the koreshites

like...in the annals of Ashubarnipal

 

hello! my name is….

26 (not-so) random things about me

1. I am full of contradictions. I have been/believed many stories. What prolly characterises me the most is my propensity to change (en yet remain the same). If I were a folk tale, I’d be the god child of molisa (the outsider) and vasalisa (the wise).
2. I talk alot. En yet I crave silence.
3. I write alot (for myself). En yet I’m trying to unlearn the limitations of the written werd. It’s been the hardest thing yet because really (some of) my favourite things in the world are (good) words.
4. I have many childhood scars. Literally, I have tears branded on my face, heart/drops carved on my chest, and, a birthmark the size of the symbol of the sun….or a full (dark) moon on my left arm. The latter is ‘natural’; the others are derived from my many adventures, in places other than home.
5. I never had any imaginary friends that I can remember. But I visited other worlds often…with every book that I read, en almost very fantasy that I enjoyed…I still get ‘after-math hazes’ with every story that I immerse myself in that touches parts of my soul….sometimes the visions drawn there by the tellers are more compelling than the reality around me….yet everytime I have to return….you can tell when I’m in one coz I’ll have a far-away look in my eyes and will always be resentful of having my body remain where my mind isn’t…the present…..
6. I preach big love and struggle secretly with monogamy. I often wonder if there will always be a disjunction between my utopian vision of the kind of world I want to live in and the folks that I imagine I want to (re) build with…..i still want to have seven wives (en maybe even a husband or two)…..en my revolushunary villages….but I’m willing to start with the one (or two) for a spell, en a child.
7. I started (wilfully) changing my name(s) when I was about 10 or 11 years old….somehow the ones that were given to me never ever really fit…..I’ve been through deviations like Henrievna and Alexie…..and even now I know that there is another (one of my true) name(s) waiting to be reclaimed in the journey that is I.
8. When I was around 7, I used to tell the story of how I arrived in Kenya, on the back of a whale…it was my version of the ‘my daddy has a car this big….en my mama is…..’ but the truth about stories is that they change you, and I almost started believing that one…until I realised I was telling it because I wanted that illusion of power ‘from somewhere else’…..I  had discovered that my appearances could be deceiving and it was my way of telling my ugly duckling story and explaining my background. That and, it was blatantly plagiarised from one of my favourite stories of the time on “Dr.Abailit”
9. I had sex with many girls when I was young-er…..yes..I was a child, and I had sex, and we liked it. Yet we knew IT  was wrong…..did it in the closet, and whenever ‘the adults’ weren’t around, masked them with the games that we knew we had to play like ‘cha mama’ en ‘doctor’…..my favourite ones were when we followed no script and just played….though half the fun was in the ‘taboo’ aspect of it all…..i hardly knew what i was getting myself into…all that I knew was that Iiked it….and somehow it was wrong…..so we kept it all a secret. I only started wondering about those other girls recently…..in my teenage years I tried hard to repress those memories…for you see I was convinced that here was the evidence of my monstrosity…not just of my ugliness….but of my inherent ‘wrongness’….who knew I could neva have been so right, or so saved by being true to myself? En what else could I do really? As much as I tried, I couldn’t keep away……uchandirasiya, that is my motto now….it is (like) the anthem of my life.
10. I wish I could make good homemade icecream myself….i only tried it once, in 2000, with velvet mango ice-cream. Nowadays I stick to store bought frozen delights….like, hagen daaz – vanilla swiss almond, for special occasions.
11. i learned to write in code, when I was much younger, out of self preservation, and for no reasons other than I could…i would pen freedom chants on my walls….but I really didn’t know what I was looking for….
12. i was really jus a good kid, and when i did get into trouble it was usually for wandering off and causing my family to worry…it’s a bad habit that’s stayed with me through-out my life….as soon as i learned to walk, I crossed boundaries….like the time I went o Rosalina’s place to get the pair of scissors that my mother demanded that I return (she was in a fit of anger after I came back home with another item in a long series of borrowed and forgotten stuff that I neva brought back after sharing with friends at school)…i walked all the way to her place, many kilometres away, en crossed thika road for the first time alone…..i was lucky that nothing more happened to me than running into rosalina’s neighbours who took me to her place…..en the evening turned out to be much more fun than I thought it would be…..her father gave us cream soda and she taught me how to use her skate board for a bit…..it was all so foreign (my first real ‘american’ experience and fun en even when her papa drove us home, I didn’t think about the worry that I could be causing my mama, who in the meantime had called the police. When we got home, we didn’t find her, and that was when my anxiety begun again….all that other time, I had forgotten……which still happens to me alot.
13. I think everything is connected…..like the(only) costumes that I’ve ever dressed up in  for Halloween have been as a gypsy (aka. Fortune teller) in my childhood and as an angel in my teenage years…..connected? hell yeah!… Ironically, by the time I immigrated to the west, I’d fallen out of step with ‘halloween’ traditions preferring instead to look into the deeper, afrikan meanings of rituals and celebrations….I’m still (re) learning those.
