Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Graca Machel. One meeting with all of them is all I need for my 27th birthday, which is exactly a month awayyyyy!!
My goodness! 27?? Meeee?
I feel like ’27’ is such a big age, and I also feel like I’ve really come into myself, and I’m also like ‘What on God’s green earth am I supposed to be doing/wanting/being?’

My life is my own, and I’ve been feeling really grateful for that lately – that my life is really my own. I’m not responsible for a child, or a parent, or a sibling (at least not entirely), and I get to do whatever I want, whenever.
It’s freeing. It’s also a mindfuck because I’m asking myself many hard questions.
Do I want a child in two years or never?
Is a PhD. a good idea now?
Should I marry two husbands?
Do I want to go back abroad, briefly, to work in radio and in an established magazine house?
How quickly should I fall in love? What is falling in love even?
Where are my missing gloves?
Should I dye my hair again? The roots are now black.

How do I feel about the church? What matters most to me? How are my values shifting? Do I have enough friends? Am I being good to the ones I have? Present enough? How often should I be going home to visit my parent? How much money should I be sending to my sibling when he ‘needs money urgently’? How frequently? When should I say no? What do I want to do on my birthday? Do a sexy photoshoot and eat cake later? Book a flight and go to that city that’s been on my bucket list for years and come back to eat noodles as my pockets recover? Are Von electronics better than Mika? Are all my organs working fine? A laundry list of questions. This is barely a quarter – I have a busy brain, and this is a very interesting space for me, and I’m sooo grateful to be here, all things considered.

I’ll do a proper reflection post on my birthday.

I hope you’re keeping well. I am, those many questions notwithstanding.

Have a great weekend.

Yours, almost 27,

Njoks.

P.S. I’m currently obsessed with Tracee Ellis Ross. Find her interviews on YouTube please, and thanks.

16th May. Today.

It’s a beautiful Friday morning. The birds are chirping really loudly outside, in different tones, different pitches, and different durations. I love the loud, prolonged birds, cos if I were a bird, those would be my chirps – full of character, almost annoyingly.

Usually, I open my WordPress to blog about something specific, but not today. Today, I felt like dusting cobwebs off my site, and also, I felt like checking up on you. Hi! You’re good? I hope you are. It’s okay if you’re not feeling A1 today – self-soothe, ask your loved ones to soothe you… Do something about it cos you can.

I am well. I have been well. Tony Elumelu classes have been trying to finish me, but i finished them instead, whoop whoop! Before I started writing this blog, I was working on something they need us to submit – financials. I’m talking about balance sheets, profit and loss statements, cash flow statements.. I hate that shit. In uni, I did an ‘Engineering Economics’ unit that I hated and only understood enough to pass the exam. I didn’t know I’d need that information at any point in my life. Look at me now, on YouTube, learning how to balance sheets!! I wish we also could balance all the aspects of our lives instead, you know? Anyhoo, a girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.

My chrome has several tabs open – Tony Elumelu Program, another where I asked ‘Did Methuselah die in the flood?’ (cos some scholars argue that he died the same year. Others say he died the same year, but before the flood, and others say he refused to enter the Ark. I hope the former is true.), Netflix tab, ChatGPT tab, YouTube tab… My favourite is the Netflix one. They’re suggesting that I watch ‘Deadly American Marriage’, a true crime film, or ‘Sweet Magnolias’, or ‘Blood of Zeus’ or ‘Nonnas’ or ‘The Four Seasons.’ Most of these films, they say, ‘May cause anxiety’, like, ‘Hello! As if I don’t have it already!? Haha! The ‘A’ in ‘Adulting’ sometimes stands for ‘Anxiety’ so Netflix films have nothing on me.’

No, I don’t duffer from anxiety disorder but anxiety is an emotion I identify with, but Jesus is working on my heart and I and I’m learning to relax, which is hard for people with ever-busy minds like mine. I’m going to watch ‘Nonnas’ cos it’s a feel-good film, as I retie a few of my locks, and then I’ll join a meeting at noon, then finish working on the freaking balance sheets and all, then I’ll have lunch, then play with my nephews, then prepare dinner, cook, eat, sleep, and then go to church tomorrow.

I’m glad the weekend is here. I know you are too. May yours be restful.

Let’s talk again soon. Be well, okay?

