Love, Through Baba Ijebu's Eyes

True Expressions of Love…

It had been a stressful week with projects coming to an end and a lot of work deliverables, yet not much time to achieve them; all made worse by a frustrating three hours spent in Lagos rush hour traffic on my way home yesterday... at the end of which I became a near-maniac.

Such was the stress level that I decided to leave my car at home and take a taxi to and from work for a week, to enable me to get my energy levels back up and regain my umph.

Let me introduce him to you. Baba Ijebu is the happy-go-lucky taxi driver that became an integral part of my daily rat race for my taxi-hopping week. Relaxed, unassuming, and full of tales and surprising wisdom, Baba Ijebu brings to bear his life experiences and at every point in time, relates them to what is happening, and his projections of what is to come.

Wednesday: As I sit and try to relax my charged nerves and process today's edition of Sharing Life Issues with Chaz B,  I notice that Baba Ijebu seemed to be talking back to the radio... I should have left it at that, but my curiosity got the better of me and I engaged him in a conversation about love and life; he soon went into a long-drawn discourse to make his point. (Background) the topic of discussion on the radio program was Monster In-laws and we had just listened to the story of a woman who claimed that she lost her elder sister to the antics of an evil mother-in-law…

Suddenly he turns to me as we make our way down Western Avenue, Listen, he says. Some mothers in Law are wicked, but there are also a lot of wicked wives out there o! hmm, I am still with my wife of 39 years o, he says, even after all that she did to my mother, and her obvious meanness. He tells me of how after his wife delivered their first child, his wife’s mother (as tradition dictates) quasi-moved into his matrimonial house to nurse her. He noticed how in her tired state, she woke every morning to make breakfast for her own mother and ensure that breakfast was served at 7.30am daily. 

A month later, his mother came over to spend time with the new mother (his wife), at this time, his work schedule had changed so he left for work, daily, at 6.30am; assuming all was well, coupled with the fact that in his words, he had a good woman in his mother, he never heard any complaints. On this fateful day, he rushed home at noon to pick up a parcel he had forgotten as he hurried off to work earlier that morning, and lo and behold, he sees his mother in the kitchen cooking. After exchanging pleasantries with his mum, he inquires as to when lunch would be served, to which she replies that she was making breakfast....(pause)

A few uncomfortable glances and some not-so-pleasant exchanges later, he leans that every day after he leaves for work, his wife goes to sleep and does nothing until 30 minutes before he returns home from work in the evening, as such she (his mother) had since learned to endure hunger until noon, daily so that she only gets to cook and eat one meal a day while his wife sorts herself out by sending for food for herself only. His point, not all mothers are evil, and some evil mothers are made evil by the actions and or inaction of their daughters-in-law (when no one else is watching).

He continues the story by going back a few more years (rewinding to the early years of his marriage)  and tells me how his family had insisted he marries more than one wife, but it was his mother (who was now being maltreated by his wife), who made him promise that he would not under any circumstance take a second wife. It was also his mother who stood by him when all hope seemed lost during his courtship (his wife’s mother was against the union on the basis of him not coming from a wealthy background), and when he all but gave up his quest to marry his present wife.

I am silent as the weight of his statement begins to settle upon my heart… eventually, I ask how he has coped to this point. With a crooked smile on his face, he tells me how until a few years ago, his wife beat and slapped him every time they had an argument, and how his wife always boasted to her friends that she clipped her mother-in-law's wings, as well as his wings in the house (not knowing that his mother had decided to stay away from his home so as not to be the cause of any friction within their marriage). As we approach my drop-off point, he leaves me with these parting words.

‘When people talk about marriage and bliss, they do not necessarily go hand in hand. For him, marriage was a decision he took as the next phase of his life and he entered into it with no expectations or without any hope of finding paradise in it” 

for him, the key to keeping his home intact is knowing when to shut up and take the beating like a man, knowing when to be assertive and when to be timid. Most of all he tells me, success in marriage is dependent on Love. Not the Mills and Boons love oh!... the type that endures all things.

My week spent in the company of Baba Ijebu has gotten me to a point where I have had to rethink my position on a couple of issues, including the meaning and expressions of love.

As he drives off after dropping me at my destination, I am fixated on an image in my head of him kneeling and begging for mercy as his wife whom he loves unquestionably, beats him to within an inch of his life, as his grown kids and the neighbours watch in amazement.

Indeed, love makes people do stupid things.

-end-

Love hurts, take it or leave it!

