Embracing vulnerability: Where is home?

 I used to think that a home was; clean floors clean unstained dish cloths and perfectly cooked and served food.

It is, for some.

But I’m realising that ‘home’ is very different for me.
For me, home is a feeling.

Home is with people who say ‘oh you’re here, have a seat’ and bring you a plate and it doesn’t matter that the food is not five star and the rice is not mwea pishori.

Home is with people who, despite knowing my love for space and seclusion tell me ‘nakuja’ because I randomly mentioned that I fell sick and surviving on bread. And those people come and stretch themselves out on my couch for hours, and probably wash my dishes and run to the shop for me.

I guess what I mean is, home is not the house or the people even. It’s the feeling that you get when you are arguing with your friend in the back of the uber but you know you don’t hate each other but you are right and she is right but you don’t agree on this so you are shouting at each other, but hug goodbye when you part, still annoyed at each other.

Home is when someone tells you they want to do something for you but you tell them no, because you realise they are also struggling but you understand they love you and would make the sacrifice but you don’t let them bleed themselves dry.

Home is when you don’t have to explain yourself to people anymore, or chitchat to pass time because you realise even the silence speaks.

But it means hardwork too. You cannot ignore people for months and expect to still have homely feelings when you meet.

It’s active participation in each other’s lives.

What does ‘home’ look like for you?

#home
#friendship
#contentwriterskenya

Grief: A loveless Child

I met one of those girls who always seem to know what they want, how to get it without getting beat up.
Basically, how to play the game as an equal player.

The type of girl I would be if I straightened my hair often, wore shorter dresses often, and drank beer out of a mug?

I can be that girl I know but it would exhaust me because it would also involve me getting around and socializing because you don’t sit at home binging on Lupin and taking naps with straight hair and shaved eyebrows do you now?
You go out and meet people.
And have conversations about the depreciating value of technological assets and non-investment grade bonds.

She said that corona made her experience the midlife crisis she always thought was too far off.

She was very well put together, I wondered how anyone got through a midlife crisis in a white shirt and perfectly manicured hands.
When mine came I don’t think I shaved for a year.

Then I got to thinking about the last two years.

.....what was that?....
It can only be described as a midlife tragedy.

But tragedy teaches you.
If you are alert, it’s when you are in the depths that many things make sense.

Like grief.

 And the crazy thing is,

You don’t really know how many things you could be grieving for.

For me, it was the loss of a means to sustain my life
The loss of relationships
The loss of the ability to give
The loss of a sense of self
When a well laid out routine was disrupted,

And then came the loss of people.
Death put a cap on it.

How am I still standing?
How Do I still get up?
How do I breathe?

Hope

Today I learned that you really have to give room to grief.
Grief doesn't just come and leave when it should.
It doesn't tell you how long it plans to stay.
And when it finally goes,
It leaves a toothbrush
And a nightie
And makes copies of your gate key.
It will meet you sometimes in the early mornings when you want to take a morning walk.
It sometimes appears in the bedroom when you're trying to read a book.

It never leaves a message
Grief shows up in person and demands your attention.
Tugging at your cuffs like a small child,
Grabbing your arm like a matatu conductor
Sometimes drilling into your face like a low branch on an unfamiliar road.

So you must learn to make room for it.
Acknowledge it
Sit with it
Until the visits become unnecessary
For I have come to know that grief, is just a loveless child looking for attention.

@kiinimichukiphotography
#grief

13h

An Ikigai Life

I had tea with my aunt. Dawa tea at Java.

She didn’t ask me about work, or why I don’t have a husband yet.

She asked,

‘How are you feeling?’

I said I was in a state.

She said, ‘I can tell you are not okay, and you wrote about losing your friend, grief is tough.’

I told her August was hard. There was a funeral or two each week. People I know, and my friends’ people.

“Before you finish comforting one you start comforting another.”

She asked about my plants.

I told her I now have a spinach and sukuma wiki.

‘ Do you know about Ikigai?’ She asked. ‘It’s a Japanese concept, and I think you are living your Ikigai.’

Something you are good at.

“I think you are very talented. I read your writing and I can tell you write with ease.”

I was glad it came from her.

Writing has never been a by the way for me. I write every day, not as a hobby but it’s something in me that demands to be let out.

Over time I have crafter my skill, got better at it, become more disciplined but at the same time maintained SUBLIME INNOCENCE.