Okay, bye.

Yours, with luscious sister locks,

Njoks.

(Totally here for the rhyme, haha!)

Getting my nails done, queue is long af, and it makes me think about how, as human beings, we are drawn to beauty.

Painting nails serves no other purpose than to please the one with the painted nails, and the people who touch those hands – lovers, fondly, nephews, curiously.

Nail technicians, like most artists, are not ‘essential’ to society’s survival – they’re not doctors, or engineers, or lawyers, or teachers. They’re not firefighters. They’re not drivers, or plumbers, or accountants.

They simply create beauty, from strokes – different colours, on little nails, long nails, damaged ones, and healthy ones.

Art is not essential.
However, as the famous quote goes, ‘It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance…and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.’

Painting my nails isn’t necessarily part of my self-care. It doesn’t elevate me – I do it about one or two times yearly, when I feel like seeing a different colour on my nails.
It’s great that periodically, I allow an artist to add magic on them, and I put money in their pocket:-)💅❤️

Here’s to all the people in our society who do things, not to solve problems, but to add beauty to the human experience.

Life could be doing you in the wrong places, but you could be done with brown nails, or yellow ones, and/or with a nice piece of art on your wall.

Here’s to all artists! Cheers!

Yours, with painted nails,

Njoks.

Friday, 2nd May, 2025.

I have had such a calm, Zensational day today – I love such days. The only not-so-fun part about it was (re)learning how to balance sheets and to prepare profit and loss statements. I did business studies in Form One in high school, and engineering economics in my undergrad, but truthfully speaking, economics is my least favourite discipline. I just don’t enjoy it – only understood the concepts enough to pass exam and give my father bragging rights. Heck, I even think I prefer calculus to economics, but that’s besides the point. ‘I had a Zensational day’ is the point.

These days, I have a proclivity for long walks, and I try to do 8 or 9 km twice every week, which is great cos my lifestyle is rather sedentary. I’m trying to change that, because the human body has only one set of bum bum (for sitting) and 360 freaking joints – our bodies were designed for movement. I should endeavor to walk a lot more, even.

To zhuzh things up, I created a theme for this month’s walks. The theme for May’s walks is ‘Colour.’ Here’s what I wrote on my Wanderlust wall:

The idea of a colour walk is to make walking more intentional and mindful – encouraging presence, engaging the senses, where one focuses on a single colour, noticing the things that share that colour. For my first walk in May, I chose yellow. I had a target of seeing at least 20 yellow items within the one hour, and at first, all I could see were bananas, haha. I saw more things eventually. Here’s the list:

Hakki Car Finance logo
Jerricans
Number plates
Motorcyclist’s helmet
Malfy Gin billboard
Glovo bag
City Shuttle (is that green or yellow?)
GoTV board
That man’s jacket
That school van
This Caucasian woman’s thighs
More bananas?
Lavington Security poster
Kenya Roads board
Sooshi Soo’s walls
OMG! More bananas
Yellow Lana tank
Velocity Spa board
Flower pots

I enjoyed my walk, very much, and even found a sugarcane juice stall on my way back to the house.

I’m hoping to do more colour walks in due course. It’s such a wonderful exercise for our minds which are almost always overstimulated – just noticing one colour on different items, noting them down, and rewarding yourself with sugarcane juice. You should try it out, alone, or with friends, right?

I hope you had a great day, and it’s okay if you didn’t. May tomorrow be better for you.

Thanks for being here. I’ll see you again, very soon, I promise.

Yours, colourfully,

Njoks.

No, I will not talk about that BBC documentary because if I do, I will start wailing. I watched it sorrowfully on Monday and it was a reminder that we are on our own: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jexr9yv0do, so because I talked about politics with my Uber driver yesterday, we won’t today.

Blood. Let’s talk about it. Not the blood of innocent civilians whose lives were cut short by brutal, senseless, and sycophantic policemen, but the blood shed by women every month (for those with regular cycles) – the blood shed by women every other month (for those with irregular cycles, hello endometriosis, hello PCOS, hello whatever!)