So, it is like this; I woke up thinking through a couple of my experiences along my life's journey, mostly at those moments i took, or rather, attempted to take a detour through the dark alleyways of love. There seemed to be a recurrent theme - love, like dark chocolate, felt good, but more often than not, leaves a bitter, if not a sour taste in your mouth.

How did it all begin? Those who know me well, and I doubt anyone can lay claim to that, will tell you that I started out very early on the adventure quest for love. During my nursery school days, I had already figured out that - Lesson 1: boys and girls were fundamentally different, and that there was something that girls had to give boys - and that boys wanted, and I wanted that thing (even though I didn't know exactly what it was), and I sure as hell was gonna get it!

My first (documented) love in Nursery Two, was Jessy, she was my classmate in school, and oh boy was she gorgeous! a mulatto (or half-caste like we called them back then). she had long legs, dark hair, and rosy cheeks. All I thought of as I skipped to school daily with glee (imagine a chubby male version of little red riding hood but without the red cape) was staring into Jessy's eyes where the sun seemed to rise and the moon... well, I had no idea what the moon did at night because I was not allowed to stay up that late at 5 or 6 years old!

As a toddler, I had already fine-tuned the art of fantasizing... in my fantasies, I was Mickey and she was Minnie mouse and we always played and sailed away together in the cartoon world, on a tugboat. Lesson 2: (if you can dream it, you can achieve it)  I don't recall the exact words I used in spinning her, all I know is that my lunch box, my 'Mothercare' (R) pant (fondly called pata back then - those two-color striped pants... I loved the red ones and blue ones the most), and of course, my mickey-mouse watch which had Mickey skating through the watch to tell the time. Then it happened, Susan transferred to my class from some other school and it hit me... two mulattoes are better than one! - Mistake 1

Thus came my first official experience with cheating, which ultimately led to my first panic attack as a result of not knowing how to calm an irate, crying little girl. my little-boy mind didn't understand why she seemed to be so concerned that I was spending more time with Susan, sharing part of my lunch with her, and even kissing her every now and then at the back of the class during recess.

Lesson 3: if you treasure your sanity, do not make her mad and jealous! I knew she was hurting, but I liked the attention I was getting from Susan (and didn't notice how much she was hurting); she showed me in good time.

During the lunch break on some fateful day, my class teacher singled me out in class (it was a moral instruction class) and asked me if I had done anything wrong at home of late. With all the little boy swagger I could muster, I said no. Then she did the unthinkable. (She held in her hand a ring and a bracelet).

Weeks earlier, I had accidentally picked up one of my mum's rings and another of her bracelets (gold) and had as a true reflection of love given them to Jessy and Susan at different times, and had foolishly told Susan never to mention it to Jessy. Lesson 4: Code it, and code it well!  That was my undoing, and another lesson in love and relationships, Lesson 5: Women Talk to each other (they leave all their differences behind and gang up to attack a perceived common enemy). Somehow, both girls talked and not only exchanged items but felt that they should proudly inform the class teacher that they were 'getting married to Femi'. Somehow, I had convinced them both of the value of them marrying me and having little cuddly, baby Femi (er, now that I think about it, how would that have happened exactly?)

While I stood in front of the class fidgeting nervously as my sins were read out to me, my Mum walks into the class (she had been called in by my class teacher).  A sore bum, a spinning headache, and three buckets of tears later, I finally figured out what had happened; my mother went Jackie-Chan on me and afterward, threatened my very existence with the words "wa dele wa bami" (I'll be waiting for you at home).

Surprisingly, both girls felt obliged to pet me and reassure me - Lesson 6: If you know how to cry, it just may wash your love-sins away. I would rather not go into the details of how I got home and was pampered into having a black eye, and how I was suddenly being stared at by a bunch of irate women (code-named aunties) who felt honour-bound to each offer a knock or a slap as led by the spirit.

The implications of my innocent attempt at sharing my heart and attempting to love so early in life included being suspended for two weeks (I think the school was more concerned with my promise to make them have baby-Femi's than the fact that I had given out my mother's jewelry as a mark of undying love).

Lessons learned, I moved on through the rest of primary school without incident - more out of fear of my mum and the 'aunties', and the fact that my mother constantly reminded me of my acts of foolishness in the quest for love.... she reminds me to this day.

Love in secondary school was a different experience. To sum it up, I learned that if done wrong, the wages of love is failure. In form 3, I fell in love again, she was, true to form, yallow, gorgeous, and had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen, at the time. (I shall call her SA). Everything about her made my heart beat faster, I even descended to a perpetual state of denial, and it took the wise counsel of older males in my life at that time, to convince me that she, like everyone else, farted (but that could not deter me....I was sure her fart smelled like the essence of strawberry). I may have genuinely loved SA and always found a way to be around her, and she knew it: I even applied to join the Girl's Guide (she was a member); of course, I was firmly rejected by the club.

