was totally for my own good and of no benefit to him at all.

I made a few notes to:

Call myself back to order when I start to make assumptions.
Keep my mind open.
Ask questions when I am not sure.
Listen with my mind and ears
Avoid emotional reactions and try to stop them when I feel them surfacing.

I only hope I can remember to keep to them.

Adapted for television

The first time it happened was with Robert Ludlum’s ‘The Bourne Identity‘. I remember feeling a big wave of confusion and disappointment. This was about 20 years ago.

Then it happened again. It literally ruined the book for me. I watched the entire Hulu TV series ‘Little Fires Everywhere’, regretting every minute of it. I had just finished the novel with the same title a few days earlier. Shortly after I started reading it, I had found out that it had been developed for television…and so I thought it would be a wonderful idea to give it a shot. Like I said, I regret that decision.

Being my usual curious self, i decided to find our why these adaptations needed to have these changes at all. It turns out, reading and viewing are two completely different things and must be presented differently. One point I agreed with was the fact that if a book was to be made exactly as it was written, it would be boring for many because people watch television for entertainment and not to be bored.

Lately I have learned to take adaptations with an open mind, I have seen a few unnecessary changes in some adaptations but i must admit that I have come accross some very interesting ones too.

No matter how open my mind has become, I seem to have a problem with a particular change I have encountered in a Television adaptation. The creators of the beautiful TV series ‘The Chosen’ thought it would be wonderful idea for Simon the Zealot (one of Jesus’ disciples) to be the brother of the man by the pool of Bethesda. In as much as this makes for a good twist, it seems to be messing with my head. I found myself searching high and low for any clue to where this may have been mentioned previously in the Bible. I guess I will have to live with it.

I have made a small list of some of the books that have been made into movies that I really liked;

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
Normal People by Sally

Read some or watch some, either way you will love them.

Which ones have you seen or read? What do you think about them?

My Favourite Music Genre

Music is such a beautiful thing. I don’t know what I would do if there was no music. I probably wouldn’t do anything because I definitely wouldn’t know what music was if there was no music.

Music is so beautiful; it connects people, no matter their tribe and tongue. It is felt and understood very easily.

I enjoy every genre of music but my favourite genre is country. Some times when I listen to people like John Legend, Meghan Trainor, Bruce Springsteen, Avril Lavigne and a few others, I get uncertain about my choice for a favourite. But I stand firm with my choice. Pop, R & B, Soul and Rock are lovely but country music makes my heart sing.
Chris Stapleton gets me so confused about picking my favourite song of his. I am constantly stuck in between ‘what are you listening to’ and ‘fire away’. This doesn’t erase the fact that the others are absolutely amazing. I often wonder if he is my favorite male country musician or if it’s George Strait.

Oh, George Strait, his performance with Stapleton in ‘when did you stop loving me’ drives me crazy. My favourite song by him is ‘Give it all we got’. It gets me every time.

Tim McGraw is good for me especially when he sings with his wife Faith Hill. My favourite song from the duo is ‘It’s your love’.

If you are not a country music lover, I want to suggest a few good artists and my favourite songs by each of them; I am hoping you will give them a try and eventually love them too.

Jordan Davis – Buy dirt
Luke Bryan – Play it again
Blake Shelton – Home
Reba McEntire – Does he love you
Faith Hill – It matters to me
Miranda lambert – The house that built me
Luke combs – Must’ve never met you
Keith Urban – Tonight I wanna cry
Brad Paisley – Whiskey lullaby
Jason Aldean – Tonight looks good on you
Rascal Flatts – I melt
Dierks Bentley – Black
Chris Young – Drowning
Brett Young – Like I loved you

What do you think about country music?

I would love to get a feedback.

Waiting to exhale

A few months ago, after I had settled down for the evening, I started to watch a movie. It didn’t start too well. When I thought i couldn’t take it anymore, just when i decided to change to something else, it started to get very interesting. This was around 30 minutes into the movie. What if i didn’t wait?

This got me thinking about a lot of times when I may have given up too soon on things that could have been of great importance to me. After pondering on this, I asked my self a question: “how is a person expected to know that the first 30 minutes are meant to be endured?”

For the movie, I think it is inexcusable for the creators. The world is full of many impatient people and the number rises daily with fast and more catchy things popping up everywhere. Anyone would expect a movie to draw you in rather than bore you out in the first few minutes.

But with life, sometimes we just have to wait for it. 30 minutes, 3 days, 30 days, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years. No matter how long it takes, sometimes it usually is worth the wait. But sometimes it is not and it hurts.

Sometimes the thing comes and we realise it wasn’t worth it after all. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Maybe we could just adapt the method I used to get through the first 30 minutes of that movie; I responded to my outstanding messages.

The moment I started feeling bored with the movie, I decided to check my messages. I had a lot of them waiting on my phone from family members, alumni groups and a few other groups. I split my attention between reconnecting with people and waiting for the good part of the movie. That way, I didn’t get too upset with how boring the movie was.

Maybe if we could take our minds off of the thing we are waiting for and spend some more time with friends, family, old school mates and even on things that give us joy, we may not feel the pain and pressure in the waiting so much.

Most times,when the good comes, it usually is so beautiful and totally worth the wait. For me, it always feels like I had been holding my breath and I finally got the chance to exhale.

Things I do in my free time 1

Every once in a while, i find myself sitting alone; in my car, waiting for someone/something; like when I go to pick up my son from school but the bell has not gone yet or when I am sitting in front of my bake shop when I don’t have too much to do. In the aloneness, sometimes I begin to watch people as they pass by. With everyone who passes, i get to think a thing or two about them. I sometimes wonder who they are, who they left at home. Who they are responsible for and what inner demons or angels they face every day. Sometimes I assume situations for them.

On one of such days, I started to wonder if this was unusual and I remembered that everything is on the internet and so I searched.

Below is an excerpt from what I found:

People-watching or crowd watching is the act of observing people and their interactions as a subconscious doing. It involves picking up on idiosyncrasies to try to interpret or guess at another person’s story, interactions, and relationships with the limited details they have. This includes speech in action, relationship interactions, body language, expressions, clothing and activities. Eavesdropping may accompany the activity, though is not required.

For some people, it is considered a hobby, but for many others, it is a subconscious activity they partake in every day without even realizing it. People-watching is not to be confused with naturalistic observation. Naturalistic observation is used for scientific purposes, whereas people-watching is a casual activity, used for relaxation or inspiration for characters or characters’ mannerisms in their own creative works. It should also not be confused with street photography; while the street photographer necessarily does people-watching, they do so for the purpose of taking photographs of the people for art and documentary purposes
Wikipedia

I am glad to know it isn’t unusual. I think I like it because it keeps my mind busy, especially when I don’t want to occupy myself with my phone.

I get to observe people and how they react in different situations and I learn a thing or two from their actions and reactions.