25th May 2013, my menarche story. It was a Saturday – a great day because I was in an Adventist school, so we had attended church service the whole day, and were having supper, when I felt something strange. I felt wet, like I had peed myself, except I hadn’t. I’ve never had issues with my bladder. In May 2013, I was in high school (Form 2), just about to turn 15, and I was a late bloomer in every sense of the word. Back in primary school, there was awkwardness around periods. Kids can be dumb, you know? I remember how we’d make a fuss about Magdalene and Jane and everyone who got their first period in class, usually, they’d be getting up to go to the washroom or something, and their deskie, or unfortunately, a rude, crude boy, would see the blood spot on their dress, and shift all attention to the bleeding girl(s).

For context, I was not in a bougie school where kids knew about sex and reproductive health issues. I was in a very public school, Riruta Satellite Primary School, where they’d even host periodic pad drives as we had kids from neighbouring children’s homes, etc. – typical school for the kids of common wananchi.

Some girls in my class got their period in Class 5. Most did in Class 6 and 7 (ages 12 to 14). I did not. Heck, I’d donate the pads I’d receive during the pad drives to my friends. I finished Class 8 with small boobies and no menses, and I went to Form 1 with small boobies, no menses, a tiny waist, and wide hips, telling of the fact that my body would make me a hot number. Now I have nyash and hips for days, and small boobies, and MENSES!!! I digress.

Let’s go back to the period after Class 8. I had a ‘false period’, haha, stay with me. My mother and I celebrated cos I had kept asking her, ‘Mum, the girls in my class have menses and I don’t. Should I get checked?’ Yes, my mother was woke, and we had that conversation – where she explained a bit about hormones, how diet and genes play a role, and how it will happen at different times for all of us – that nothing was wrong with me. I believed her. On this day, I had gone to to the loo and after wiping, I saw blood on the tissue, and went outside screaming. Mum taught me how to wear a pad and it felt good – like the guest I had been waiting for had arrived. I kept going to the loo to check, but there was nothing, for hours, and then it hit me – constipation. I had had a hard time going for number 2 and tore my bum – anal fissure, hello? I removed the freaking pad, disappointed. I told my mum. She affirmed me. I miss her.

Buying pads was a requirement when joining Form One, so we bought two packs of the OG Always sanitary towels – blue and pink wrapping and all. Those pads stayed in my trunk the whole of Form One until I donated them to a girl whose name I can’t remember, for the fear that they’d expire, for the random thought that something was wrong with me because EVERYONE in my class was menstruating. I wasn’t mad about it, just scared and a little hopeful.

So, on this day, 25th May 2013 when I felt wet and rushed to the washroom, I felt ‘normal’, because there it was. My panty was red and flooded. I ran back to tell my friend, Miriam, who took me to the dormitory and gave me pads. I almost didn’t want to wash the stained panty, you know, but I did. There I was, Little Miss Margaret Njoki Kangethe, the menstruating girl. Since then, I’ve had an interesting journey with my hormones and menses and all but that’s not the point of today’s blog. Today’s blog is about honouring my blood – I waited for my menses, and I usually feel very powerful when bleeding, like I could smear it (the blood) on my door and on my face for extra powers. Gross? No?

I love to give my body fruits as it bleeds. My bleed is a reminder that my insides are working fine, and I’m grateful that my period is painless. I just want it to be more regular. We’ll see what happens. What is your relationship with your menses? Do you revere your bleed? Do you hate it? Why? Cos of cramps? Mood swings? Do you remember when you first got your period? Let’s overshare in the comments section.

Thanks a lot for being here!

Yours,

Bloody Njoks.

P.S. Since 25th May 2013, I’ve always used pads, like my mum taught me to. During my last period, I tried using a tampon and removed that shit after barely an hour. I did a survey on my WhatsApp and the respondents expressed an undying love for tampons, citing reasons like, ‘I can toss and turn in bed without the fear of staining my clothes and sheets. Others, like me, cannot walk around with things inside them – tampons or menstrual cups or whatever. I told one respondent that I’d consider using cups cos they are more environment-friendly than tampons and pads. When I told this Mr. Man that I had worn a tampon for the first time and he asked how it felt, here’s what I said:

Foreign. I’ve removed it – now wearing a pad like my mother and aunts. Given a chance, I’d be free-bleeding to the earth, like my ancestors, before the wazungu came and called it ‘gross’ and ‘period poverty’😂.

That’s my truth.