Then came the next Lesson, 7: peer pressure is cool, but is just wrong in the context of love and loving. The more she opened up to me, the more I had to (pose) that was the trend then, you had to feel like you were doing her a favour by being with her. Foolishly, I succumbed to peer pressure, hurt her feelings, and she left me.

I stopped eating, I stopped reading (not like I did much reading in the first place, anyway), and for the first time in my life, I lost so much weight that I could see my feet without my tummy being in the way). I lost the second (documented) love of my life *insert huge sad smiley here*
 
Long story short, since I did not read, I did not pass my exams! and if you fail, you must repeat (borrowing the words of a public figure to justify why his son, a then governor was qualified to run for a second term in office – if you fail, you must repeat your class, He has failed, let him repeat his term as governor).
 
So, for a brief moment, I became a state governor, I was an emotional wreck, and I vowed not to love again, but I soon got over it, swiftly. My experience (in my formative years) at storybook, fairy-tale, Mills and Boons, Silhouette, Pacesetters, and Temptations-love has been a mix of pleasure and pain...starts with pleasure, ends with pain. But the brief moments of passion, pleasure, and bonding make the underlying pain worth bearing.

The butterfly-in-tummy, spinning head, and the feeling of floating in the clouds is a truly wonderful feeling, but is that love?

Love is a decision and not a feeling o jere. It is a decision to open up to joy and happiness and occasional pain, to cry when you are happy, and cry when you are sad; it is a decision to make yourself vulnerable on purpose.

Love hurts.


'Back in the days when I was young, I'm not a kid anymore, but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again' (anonymous)


end

What is the price of TRUTH? (a penny for your thoughts…)

Act 1 Scene 1:

Enter three characters, Stella, James, and Susan. Stella and James are romantically involved, while Susan is best friends with them both, separately.

Stella: I still can’t believe you hurt me the way you did? Besides everything else, we are first and foremost, friends, and I expect that you would be true to me at all times and not be the one to make me cry, it really hurts when I think of how deeply you hurt me

James: Seriously, what have I done wrong dear, our friendship matters a lot to me as well, hence my putting myself in rather difficult situations sometimes, just to get you to hear and understand what is in fact, the truth. When we started the affair, I told you that I was not prepared for any emotional commitments, and you agreed to it... we even coined the term best friends with the best benefits... together

Stella: I know, that is not the issue here. You broke my heart and threw my emotions in my face, you led me on and then pulled the carpet off from under my feet! you lied to me.

James: Wow!  That’s deep... do you recall how you always threw fits and became moody each time we talked about us and you said u loved me and I didn’t reply? Do you recall how many times you cried when I reminded you that you meant the whole world to me, as a friend and more, but nothing emotional?  the conversations you had with Stella about us, and how I was making you cry by not opening up my heart to you?

Stella (cutting in) Yes I do.

James: Well, I chose to keep you happy by playing along with you and saying everything you wanted to hear , and each time, I pointed out that I just said them to prevent you from crying. 

Stella (hmmmmm)

James: Yes Stel, it hurt each time I had to lie about it, but that was the only way to peace and that was all you wanted to hear, to you, saying those things were the truth, and all that mattered... was I then supposed to watch you cry day in day out? Even when we stopped, you seemed to suddenly hate me... it seemed the only way to keep being friends, was to keep giving you what you wanted to hear, even at the risk of me lying to you.

Stella: But you shouldn’t have lied still, I always appreciate the truth and I can handle the truth when it doesn’t hurt and when it is not thrown in my face... sometimes, we want to be lied to because it gives us something to hope for and look forward to while we try to make you into what we hope for...

James (now totally exasperated): are you for real?!  I pushed and prodded until I had to lie to you for peace to reign; now you tell me you can handle the truth? I am guessing this is why men assume women speak from both sides of their mouths sometimes:

A week earlier, the following conversation Act 1 Scene 2 had taken place:

RESULT = the crying and wailing were averted, peace seemed to reign, James kept up the façade and everyone seemed happy

Yesterday, the following conversation Act 1, Scene 3 ensued:

 





RESULT = a sad painful end to the friendship

I am guessing the real question here is: who is really to blame for the present situation? Stella, James, or both?

A penny for your thoughts, please.