Flygirl Chronicles: How I Met Your Father

 

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

If you ask the people in your life who are in relationships to tell you how they met their significant others, from sparks flying to complete confusion, you’re bound to hear the love stories pouring in. After all, everyone – or most people – in a relationship can recall how they first met their partner; it is part of what makes each relationship unique.

The longer the relationship lasts, the more those first moments become precious and extraordinary in the memory. The length of the relationship isn’t as important as that initial spark that snapped into life and connected two people in ways that others can only imagine.

As with most affairs of the heart, there is an ingredient of magic in love stories. Love is unpredictable, there are coincidences and also, Everything happens for a reason.

I have an obsession for understanding the way things work and over the years, after listening to others and trying to understand numerous ‘how we met’ stories, I learnt that while the story of how two people met is important, it is the untold part of the story that really matters.

It seems essential, in all love stories, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important but, in the love story that has you starring as a main character, is there anything that is trivial or insignificant?

Moments. Differences that make a difference.  Intimacy. Recognition of this intimacy, of the absence of separation: the recognition that our intimacy and the intimacy of the other are the same intimacy. I and the other are one.

Sometimes deep intimacy can come without words. It may be a knowing glance as you drive along the highway, and you appreciate the view together, or a long consoling hug when tragedy strikes. Then, of course, there is physical intimacy. An intimacy that is so special and profound because it lays bare our bodies, our imperfections for the pleasure of our spouse. Such a private moment. Such a momentous act of total self-giving and trust. A celebration of joy that stirs one out of apathy. The possibility of new life being born from this loving act is a miracle almost beyond comprehension.

With that said, I’m a big fan of the American sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’; it provides me with plenty of ideas for the politically correct, PG-13 version of our story, if I ever have to tell my kids.

“Kids, the year was…” 

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Storytellers.

“Thinking is the talking of the soul to itself.”

- Plato

A while ago, Cav asked me to write something new. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I couldn’t find a story anymore. And, in order for me to write, I need a story. Not to mention, momentum.

Our lives are stories that we constantly invite others to help us create, share and live, for our stories convey the meaning of our lives, experiences that shape truths we come to believe.

When I was younger, and in recent memory also, I’d ask my mother to tell me stories about when she was a little girl. It was my “open, sesame” to a whole wonderful world. My mother’s stories have chapters that fill the book inside her.

The pictures in my mind of the people she spoke about took on substance – as if I had known them in a different time and place. My mother is a woman of few words and so, in some cases what she didn’t say was more important than what she said. I learnt to cherish what she was willing to share, and even more importantly, try to build on that to give it all meaning. I wanted to know more, always more, to be a part of all her life. Her past as well as her present. To live her life as well as my own.

As with many things in life, the older I get the more I understand my mother’s stories, and the more I forgive myself. For our definite similarities and also, our distinct differences.

I am not sure if this is because of my mother’s stories but, I am governed by the need to express myself. Although this is a bittersweet need, I truly believe that we all have a story to tell. Yes, we all have a story to tell, even if our listener is only ourselves. Whether we whisper or yell, we are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves.

Mine is a story about blessings, purpose, choices, decisions and mistakes. Who knows? Some day, I might even share it with you.

Stay Fabulous
/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Morning Sounds

“The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.”

- Former US First Lady, Claudia Johnson.

A ticking clock.
Chirping birds singing their morning songs and serenading as clouds pass by in the sky.
Cars driving in the distance.
A door opens.. another door closes. Or is it the same door?
A dog barks.
Water droplets hitting the ground.
No, not water droplets – raindrops. It’s raining. Only lightly, but it’s still rain.

I am half-asleep and this all sounds so close, yet so far away. ‘Natures lullaby’ – that is what my grandmother calls these sounds.

There is another sound. Unmistakable sound.

Oh yes, that sound.

Your sound.

I know that sound!

I love that sound!

And yes.. I know how that sounds.

Stay Fabulous
/Flygirl

Guest Posting: I’m Cav and This Is A Confession

“Beneath The dust and love and sweat that hang on everyone, there’s a dead man trying to get out.”

