Writing Hours

  When I was little, I thought that the adults went to wakes so they could ambush the spirit of the deceased leaving their body and yell at them, “ Where do you think you’re going? Who are you leaving your responsibilities for? Get back in there! And if á burial happened afterwards, it meant they failed.  🥲 And they failed a lot till one day, one guy walked into his own funeral and everyone ran away. Which made me wonder if they really did want what they claimed to be looking for.  😁

 I sincerely believe that The Heavenly Librarian has a stack of recommended books for each of us. One day as I sat in an aunt’s house, helping watch her children. Someone came to the window and handed me a book. The housemaid Is Not To Blame, it said. I read it then placed it back on the window sill and as long as I stayed, darting anxious eyes over there, the book stayed. I vowed to read it again if I returned and it was still there before going to check on the washing and the children. The other girl was doing her laundry, the children were playing. Their clothes were still clean. It wasn’t time to start lunch yet and the book was gone. I’ve been trying to get hold of another copy ever since.

Once upon a book on a lowly bookshelf belonging to a family in a council flat.  Tell me something puts her arms around Still Thinking of You and Larger Than Life,  Still Thinking of You; Fancy seeing you two here!  The Rainmaker & Kiss the girls; (in unison) Just because your name is Tell me something doesn’t mean you should.  The Bride Price; Akụnna is grudgingly allowed to continue her schooling but only because her ambitious uncle realises that an educated girl will fetch a higher bride price - The Bluest Eye ; And twenty years later, I was    still wondering about how one learns that. Who told her? Who had looked at her and found her so wanting, so small a weight on the beauty scale.  The Bride Price; Escape might be the answer but how can she escape her fear of the fate that even today, is said to await every girl whose bride price is not paid?  The Bluest Eye; Hang on, wait, what are you talking about? I’m a book and I’m about race, clas...