Have a great day! If you’re on your menses, please eat some chocolate and fruits and don’t send me the bill. If you’re a man whose girlfriend and sisters are on their period, buy them chocolate and fruits. Yes? Yes!

Where is yours? Where is your home?

There are many possible responses to that question – home can be where your parents live, where your ancestors are from, home can be a person, home can be your rented house. Home can be many things , many places, many people. Home, regardless of your initial response, is earth – this planet we inhabit. It holds you, and your friends, and your family, and the food you eat, and the places you love to travel to – the ocean, the bushes and mountains, if you’re like me.

Today, 22nd April, is World Earth Day, and the theme is ‘Our Power, Our Planet.’ Yes, we know that the earth, our home, is our planet, but do we know that we hold power to restore, or destroy it, as we have been, particularly since the industrial revolution? Are we aware that the earth’s red signals are beeping, screaming, ‘DANGER’? I am aware, and you probably are too, but it doesn’t (and shouldn’t) end there.

What can you do, today and every day, to be the earth’s friend? Do you need to rethink your consumption? Do you need to stop disposing clothes just because they have one little hole that a tailor can fix, because textile pollution is a thing? Do you need to stop cooking excess food all the time that you have to dispose of, because it stayed too long in your refrigerator? Do you need to rethink self-care? How many items do you use for haircare? How many plastic bottles do you have to dispose of every few months? WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR HEAD? Do you need to spend less time in the shower? I know I do, cos those warm showers slaaaaappp, and shower-times sometimes feel like therapy sessions – I’ve made some of my most important decisions in the bathroom, haha.

The earth is, and has been, good to us, and that alone warrants that we take care of it, or at least, not destroy it, either ignorantly, or with awareness. Buy a water bottle so that you don’t have to be buying water in plastic bottles every time you leave the house. There are sooo many mindful living tips – we’ve featured them in our http://www.econjia.com journals – to serve as great reminders of our responsibility. You could buy one or three, for yourself, and/or your loved ones.

If you’re Christian like me, you’ve probably read – Psalm 24:1 – ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.’ That verse, alongside Genesis 1:28: ‘And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth…’ introduces a different perspective – that we are stewards. We have power, as the Bible suggests, as God said, to subdue it. I googled the meaning (to subdue the earth) and here’s what it means:

“Subdue the earth” in Genesis 1:28, often interpreted as a divine mandate, refers to developing and caring for the earth, and exercising dominion over it in a responsible and benevolent way. It implies exploring the planet, harnessing its resources, and using them for the benefit of humanity, but not in a way that exploits or damages the environment.“

There you go – taking care of the earth isn’t just a ‘nice-to-do’. It’s a ‘must-do’ – almost like a commandment – should’ve been the 11th.

Let’s subdue the earth, even as we enjoy everything it is – everything it gives – everything we see – the mountains we climb, the flowers we see, the waterfalls we marvel at… The earth is nice, let us be, too. I know I try, I mean, it’s the theme of my work, haha.

Happy Earth Day 2025! You have power – a lot of it. Use it well. Be nice.

Yours, on earth,

Njoks.

Good afternoon, you lovely person. Are you well? I am – actually currently sitting outside, facing Mount Longonot, which the Maasai revere for its majestic features and supposed connection to ancestral spirits. Longonot’s rim is a fav. I climbed the babe, and went around its rim on my 25th birthday, and started the year on a high note, quite literally – 2,776 metres above freaking sea level.

Now, assume that there were three Longonots, one next to the other. That will form a good basis for today’s blog, about, well, life. We can call it The Longonot range – it’d form something like a sine wave. In fact, I’m committed. Let me draw it for y’all, on my ‘board’:

Now, the topmost part is called the ‘crest’, and the lowest is referred to as the ‘trough’, which for the purpose of this blog, we will refer to as ‘Overwhelm’, just cos I couldn’t refer to the trough as ‘underwhelm’, lol! Our lives, today, are the three Longonots. What would you place at the crest or trough? You don’t know? I’ll tell you.