And because I write whether I am earning from it or not, it never feels like a chore.

Something the world needs

Does the word need my writing?

The best writing I ever did was when I interviewed over 30 people living with Epilepsy and their families. Their stories helped to get medication for school going kids on expensive medication. You can view the project here:  Help a child with epilepsy stay in school

I learned love, resilience and grit from every family I visited. In turn, I did my bit to give a voice to their story. In spite of the challenges that come with having a non-communicable illness, most do their best to not be defined by their illness every day.

Something that rewards you.

‘ I can tell Gathoni, from talking with you that money is not a driving force for you. It is not a measure of success.

For you, it is something more. And I think it’s freedom’

“Yes. I love my time.”

‘And I guess your choice of work provides you with the freedom you crave.’

I told her about my hair business. How at first I just was looking for something to prevent me from being very broke. Then the more I learned and spent time with passionate people, who don’t look at hair as merely business The more I found my ground.

T Man, the loctician that taught me all about dreadlocks reconstruction once told us.

‘Hakuna haja kufanyia client job teke teke alafu kesho dredi zishaanza kukatika. Dredi ni life.’

-Don’t be in a hurry to service a client’s hair then ruin it. Dreadlocks are a permanent style, don’t use shortcuts-

I enjoy working on hair. I don’t get tired even when I have been on my feet for 8 hours. I love the money too. It’s a perfect reward.

When our brief tea was over and I got into the matatu, tears flowed.

I felt understood.

She had called me her ‘baby girl’ and it felt wonderful to not be the adult in the room for a few moments.

It took me back to 2003, having lunch with an aunt who fully got me.

She was great at giving tough advice and better at listening.

We laughed, we cried with her.

That was my last year as a child/ youth before I was propelled into instant adulthood.

She died the following year, and for many years after that, I was just potting about life hoping I don’t mess up things too much.

I haven’t had a clue about life but all the while masquerading as an adult.

I knew what I wanted, how to get there but then the world throws dishwater at you every 100 meters when you try to use your brain and do things your way

‘You are living the life many people want but only attain after retirement

. Don’t change it.’

She assured me.

 

I woke up in September

September came in at a pace I like. The first day was yellow and sunny and It made me imagine all the good times I would have outside.

It also created unplanned opportunities to meet up with people I’ve been meaning to hang out with. Like my home people.

We all lived in one house at some time.
Why do we disperse?

I am a dreamy sentimentalist.
Wanting all my people together.

I found myself back with my favorite people, farmers.

These tell me their real stories.
I like to hear everything a farmer has to say.
Farmers are patient.
Hardworking.
And they trust in God.
And the real farmers are genuine.

I love genuine people.
Like the Train crew on the Nairobi Kikuyu evening Train where I got a Marriage offer.
I haven’t met such a happy bunch before. It was like being at a sports bar on an easy evening .

On the train bound to Kikuyu via Dagoretti, I met Kang’ethe.

He said, “would you like a husband? There is really no time to waste, you look like a good woman.
I am married, but I have a friend who would make a good husband, he just Donno yet. I trust him. What do you say?”

I told him ‘ Tell your friend to meet me here tomorrow at this time.’

Pain management, when it's okay to laugh at funerals and why the bottom must hold.

These days, I walk around holding my intestines in my hand. 

That's a direct translation to ' kūnyitīrīra Mara na ngundi.'

It means that I am living in fear of the next bad news.

Mostly deaths.

Sometimes serious illness

And once in a while the fact that I cannot find the other sock in a pair.

We buried my friend yesterday. Between two tall trees that end in an eternal shade.

Her skin will no longer burn from the UV rays that kept her indoors.

Eventually, she will blossom.

My friend Juliet suffered pain. But she knew the skill of pain management.

She lived to the full between one painkiller injection and the next.

She once told me

'If it wasn't these painkillers, I would have ground my teeth to powder by now.'

Pain management is an expensive affair as well.

She was a writer and spoke about her condition every day.

Not to be pitied, but to help others living with lupus to be understood by society.

We would be in the hospital at 11.00p.m, doctors and nurses and the reception and most times the watchman, trying to find a vein in her hands and arms and sometimes feet. The Watchman who I think also did some lab work always found a vein after slapping the poor woman's inner arms several times.

The injection in the feet was the most painful. She would bear the pain of the needle, the pain of the needle wound and the pain from Lupus.