14. I have met my soulmate(s) en have  the (chosen) family I want….they have changed my life for eva.
15. My favourite decadence is hageen daz vanilla swiss almond ice cream…..jood  songs in the player en my special books.
16. It’s sad to admit but as much as I came into myself back at home en have promised to go back again this year…..i’ve neva had such a hard and traumatic year. The hardest thing was trying to commit class suicide en be true to my values, yet also rely on my  middle class en light skinned privilege to get me by…..i’ve neva had so many encounters with pigs, violent men en rightwing conservatives in a span of 13 moons.
17. When i was around 11, I started a secret club, i based it on a combination of nancy drew, the secret seven en an obscure book i read about a young girl who had to go through initiation rites to become a priestess of Isis…..the latter was a monumental book in my pubescence. I don’t remember how I found it but I do remember that I loved the story and read it at least 20 times.
18. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years ago. I’m still critical of the diagnosis en the foundational principles it’s derived from but  I ‘ve become grounded enought o acknowledge that I have struggled with my mental health for a long time. I have also grown up being scared to talk about my sadness. What has helped me most in my growth is my commitment to unlearning the ‘good girl/strong womyn syndrome’…..i jhave struggled with depression since I was about 12……..i started taking medication when they were forcefully prescribed to me at the age of 15. I am not the only one…many of my friends and family have struggled with mental health yet it’s still considered a ‘white person’s disease….i scoffed when i first learnt what schizophrenia meant. That was the sorta thing that only happened abroad….in those distant shitties that we watched on our teleivisions and read in the papers around…every day we went school…in the classes, while walking to our neighbours house en sharing our mixtapes. I know that every weakness is for a purpose….en mine have become my strength.  I yam (extra)ordinary.
19. In  many ways i am like the antithesis of Obama. The only thing we share is the reality that we have a Kenyan father. Both from the western part of Kenya. But the similarity stops there en I decided on his inauguration day that I would include him in my autobiography i plan to start writing four years from now….it would be an interesting trajectory to compare timlelines and politics with. You see as much as technically me and obama are both black. Our racial identity is constantly brought into question and able to transcend different groups depending on environment and politics. I am like the antithesis because, he was born in a capitalist county en I was conceived in a communist nation. Both our mothers may be white….but mine is Russian and his is American. I was born a woman and he was born a man. I’m queer and he’s (apparently) straight. I’m radical and he’s  a post-modern uncle tom of sorts, yet not, he is the construct of amerikkka’s fantasies en fears. He is an intelligent man and skillfull orator yet he still represents a system that is curerentl the most exploitative in the world. Our political ideologies may be diametrically opposed….because you see i would repair relations with cuba and bring Bush to justice….he could be the last prisoner in guantamon bay, just for show ofcourse, just  for equal treatment.i don’t thyink Obama is going to do it anytime soon. Ofcourse it’s much more complicated than that, he couldnt’ just do that….teachnically, Bush didn’t do anything wrong. It’s the system…ofcourse it’s not the people, they’re IGNORANT, cauight up in complacency and Hollywood……but i would still do different……remove the bounty on assata’s head and release ALL  political prisoners….but he can’t eve intervene in the injustices perpertrated by his people against the people…….our ‘apparent’ leaders have bertrayed us, and i would recommend anarchy and a revolution of all sorts of systems…..i don’t think he’ll be that drastic..but ofcourse yes! We can!
20. I’ve only had one pet in my life….an adorable cat called Aziza, and she’s the one I want back. When i was much younger i used to want a lion, monkey, wolf or talking bird.
21. I believe/d in magic. ni found it in the fantasies i read in many many books. My favourite thing growing up and still is stories.
22. I still haven’t finished my undergrad…but I’m (not-so) secretly enrolling in winter courses next week so that I can be back in school just incase  going back to Kenya doesn’t work out.
23. I yam (aspiring to be) a revolushunary.
24. What i want most at this stage of my life is a big garden with lots of herbs en flowers en close access to the mountains and Indian ocean…..that’s one of my dreams….and like the one with the revolushunary village, I wonder how soon it will come and whether that just may be what I yam……a dreamer
25. I have officially been declared dead in my lifetime….but like with the obama comparison, i am also the antithesis of jesus or lazarus……en more like the daughta of ma(ma)….the creatress
26. I have never tried fishing before, yet that’s one of my dreams as well…..after reading one of marnie Woodrow’s short stories collection…i decided my favourite alter ego/lover couple would the baker en the fisher (wo)man….i alternate between scenarios in this fantasy
27. Why is that my favourite sex fantasy is still of being a ho? Is that radical feminism ala. Jung or just repressed feelings of great worth?