-Adam Duritz and Counting Crows

 

We think we are more evil than we really are. We think we sin more than we actually do.

Not because we are righteous, but because in an office next to a phone, in front of a keyboard and a monitor, you don’t have a whole lot of room to manoeuvre. You are only as evil as your options, right?

You don’t even lie that much. Not even white lies.

Tomorrow I travel out of town to attend the funeral of my brother-in-law’s father.

Now, the crux: I don’t like my brother in law.  I don’t mean the general grey absence of affection that most people feel (feel an absence?) for their in-laws. I mean I despise him. For things he failed to do, and mostly for not being ashamed of his failure. I have great contempt for him.

Also, I never knew the old man. I do have a picture in my head of a thin, tall, dark fellow with high cheekbones — a rural face wearing an urban suit, smiling like a groom’s father at the wedding almost ten years ago. I didn’t even speak to him then. Just shook hands.

Tomorrow I will be standing by his grave, looking solemn, there because of his son. I would like to say to his son, “I wish there was less loss and sorrow in the world. I wish people never had to weep. I wish I was in Kampala with friends right now, and I wish your father was also elsewhere, perhaps at his farm, with his friends, and I wish all these grieving strangers had no cause for grief.”

But when the time comes, we will meet. He will be guarded, because he knows how I feel about him and I will be embarassed because you don’t want to meet people at their father’s graves, and it will be the most natural place for us to finally settle our differences. But I will just say, “I am sorry for your loss.” and he will thank me for saying that, and we shall move apart.

That is my sin of the week. A doozie.

 

Guest Chronicles: Friday

“Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days.“

-T.S. Eliot

The crisis of the week is behind me and the crisis of the weekend is still ahead. The road from the office to the taxi park is a silent interim between then and then. The flat soles of my sneakers pad slow steps out of the tarmac, my shoulders are low, my hands are in pockets and I am exhausted because I don’t know how to relax.

The tasks of the next day loom, clumsily shaped, too bulky and for their insufficient hours. The image of rocks in a Pringles can flashes.

The taxi.  Whooshes into town. I wap on my phone, as if I haven’t been on the web all day. Nahright.com, cracked.com, blogs, MSN Entertainment, I wikipedia every random question that flashes into my head.

There are eight planets in the solar system, and three dwarf planets. The dwarfs are Pluto, Ceres and… the taxi reaches my stop.

Luwum Street is quiet and empty at this time. But CD Electronics is still open. It opens late.

We used to communicate in Luganda, mine faltering, his fine; now we communicate in English, his faltering. I get The Hustle Season II and tell him I will be back for Kanyimbe tomorrow.

I shouldn’t be watching DVD shows. I have so much work I am supposed to be doing.

I also get some airtime because she’s waiting for me to call. I said I’d call before I go to bed. It is a quarter to ten and I know it will be 11:30 when I finally get home. Better call her now.

Dial while inside Mask Foods waiting for my chicken. Her voice is slow and sleepy. Sweet dreams.

I hate the taxi park and avoid it as much as I can, but something cannot be denied, certainly not now, caught suddenly in the swirling and writhing in the darkness of downtown. I realise that I have descended into the city’s entrails. From its powdered face, to its guts.

Something cannot be denied. That even though I do hate the park, it is the part of Kampala where I feel most at home.

I’m Cav and I’m guestposting here for Flygirl. She told me to remind you all to stay fabulous.

Flygirl Chronicles: Lessons with Time

“There is no such thing as absolute security; it’s a matter of degree. Providing security is often managing insecurity.”

- D. Caldwell.

 

When I was younger, on some Saturday mornings, my best friend and I would put on our comfortable shoes and take walks in the residential areas located near where we lived. We would walk among the houses and look over the hedges, into windows and try to figure out the lives of the people in these homes. We would daydream about the future and how it would all turn out. There was a lot of, “When I grow up I’ll have this and that..”  or “My kid will be named Lance… and if it’s a girl, Linda.” Then, she and I would share long detailed stories about all the couples we knew and how much they loved one another. These stories would keep us busy almost all the way home, and it’s a long walk – almost an hour.