I believe the last few years when she was totally dependent on the painkillers, her body took every kind of beating, but at least she could have a few minutes to talk to her mother, read and write.

Juliet was one of those people who will be having the worst day of your life but would still text me to say- Hi Gathoni just checking on you-

When I grieved and got disappointed and nearly went to the bottom of human emotions and remained there, she said, 'maybe you should speak to someone.'

She then would stay up with me at strange times in the night and listen to me talking about things that didn't make sense.

I appreciate her for that. 

I am also a big cowardly chicken, she understood that.

When we were writing her story, for the eulogy, I kept thinking, would Juliet say we used common language? Did we misspell anything? Does this story reflect the life of a writer/ editor/ literature lover?

I told my friend about it and she asked?

' Is that what you are going to ask us when you get resurrected?'

'You need to tell us what to write in yours so you can proofread right now.'

She has dark humour. It's the best.

She is the one that asked me after telling her my mother was dead, ' does the man know her baby mama is dead?'

And make laugh inappropriately, to the chagrin of my 

'Proper' aunties. 

I told her I am determined to watch Armageddon live.

But just Incase I said, she should put a reminder to plant thorns and aloe vera on my grave. 

And tell them to write : 

Here lies a woman bitter of soul and thorny of countenance.

I got distracted at the gravesite. It was a very calming walk.

It somehow blows up the bubble you have been floating on. The bubble that. Tells you you are special.

You are not special.

People born in 1935 die, people born in 1964 die, and tiny people born in 2014 die. 

It's peaceful in the graveyard.

After many deaths and eulogies in my adult life, I've come to know that no one can really write your story.

When we finished Juliet's story, her friend asked me, do you think we should add her mother and brother's name?

He mentioned to me later that it seemed kinda off to have the names of her Animal family and nothing on her human family. 

It had not occurred to me.

And I thought that is exactly the kind of discussion I and Juliet would have. How dressing up made her grumpy.

I knew a woman at Umoja 1 market, who shocked my aunt for telling her she had just come from the studio to have a portrait picture of her done. Mbica ya Kīrengo.

One that would be good enough to use at her funeral.

I was maybe 12 and thought that was a very good idea.

But we don't like to think about such things.

I think it's a good idea to have a folder of good pictures, perhaps in the top drawer in your cabinet where people can easily access it after you clock out.

And a list of phrases that best describe you.

• Grumpy until fed.
• Did not like people very much 
• Friend to many, close to a few
• Read the newspaper
• Was gluten-free
• Never tried a single diet
• Very unfit 
• Was once summoned to the chief's office for starting a fight.
• Tried prospecting for gold.

Things that describe you beyond your primary school and high school education.

'Sneaked in roasted maize to class in class six and got suspended for a week.'

'Almost drowned in the neighbour's fish pond at 9 years old.'

The Bible mentions that in the last days there will be itua nda, news that cut your stomach in half.

Season Finale

 Do you ever feel like you are living in Season Finale of a thriller?

I have been feeling like I am in a Part 3 of a popularized animation movie

The part where, everybody dies.

The last three weeks I have received news of death every single day.

I lost a friend this week, and I am not sure how I feel. I felt cold, then I was irritable, then caught myself staring at one spot for many minutes, then couldn't find anything to wear so I arrived at work at 4.00 pm. 

Juliet, was awesome. Even when laying in a hospital bed at 11.30  in the night with a UV drip attached, for pain killers, she would be asking your opinion on pop culture, African writers, relationships and the theatre.

I could never bring up a topic I didn't understand very well, she would argue it in all directions then I would be sitting there wondering- What do I even know?

But that is not what made her awesome.

It is her attitude towards life and death.

She would tell me "I was sure I would die last week." Then go into detail about what new flare-up she was having at the moment. But not in a woishe manner. Just facts. "I am sick, I can't feel my toes, that is my life yeah,  please may I have a pancake."

She is the most grateful, sick person I know. (I can't use past tense yet)

I could boil a potato for her and she would act like I had just prepared lasagna for her.

She gave me books.

She gave me a dress

She gave me money

She respected me.

Death is close. I often wonder if I am living as I ought to, in relation to my sure mortality.

Your Shallow and Incomplete Guide to Cooking Food

For People who live alone or with cats and are tired of eating maize meal with eggs every night.

How to enjoy green bananas

-------------

I have a new neighbour;
And she sent her house manager with a bowl of green bananas to give to me.

