His cries of ‘spice, spice’ herald new beginnings, but at only 4 years old…this little man knows it not. This is the first proper ‘thing’ to come out of our new kitchen ( long before our delicious churros which have been followed by cupcakes and pizza. I’m thankful I can still cook and bake!), or ‘shrine’ as my younger sister calls it. It could pass for one. Small, and walls bedecked with ‘oddities’ that might look like instruments of war…to the uninitiated – roasting needles, an old ice-cream scoop, whisks and a metal jug that some may consider fit for a rubbish heap. Not me.
Nigeria
This thing called ‘nostalgia’. Who are you? You blow hot and cold at the same time – a child of different mothers, loved and hated both the same. In one hand you hold the polaroids of old, yellowed and dog-eared with age…full of smiles of carefree youthfulness and abandon; yet in the other sits the present and the future, full of promise yet mingled with uncertainty, a road yet untravelled.
Today I find myself….and I’m on a scale, tipping left and right when all I want to do is stay centered, around a fulcrum of certainty. All I need today is to create my future with a patchwork of squares and scenes from the past. Is to reread the stories and novels that made my childhood heart sing, to lick sweetened fruit powders off my palms and to explore the world with eyes of wonder and skinny legs that could run.