At the overwhelming crest, when everything is high and great, we could have experiences like birthdays (once a year of course), graduation ceremonies (1 to 4 in an average* person’s life – one Bachelors degree, one or two Master’s degrees, one doctorate), a career breakthrough (if you change jobs every seven years, you’ll probably have 4 or 5 breakthroughs in your lifetime), wedding (once, or a couple more times if you get divorced), becoming a parent (once or five times, or ten – depends on what you want/what nature allows – in Kikuyu we say, ‘Ciana cititaragwo…’ meaning literally that ‘Children are not (or should not be) counted – one can have as many as they’d like, responsibly, because also, ‘Ciana cititeagwo…’, meaning that ‘Kids shouldn’t be abandoned’…) Feel free to add other high, great, pleasant times.

At the overwhelmingly low point, when everything is dreary, we have experiences like death of a parent (happens only twice if you outlive them), death of a sibling (depends on how many you have), serious illness (one if you’ll succumb to it, or maybe two or three in your lifetime), job loss (getting fired could happen to anyone, once, or a few more times), divorce (once, or a few more times), and so on. You get the drift.

That’s just how life is. Overwhelming experiences, both good and bad, are few and far between. In fact, cumulatively, those days of ‘overwhelm’, of cresting and troughing, do not even make up one year of your entire existence, of course, with a few exceptions, e.g., if you or your parent are terminally ill for a long while, that can feel like a perpetual trough, but even then, it doesn’t take up the majority of your life. That’s how life is.

Most of life, if you think about it, is ordinary. There’s usually nothing major happening, and those seasons are what we will refer to as ‘Whelm’, as shown below:

Life if whelming. It’s ordinary. You wake up, prepare for work, get to work, work, call a friend or your grandparent during breaks, gossip with your colleague about your toxic or great boss, leave work, pass by your favourite bakery to treat yourself to cookies, probably buy some for your family members, get home, shower, stub your little foot against your bed, scream about it, wear your favourite lotion, call a friend to tell them about the great guy you just met, receive a call from your brother asking for 1k urgently, KPLC misbehaves, then they restore the power, then you iron the next day’s outfit, you have dinner, you set your alarm, you sleep, you wake up grumpily in the morning, prepare for work, a reckless driver splashes water on you on your way to the bus stop, or your cab driver tries to talk to you about Ruto’s shitty government as if you don’t already know, you get to the office, you share snacks with your work bestie… During the weekend, you go to church, then do laundry and tidy up, and then visit your family members or attend a family function, then you sign up for hiking, or go for a walk to watch trees and people. And cars. And want to buy one. Nothing here is peculiar, yet that’s what life, truly, is about.

Wouldn’t it be nice to find ways to enjoy the ‘whelms’? Showering is ordinary – zhuzh things up by investing in shower gels or bars that feel great. Listen to an enlightening podcast on your way to the bus stop or when in a taxi. Call your loved ones more often. Don’t wait to gift people during overwhelming seasons only (birthdays, when grieving, etc.). Write letters to your lover, not only on your anniversary, cook your favourite meal more often, not only when you have guests around. Wear that nice outfit to work or church, not only when going on a date. Your favourite crockery? Use them now. You know they’re collecting dust in the cabinet, waiting for the visitors you host twice every year.

Permission, by the powers vested in me by myself, I have granted thee. Go ye, therefore, and enjoy the whelm, okay? Okay, good student!

Yours, whelmingly,

Njoks.

I’m about to whelm my way to the bed for a proper nap. I woke up early today. Am I trying to become the Proverbs 31 woman? There’s no telling.

Don’t forget to share and subscribe if you haven’t yet. Also, read this previous blog to ‘hear my written voice’ in 2018. It’s probably my oldest blog. I was only 20:-) BUILD A BOAT AND HELL, CROSS THE PACIFIC IN IT! I can’t wait to read this year’s blogs in 2040, haha! Thanks for being here, reader.

Conclusively, please continually seek ways to healthily enjoy your ‘whelms’. Be well.

12th April, 2025, Saturday, 1734 hours – timestamp. Njoki starts writing this post. I’ve not actually eaten bread today, not through my mouth.

Today’s a Saturday, yay, and it’s definitely my favourite day of the week, because, hello Sabbath!?!? Honestly, I love the Sabbath. I do. It is a reminder of creation, and a necessity, after toiling the earth for six days. I love that God set apart this day for rest, and although I’ve not been keeping the whole day holy and restful as I should, I love that automatically, my body goes into rest. It’s totally due to nurture, cos I was raised in a very Adventist family – I’m talking about not watching TV from Friday evening to Sabbath evening (exception of Kurasini SDA Church Choir music), cooking Saturday’s meals on Friday, staying in church the whole day on Saturday, not going to school like the rest of my classmates on Saturdays, even when there were exams… My body got used to ‘shutting down’ on Fridays and getting reactivated in the evening on Saturday.