I received it with thanks. I was surprised, we live in a world where neighbours fear one another, regard one another suspiciously and complain to the landlord behind your back. 

If you try to be kind a negative motive is pegged on your goodwill, so you also stop trying and mind your business.

----------
But I do not say no to food. No. Even if you bring me yams and I have no idea how to begin cooking them I will spit in my chest and pray that all the farms you grow your crops on produce one hundredfold.
----------
I like green bananas. There are so many ways to cook them.
I sometimes fry them in a beef stew.

Other times I bake them in coconut.

But never mashed.

I don't know which bananas mash well and which keep looking at you after the potatoes are completely mashed.
I had boiled some beans.

Yellow beans, which I discovered in an unlabelled icecream container, all this while I had been assuming it was Maizemeal.
---------
I don't cook yellow beans.

For the same reason I don't watch blockbusters.
They are too popularized.
Ati they don't give you gas, they don't give you acid.
Okay. Fine maybe they don't.

But we've been eating all these other beans since '53.

And it was well acknowledged that beans give you gas, and make you fart.
That's what beans do.
So you eat them on the days you will be working out in the open air or alone in the office.
No matter how many times we interbreed them, beans will be beans.
------------

It's a conspiracy.

------------
So instead, I strictly cook the underdogs of  the beans society.
Beans with expletive names like:

'Birds' poo'
'The somersaulter '
'Big Field Mouse'
And, the tastiest, 'Flowers'
-------
I eat avocados quite often now after someone told me that:

A. They are good for women. Don't ask me how.
B. They create an alkaline environment that discourages the growth of Covid-19 virus in your body.

I eat avocados in salads, between bread slices, in smoothies and with a tea spoon, standing in my kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes.

I talk to myself when I am eating an avocado. Things like "oh this is so sweet, Gathoni when last did you eat such an avocado? You should certainly go back and buy ten of these, honest, truly."

For this, I sliced the bananas thinly and deep fried them, made a salad, added the cooked beans and life was never better.

The Shallow and Incomplete Guide to Cooking Food is back.

Tips for Online Working Post Covid-19

The Covid-19 Pandemic has surely challenged our common way of life. 😫 

Are you trying to adjust to new working methods?

 Or has your loss of a physical job made you rethink your work preferences?

 
 Angie Koh, a retired English teacher and former researcher share tips on finding the right online work suitable for you. 

She also talks about the importance to keep on sharpening the skills you already possess to give you an edge.🚀

 

Gathoni Ciss chats with Shawn Chua

At the beginning of the year, I decided to do something that would not only benefit me but my followers as well.

I started by posting book quotes, and that went on for 12 days on Instagram. 

Then an idea came to mind, that over the years I have made connections with many smart, knowledgable, yet humble people.

People who have always been ready to share what they know with me.

So far I have interviewed 15 different people on various topics.

I will be sharing the interviews here every week.

To start us off,

I had the pleasure to interview my friend Shawn, a science teacher of the modern age.

Please enjoy.

Battle Fatigue: Loss and being courageous while walking in the Valley of Ba'ca.

 I want to fall into the bosom of a bosomy woman of fifty or sixty and sob for half an hour.

Today I felt a great sense of loss. The loss of my grandmother to Alzheimers.

My grandmother was a very clear minded and articulate woman before ALZ slapped her and took out chunks of her brain out.

 I miss being told off by a woman I respected and feared, but loved because I knew she loved and cared about my interests. I also miss having an older person reassure me. It's scary being the adult. 

Today I am wishing for a parent, or at least an adult to tell me it's gonna be okay, somehow.

 There was a funeral today. A neightbour, slightly older than me but with a wife and kids.

 He died of cancer. I felt it. Last night we sat, with his cousins, talking into the night. Talking about how we can't even hope to get to 60 these days. Our lifespan is short. I didn't tell them I've been there. I just hang around them, hoping they would not feel too alone. Because I know in grief, a familiar face makes you feel less alone.

His death, of course opened up wounds in me that I carefully conceal so as to survive this terrifying world.

Once again I am reminded of the fragility of my life and that of others, and once again I am paralysed by my incapability to help.

I feel helpless.

I don't want people to die, or leave, or get sick, or accuse me of cutting off their internet connection just because there's a cable running through my house to theirs.

Today I feel hurt and powerless.

Do you ever go through periods in your life when everything falls apart or breaks down?