On a trip back home last year, my best friend and I decided to take one of these walks, for old times sake. We are definitely past the age of looking into people’s windows but we were still sharing stories, plenty of stories about all of these people that we knew, the people who we thought were so happy with each other and who had all the things that we thought we wanted and it saddened me to hear that in most cases, people had cheated on each other and broken up. It was even more depressing to hear about the ones that had had children together but were now only communicating through lawyers.

While my best friend and I have similar views on love and how it should be, I do not believe that it will become a reality for me. And if it ever were to happen, I doubt that it is what I want. After all, the success stories are few and far between.

Most give up when love fails to meet their impossible demands. And for the very few that have managed to slip through the eye of the needle, and everything is happening according to the master plan, I suspect that they will spend the rest of their lives defending and protecting this reality – terrified that something or someone will come and ruin it.

The complications in love seem to make it difficult for people to appreciate the beauty of everything else that is happening in life.

It is said that time will teach you a good number of lessons and I must say that with time, my view on love has evolved. It is now nowhere near romantic, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. I believe that because a relationship is more or less an agreement between two independent minds, it is better to be clear about what you are both willing to give and what you are both willing to give up than to refrain from what you want simply because it is what people in a committed relationship are expected to do. Sometimes, it is only when two people have the freedom to stumble a bit that they fall head over heels.

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Stereotypical

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females often begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl.”

- Shirley Chisholm

In the middle of a ‘Glee’ episode, my sister turns to me abruptly and says, “You know that plus size women have the ability to sing better than thin females.” I’m not sure whether this is a question or a statement and I stare at her in disbelief.

You see, my sister is a singer, and a thin one at that. Please don’t jump to the conclusion that she harbors this belief to enhance her self-esteem, because you’d be wrong. My sister does not limit the lumping together of unknown individuals to musicians. No, she has a stereotype for most people; regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. And rarely, very rarely, does she have valid grounds for these claims.

I don’t blame anyone who believes that rigid and authoritarian people are the only ones who use stereotypes, because it is what I used to believe too. Until my sister proved me wrong, by conducting a survey amongst friends and family and it turns out that a good number of people with diverse backgrounds and personalities have various stereotypes. One pastor even agreed with her theory about how great vocal ability is more likely to be found in a plus size woman than a thin one and I realized the difference between Stereotypes and Prejudice.

Since neither my sister nor the pastor have any prejudice toward plus size women, whether I believe it or not, I no longer get upset at their belief.

After all, I won’t hire a live-in maid who looks better than I do because of the stereotype that it isn’t wise to do so when you have a man in the house. And, I must say that I strongly believe the one about men with big hands, hehe.

I guess it’d be a stereotype to say that all stereotypes are inaccurate.

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Enemy lines.

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“Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.”

-Wallace Stegner

 

There are very few things that cause contempt for the opposite sex the way a broken heart does. Christmas is around the corner and I have a few of my disillusioned girlfriends in town. Perhaps it is because we’re all straight out of relationships, but sadly, we spent the entire evening today listing the shortcomings of former lovers.

In the blink of an eye, the conversation shifted from pleasantries and catching up, to discussing how callous, unreliable, superficial, nasty and notoriously adulterous men can be. My girlfriends and I vowed to never let a man come between us. The reasoning behind this is that such a simple and mindless creature as a man should never be able to jeopardize the only form of relationship that is priceless – the friendship between two women.

Ironically, hours later, I found myself listening to a room of single men, discussing the treacherous female sex. “Girls do not want nice guys,” someone said, “They want the evil men who are unreliable.”

Every man in the room seemed to agree.

Someone else added, “Women say one thing and mean another, when all is said and done, they all preach a bunch of nonsense about equality but deep down, they dream about being chained between the bed and the kitchen sink.”  Everyone laughed at this statement and another vow between friends was made – Bros Before Hoes. There is no chance that something as unreliable as a woman could come before a bond between two men, a bond that is deeper than friendship. Not a chance.

I figure that lost love makes people cynical and sexist. I mean, when we are on opposite sides of the fence, we seem to forget. We forget the notion of romantic love and its logical gaps.