Today’s blog isn’t about my Adventist family, but a sharing of today’s sermon, presented by Elder Mar Rotich. I won’t break anything down – just copying directly from my notes app and pasting here. If you’re a Christian, this might be good for you – if, like me, you’ve been missing a few church services, not doing periodic daily devotions, not worshipping enough*…

The notes:

12/04/2025 SERMON
What have I given up because of food, like Esau?

Exodus 16:3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, [and] when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Genesis 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised [his] birthright.

Even Jesus performed many ‘food miracles’.
‘Food’ is mentioned about 1200 times in the Bible.
‘Bread’ is mentioned about 230 times.
Jesus, then, says, ‘I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’
Spiritual malnourishment is as real as they come.
We need three core ‘nutrients’, akin to vitamin, proteins, and carbs:

• A relationship with our Maker – reading the Bible regularly (1 Tim 4:6).
• Worship – song… (Psalm 96:1)
• Serve – have an outlet (idleness sucks – Eze 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.)
  Proverbs 11:25 The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

John 6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Basically saying that we should have our priorities right.
We should seek to be nourished spiritually, even as we seek physical nourishment- bread and all:-)❤️

The end!

Feel free to read the Bible verses in brackets. May our good Lord be continually good to us, as He has been.

May your evening be great! Mine will be – I’m going to a cool joint to experience a South African artiste, live. If you know me, you know I should’ve been born South African cos their music makes my blood dance, my ovaries tingle, the hairs on the back of my hair stand up, pluuuussss, I’ll be in GREAT company. I’m sooo grateful.

Let’s see each other soon, reader!

Be well.

Yours, restfully and musically, missing bread,

Njoks.

Would you?

Stay with me. You’ll be able to answer that question at the very end.

Hello, first of all. I truly hope you’ve been well. I have been mostly well. This morning, I am feeling GREAATT – it rained leopards and hyenas last night, so I slept like a sloth, and I woke up to cuddles with my nephew, and to a big ass mug of my favourite tea. I feel invincible.

As I’m blogging right now, there are plenty of background noises, because I’m babysitting my nephews and little cousins. They’re playing hide and seek and I can’t help but notice how evolved and woke these little ones are. We used to sing, ‘Brikicho, bantureeee. Ni hivyoooo? Hapaaaannnaaa…’ These ones are singing actual words with the ‘Ready or not, here I come…’ The older ones are playing hide and seek, and the little ones are like, ‘Liam amejificha kwa bedroom’ and the older ones are yelling at them for spoiling their game, and I’m here shouting ‘Weee’ every two minutes. Interesting times!

Recently, one of my aunts lost her mother-in-law (cancer be damned), so today, almost all my family members are in Gilgil for the burial. I didn’t go so I could stay here with the kids. I was supposed to be in my house alone, working on something, or sleeping, or something, or having breakfast at 11 am., unlike today where I had to wake up by 8 am. to prepare breakfast. Kids wake up early and it’s painful. It’s so noisy that I cannot concentrate on anything intense, which got me thinking that yes, indeed, the cost of love is inconvenience. That’s just the way it is.

One of the older ones playing hide and seek is called Kristel. I remember this day vividly – Friday, 8th April 2016. At the time, I was doing my computer lessons, like many Kenyans do right after completing high school. I was just about to leave my Microsoft Excel class to probably join another, when I received a call from Aunty Mary, my mother’s little sister, Mama Kristel, asking me to go to her house hurriedly, to collect her hospital bag and to take it to the Kenya Defence Forces Memorial Hospital. She had gone in for a routine check-up, but had to go in for an emergency cesarean section delivery (April is the Cesarean Awareness Month, btw. All hail mothers! You rock!) The cost of love is inconvenience. I had to leave that class, go collect her house key somewhere, take a matatu to her house, collect her hospital bag and pack a few other things, head out to Mbagathi Road… I got to the hospital in good time. Kristel was born early, on the 9th of April 2016. She’s 9 now, and we love her, to bits.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon shopping for a loved one. It was fun and tiring. Last night, I had to wake up five times to cover my nephews and cousins. They hate blankets. Inconvenience is the cost of love. My aunts and uncles had to cancel their commitments today to travel to Gilgil to be with their sister, Aunty Ciku…