I get those seasonal breakdowns at least once a year when for a few months you are fixing this, then that, then that again.

 I am also cold and didn't sleep too well.

 My phone broke down so I can't share memes and pretend the sun is shining, and if you call me. I will answer with a ringing voice and tell you I am fine. In case you called, not to find out if I am okay but  called to check on your list that I am okay so you can go on with your life. 

Is our worth more after we die than when we are alive when we are struggling/ When we are getting bashed left right and centre by situations no one gave us the skills to handle?

 I am not thinking suicidal thoughts.

It takes greater courage to live. Each day, in spite of sometimes walking through dark pits that no one can see. And I am courageous. Even through ugly sobs.

give me flowers now

sing me songs now

tell me I matter now

don't write it on a stupid euology. I won't know.

....when they pass through the Ba'ca Valley, they make it into a place of springs.

...And the early rain clothes it with blessings

They will walk on from strength to strength....

Is there any situation that the Psalms cannot fix?

 The Psalms are like the Coldplay of the Bible.

A Psalm for every feeling.

This Chic: Opening up conversations with debate conditioned Kenyans.

 I watched a TV Talkshow last week about 'Why the modern woman cannot seem to find love'

The poll question wanted the audience to text back and say who they thought was responsible for failed relationships. Men or women?

Yeah.

They asked that.

Anyway.

I watched the show, on youtube because one of the guests is a girl from my village, Nyambura Mundia.

This girl, I met when I was probably in class seven and she was in class four and someone pointed out to her as the girl who had beat my cousin at Poetry Recitals. Or it was something impressive like that because my cousin was a boy and taking all the public speaking and recital medals home.

When I saw her the next time, I remember taking a really good look at her. I had not seen anything like that in the whole of Endarasha. 

The self-confidence. 

She walked like the whole world was waiting on her to arrive. Step by step like she had bodyguards around her. Like she had an important mission and it didn't matter that she was a woman, she was the only one commissioned to deliver it.

I should say I had goosebumps but I didn't, I was just intrigued. It was my first time to observe a person in a Zen state. To make it more interesting, she was a dark child. And in Endarasha, you were beautiful only if you were light-skinned. Yet, unless your genes came from very strong brown-skinned people, the frost in my village bit your skin until you were a nice shade of dark blue. So of course, any light-skinned person was actually, yellow yellow not just earth brown.

But I could tell that this girl had no such whims.

I met this girl, later on, 100 years later, in my estate. She had the same walk. We had never been introduced so, I just let her walk past and later on Facebook suggested her as a friend and I accepted.

She is the Host of Swaiba Podcast, an open space for women to discuss issues that matter.

As the TV show proceeded, I kept thinking to myself. Is anyone listening to this woman? Can't they follow her flow of thought and realise that she is simply opening up the conversation?

My friend once commented that Kenyans lack conversation skills and I wondered 'ai, what do you mean? Kenyan's love to talk.'

Yes, Kenyans love to talk and hear their own voices, but it's rare to find a Kenyan who listens.

I guess that is why we have a had time discussing issues like mental health, relationships, violence, career and even finances.

Every topic is turned into a debate.

 Every idea is contended.

Very few people are willing to just have a discussion and let the conversation take any direction.

"I must win."

Is probably what some are thinking whenever a topic arises.

Why can't we just, have conversations? Where if you are right it's okay, if you are wrong it's okay but let's keep talking.

But if we continue to base every chat on our past beliefs and experiences, we lose out on so much because the dialogue is blocked.

As an infp personality type, I crave deep conversations and connecting with people on a mental, emotional and intellectual level. An achievement of that is at the top of my Maslow Hierarchy pyramid.

I wish Mwari wa Mundia all the best in her next session, may you remain as calm as you have.

You are welcome to join in the random tea chats I have on Instagram from time to time. 

CLICK HERE

or  HERE

My Happy Large Content World: Choosing Happiness

 In a year of isolation and social distancing, I have come to appreciate what the adults in my life did to make life enjoyable and full of surprises. I’m thinking about my grandmother frying mandazi on Sunday evenings so we would have something for breakfast the following week. 

Or my mother saving up to take me to the park, or my uncle planting a new tree in the middle of the farm and one day calling us to go see when it flowered, or when it had ready fruits. Like the guava tree he planted in the middle of the Napier grass fields, and the surprise we got to know that we had guava on the farm.