Some day, and I know that this day is right around the corner: yours truly, or any one of my single friends (male & female) will infiltrate enemy camp, cross to the other side of the fence a.k.a find love. And when we do, I hope that love is what we’ll be up to.

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Recorded.

“Life: a cycle. A series of events, meetings and departures.”

- Daniela Gallo

 

Some conversations are engraved in my mind. An invisible hand must have pressed the record button in my head or something, because while some of these conversations are not really that special, I remember every word.

For example, I remember – verbatim – when my sister & I were riding the subway in Stockholm after a late night, and she was upset because someone had disrespected me.

The train car is made up of formations of four seats, with two seats facing each other. She & I always sit facing each other, but because she was really upset, I sat down next to her. A man with green eyes sat down in front of us. And at first, we did not pay him any attention. With teary eyes, my sister narrated the events that had taken place, in disbelief. I listened and prompted her into telling me more.

Suddenly, she smiled. I did not know what to make of this sudden smile.

- What? I asked, hoping she had seen the humor of the situation.

She wiped her eyes and said to the man seated in front of us:

- I will be fine.

And that’s when I noticed that the man with the green eyes had tears running down his face.
There’s nothing special with this conversation. I do not even remember why it was my sister that was so upset. After all, I was the one to be disrespected. The man with the green eyes got off the train without saying a single word to us. We got over what had angered my sister and we went on to talk about other things. But this morning, I could not stop thinking about it.

Is it the beauty of a random stranger’s tears delivering a message without words?

Perhaps I read too much into it. But, it does make me think about the people we run into in life. Most of them are like the gentleman on the train, they are on their own journeys. We are only meant to co-exist for a little while..

Although it won’t come to me right now, there must be an explanation for why I remember every word of this conversation. People in your life, even the ones that you meet in the most random of ways, are just too valuable not to be recorded.

You never know what conversations will be played back to you.

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl

Flygirl Chronicles: Paternity

“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.”

- Anthony J. D’angelo

 

A few days ago, on father’s day, I posted a letter here to my father. The response from Roc boys all over the world made me realize that although there are too many (or perhaps not enough) songs, books, talkshows, etc. about the men who cause us an injustice, rarely do we stop and appreciate the “good” ones, our men of honour, the solid rocks in our lives. 

This week is dedicated our Roc boys. 

One evening, during a concoction of conversation topics, One-DaBoy and I discussed the sensitive issue of paternity. And he told me about the various sly ways to establish paternity, if a man wants to be sure that his kids are indeed his. One-DaBoy is a rare gem with a very interesting thought process.

The first thought that crossed my mind was the question that if you are part of a child’s life from the start, would you really want to go to lengths to find out if you share DNA? And does it matter? 

If your name is on your child’s birth certificate, is it truly necessary for you to establish paternity anyway?

After coming to the conclusion that establishing paternity is essential and will benefit your child in the long run for many reasons, we went on to discuss a number of other things but this conversation topic definitely left me with some food for thought. 

On a semi-related topic, within the issue of paternity, a question came to mind: Can an unfaithful husband/partner be a good father?

It’s been said that the measure of a man lies in the relationships he comes to plant and cultivate over the course of a lifetime. And yet, as is the case with most things in life, have matters ever really been that simple? Even in instances where the parties involved are as close to a man, as say, a wife or a child? 

Can a man who’s perceived as a lousy husband to his wife still be viewed as a good father to his children? Or are the two relationships uniquely distinct, ultimately yielding minimal bearing on the positive trajectory of the other? 

Regardless of the differences between parenthood and partnerhood relationships, there can be no denying that an overlap exists, even if only as reflections of how much or little a man values responsibility and commitment – unconditional or not. 

With that said, reality is break-ups, bad marriages, even divorces – all those things happen all day, every day – and each man has to chart his own course, find his own way in the relationships he enters into. 

As a society, we seem to be getting better at parenting but worse at marriage and not only can the two relationships be separate and different – often times, they have to be. 

No matter what the relationship is between the two adults involved, a father should be and has to be allowed to be a father. 

 

Stay Fabulous

/Flygirl