Think about it. A major part of love, of building community, is inconvenient. It demands that we drop whatever the hell we’re doing to be there for others, to look outside of ourselves. Talking to a friend until 1 am. because their sadness cannot let them sleep is inconvenient. Inviting friends, cooking for them, and washing a million dishes afterwards is inconvenient. Having to save up for friends’ birthdays is inconvenient… We also inconvenience others – I know my sister hates to see me coming with the ‘I need skincare items sis. Please buy me X, Y, and Z…’ She will buy them for me, but I know it’s an inconvenience. Being vulnerable, even in romantic relationships, is also inconvenient. Yes, it allows you to experience depth in the relationship, but also opens up the possibility of getting hurt. Inconvenience is the cost of love.

Love/ building community requires sacrifice. Heck, God gave His son as a sacrifice at Calvary. ‘Giving’ is an indispensable aspect of love – giving of ourselves, our love, our time, our money, our gifts, our efforts… It may be inconvenient, but I know that I wouldn’t have it any other way? Would you have it any other way? No? I thought so.

Allow yourself to be inconvenienced. Allow yourself to inconvenience others. Rally your friends and family for support when you need to. Call them at midnight. Rant. Cry together. Have them take care of your pets and plants whenever you’re out of town. Freaking inconvenience the hell out of each other, because love involves a lot of that – it’s not always easy, convenient, or uncostly, and that’s okay.

May your Thursday be great. Mine will be. It is – our children’s chaos notwithstanding.

Adios, reader!

Yours, with love,

Njoks.

Also, about community, read this old blog if you haven’t yet: WE’RE ALL OF THEM!

About a week ago, I bought canvas, acrylic paint, and a brush, to satisfy the longing for doing something for the first time. I had never painted on canvas, despite there being sip-and-paint events almost every weekend somewhere in Nairobi.

On Wednesday, after a long day in the CBD, I brewed black tea, set up my working station, and got to work.

1. First, I got inspo online – I was torn between Pablo’s cubism and Jan Skacelik’s abstract art. The former seemed quite complex for a beginner, so I settled for Jan’s. Abstract art.
2. I decided not to follow step-by-step guidelines on YouTube so as to make my process more original. So, I selected the picture, studied it, and then drew it on the canvas.

3. Then, I got my tools ready and started painting. It was such a calming experience – felt like nothing mattered other than the brush in my hand, the canvas… The strokes.

4. The top part of my art ended up having an interesting colour. It was supposed to be a lighter shade of brown, but because it was my first time painting, I didn’t know the right proportions of paint to use on that size of canvas, with that kind of art, so I ended up having more paint on the tray. I didn’t want to waste it so I mixed the remaining yellow, green, and blue paints, and added a layer to the light-brown section.

5. Overall, I was pleased with my work. The whole process took two hours and fifteen minutes.

6. I gave it a few minutes to dry and excitedly hang it on my wall. Painting, I found, is a reminder that perfection, is indeed, an illusion. My painting isn’t perfect – my lines, aren’t straight, the curves aren’t smooth enough, I painted outside the lines several times, yet, it still looks decent. Are you waiting to be perfect at something to get it done and/or put it out there? Written a book that you don’t want to publish cos you think it’s not good enough? Waiting to release that song, but you keep telling yourself that your voice is not good enough? Who lied to you? Who lied to us?

Pursuing perfection means missing out on opportunities to learn from our ‘failures’. Trial and error is frequently how we learn the most essential things. Now, I know the right proportions of paint to use, how to draw better on canvas, when to dip the brush in ink, when to use lighter strokes… My second piece will be better than my first. My third will be even better than the second – it will be my magnum opus, because the third’s time’s the charm?

Do that thing – ‘done is better than perfect’.

7. Peggy called me twice during my painting session. My phone was on DND mode, so I called her back and we talked for 1.5 hours. I love my friends, and my art, and Sundays. May yours be great.

Yours, imperfectly,

Njoks.