As an adult, an adult living alone. It is very easy to get into monotony and life can become quite saltless.

And I have had to use my brain to make it exciting for myself even after being indoors for a week, two weeks.

It doesn’t take much, but I have realized that even simple morning routines, evening routines, taking a different route when I take walks, cooking a meal with my whole senses involved, take the monotony out of life.

Having live chats with my friends and family has proved to be the best way to get to know my friends and acquaintances better.

I am learning to make life intentionally interesting for myself. I know someone who buys herself flowers and I think that is cool. I don’t, I pick wild ones. But I take myself out for tea, at least twice a month.

Are there things you do, as an adult living alone or with cats do to maintain the surprise element in your life?

How to Successfully Excel in Mediocracy

 A step-by-step guide to accomplishing everyday tasks in the most mediocre style.

You will also learn how to set up your own achievable mediocre worksheet,

and how to ensure mediocrity in every aspect of your life.

We will also learn how to bake salted brownies. 

Embracing Vulnerability: Knowing my worth

Have you ever felt like you have been waiting your whole life to be picked?

I know I have.

No Sorry, I don't mean being picked by a guy.

I mean by life.

Like you are just over here behind everyone standing on tiptoe trying to see the front while frantically waving

your arms  saying 'Pick me! Pick me!' But your turn never comes?

As last year was coming to a close I started to think about how life picks us to show us off on a platform.

I also thought about how people pick each other to be present in their lives . And things that determine how the picking will be done.

By default, sometimes there is a pecking order.

But in my life I have noticed a pattern.

I confessed to a friend that while I was busy trying to be picked by some people I expected to be in flow with, Kumbe I had been picked elsewhere.

Kumbe there was a whole Ciss clan surrounding me, speaking my language and having the same taste in stirfried spinach as I have.

And this has brought a huge positive enthusiasm into my life.

I have been thinking about this since I finished reading 'The Joy Luck Club' by Amy Lee. 

Then when my friend posted this picture on her status and asked people to say something nice about me, it got clearer.

@himbz took the picture

 

When I started  to see the comments  it hit me that:

This is profound so listen carefully.

It hit me that:

1.  I may have been spreading myself  out too thinly.

2. I really really need to know my worth.

In the search for solid relationships with people, I have often ended up spending just a little time with too many different people that I don't spend enough time with those who have picked me as well.

How do you know someone has picked you?

They ring you up and ask if you managed to make anyone's hair this week.

They send you memes

They respond to invitations to have chips mwitu by making definite plans.

They respond to your texts and not leave you hanging for two weeks wondering - did I say something dumb?

They tell you they are praying for you.

They see your status and send you a laughing emoji.

They come to your house and wash vyombos after eating rice ndengu.

They meet you in town to pick up their deliveries so you don't have to spend extra cash.

And I did more thinking and thought that maybe oh well life picked me but maybe by my breeches.

But now how do I know my worth?

In the book, whats-her-name- is given a jade pendant by her mother and she's told, know your worth. But her mother dies without explaining what that means.

She thinks it probably means she needs to try harder in life because she has it in her.

When she was young her mother made her learn how to play the piano but she hated it, and when her mother stopped forcing her to practice and told her' you could do it if only your would try.' I felt like I know exactly what the mum meant.

Not to give up too easily.

I know I have. And my Shush once told me the same.

I had got a big writing gig and put my heart and soul into it then in the middle of it my laptop crushed and I cried for a few hours.

'The problem with you is you give up quickly.'

It's  true. I crush with all my disappointments.

But I also get up again and again and I bet that's where my strength lays.

That's where my worth is.

That no matter how many disappointments come along. I get up again. As soon as I stop crying.

Maybe my worth is in how many times I am willing to try.

I have the attractive option of crawling under my bed to die. But I fear I would get hungry and gnaw on the wood.

So it's  better to just keep getting up.

Keep discovering what is my true worth.

How many carats I am.

And I will keep picking those who pick me.

Those who drive to my house on an early morning to check why there is fire coming out of my computer cables, those black ones over there. Mimi sijui nini mbaya nimeona tu zimeanza kutoa moshi.

Those who let me record my experiments using their expensive gadgets.

Those who don't let me dismiss the question 

How are you?

Because they want to hear the answer.

Perhaps I am not waiting for life to pick me.

Perhaps I got a better deal.

To choose the life that works for me