Something shifted in the air when I turned 25. It was no different to walking back home and finding the seating arrangement tweaked. The three seater sofa taking the place of the chaise and the family photos hived off for wall art. Same household, different setting. Same Jatura transmuted soul. I’ve conjured up all forms of hypotheses and explanations for this my matter.
Fully formed frontal lobe, quarter-life crisis, existential crisis, a damascene conversion is also on the cards. Saul to Paul, no? Call it what you may but I know with cemented certainty there was an internal spritz of change. A software update, perhaps.
We meet at the courtyard of Keystone Park on 95 Riverside Drive, right under the awning of Baraza Media Lab. Myself, Eddy and David, three separate generations in that ascending order. As if to mimic those steps on Primary Maths. The good old days that Nyashinski knows all about. We are at Barista and Co having lattes and coffees and helpings from menus I can’t pronounce.
As far as I was concerned, I was here to kiss David’s ring. My big brother Eddy introducing me to an even bigger brother David. Another business card in my back pocket. And if there’s one truth I’ve learnt about Nairobians is we are like bubble wraps – we are all connected. But Eddy had ulterior plans as it were. He threw the discus of being an open book so deep into the field we had no choice but to play ball. Peeling off our masks, one by one, in this triangular heart to heart.
Despite standing on the emergency brakes with both of his feet, Eddy is still swiftly skidding into his 30’s. Time is no debtor of man and Eddy didn’t like his credit score with it. His gripe was his age and the real or perceived unmet expectations that came with it. Maybe he should have made more money by now. Had a bigger career by now. Achieved more than he had by now. Eddy, thought aloud. He was on borrowed time and he wasn’t current with his payments. Such were the thoughts underneath his recently retouched dreadlocks. The dreads in his head.
David, on the other hand is well into the second half of life, the business end of it.He is the doyen in this discussion. The one who has done time and has been forged through fire and brimstone. He has been pelted by hail in the rain and emerged whole. He has seen, done and survived it all.
He is also a newbie retiree. The hamster finally got off the wheel, basking it’s belly, relishing it’s Indian Summer. He spent thirty two years at the apogee of corporate only to be besotted with his spouse. He’s made a living and now it’s time to make a life, with his wife. His burden is time. How to spend the remainder of it. David is searching for purpose in retirement. This is his kampf.
I have never been to AA meetings but my hunch is nobody is allowed to leave until they spew their misery. In the same breath, I really wanted to pass but Eddy’s and David’s eyeballs weren’t having any of it. Without uttering a word, their blank stares asked,
“What’s your struggle?”
And in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I told them that I have been fighting with God. I have been fighting with Him, Elohim. David poked the bear further, “How’s that like?”
I say,
“Fighting with God is like being alone in the dead of the night on a raft with no oars, in the middle of the sea, circled by sharks baying for your prey. There is no shore nor land in sight. And your only way out is to look up on high and reach out to an invisible arm extended to you. Fighting with God is being aboard the sinking titanic and believing a hand you can’t see will save you.”
It is obviously dumb and irrational to reach out to a hand you can’t see for rescue from fatal sea. But that’s God in His stripes for you. Often dumb and irrational in His demands.
The murderer of carnality. Against all odds, type of dude. Rooting for underdogs since day one. Puts His money where His mouth is. Proving points just to prove a point.
Gideon. Joseph. Dismas. David. Jonah. Moses. Jeremiah. Rahab. Abraham. Paul Nalo. Savior of wretches.
John 15:16
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
