I was traveling to work after a very short break recently, a small boy entered the vehicle we were traveling in with the parents and at the sight of every one, started screaming. At first I thought the child very poorly socialized. Something however entered my mind and I decided to give it some further thought.
Nowadays I will once in a while meet very tall people, but I rarely come across huge people. I mean huge in the sort of way people were huge when I was a child. I remember lining up during primary school parade; look back to where the class eight boys and girls were and wonder whether I will ever be that big- I never became that big, my age mates too. People in the village were big, in the market, in the ways and by ways; all over were huge people, very huge! I remember even believing there were people who ate other people. Those monstrous size human beings looked capable of just about anything. And a threat by a stranger the he would ‘eat you’ was enough to send panic through every fiber of your being!
As I think of it now, I realize that’s how the little boys and girls must see me now- very huge. Any ill thought joke is likely to strike terror in their hearts. I forgive the screaming boy, and I think we adults should try and remember our childhood when we deal with little ones.
Now, this also brought a second thought into my mind- what age has done to me. I have always taken for granted how old I have become and how my days are running out. In my tender years, any body in their teens was a young woman or a young man. Any thing above that was a man or woman (I think Swahili does more justice to what I have in mind mwanaume/ manamke). If somebody passed outside our house (you know those paths in the rural areas) and I was sent to check who it was, I would report back either it is a child, a young man/woman or a mwanaume/ mwanamke. I have no shadow of doubt if a little boy was sent to spy on me now as I passed outside their house, he would report back a mwanume (Muthuri)- and you know how laden with age that term is! My female age mates might end up with more grave titles! With such serious retrospection, I accept the already ‘grave need’ to have a number of ‘things’ fast tracked. Time waits for no man (or woman for that matter), and some things are best done at specific times!
Trees were also huge, maize used to grow to enormous sizes. I remember getting buried into maize plantation and marvel at my mothers industry and ingenuity. How could she manage to do all that work and achieve so much! We used to have enormous spaces and distances. Thank God these expansive spaces have not entirely disappeared, partly because I live in uninhabited parks and range lands.
It used to rain cats and dogs. The intensity of the rains then used to be daunting! And I used to love it. Sleep was amazing with heavy rains. The lightning and thunder (where did they go?) used to strike awe in my heart. But the rains I used to love most was around 4.30pm and 5pm. Classes were over, most of the masters had gone home and we were all stuck in private study in our class rooms. We could swap our desks without being questioned; we could share stories and all manner of gossip without the patronizing eye of the teacher on duty. There was a sense of ‘being stranded’ at school I used to love. Classes are over but you can not quite go home yet. You have your best friends around you (and the girls you secretly admired), and for a moment, time seems to have stood still with nothing quite happening except just being there! It could have been the presence of play, the absence of rules, oh, I don’t know, but such moments used to give me such enormous bliss.
I still love it when it rains, and the earthy smell that follows and as Chesterton puts it
The thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:- GKC
And though the grandeur be lost in most things, I hope
When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing:-GKC
The grandeur of life is still very present, even in the smallest of things and people, and I hope I never lose it!
No comments:
Post a Comment