Silence, deafening silence, then a loud thud, as the glass cup hit the marble-tiled floor. The shattering is immediate and the rebound is sudden as fragments break away in every possible direction. Taken by impulse, my eyelid jumps into action, that natural response to chaos, ensuring that when this momentary storm is over, I have eyes that can see; alas, with sight comes vision and vision, hope and hope, strength and strength, calm and calm, Toranaga Sama.
Poetry is beauty, a masterful combination of fantasy and realism; reality on the other hand stares you in the face, appearing to say “beauty and ugliness can coexist”, of course, this is reality😅. When I was younger, I would have received the fullness of reality, a not-so-friendly pat on the back (a.k.a abara) from my Mother for breaking “her” glass cups. Reality is reinforced because after the first storm comes another; an unending reference to how I denigrated the temple that is the kitchen by destroying one of its special vessels. PS: I love my mom and should this paragraph make it to the Twitter X’s space, no one has been everything to me like that woman.
Back to my poetical rendition of a kitchen-esque storm; I am older now and it’s just me in the boat, eyes closed in my Toranaga Sama moment, and after what seems to be an eternity, I know to open my eyes. Still, my eyelid refuses to budge for fear of a last surprise. Slowly, I open them up.
Slowly and surely, I must open them; not just my eyes, but my heart and mouth, because I have been wanting to ask “Where did all the noise go? and by this I mean, “Where did all the joy go?”. It’s somewhere in the bible, where it says to make a joyful noise. Walk with me😅, not all noise is joy, but all joy is noise, init? You simply can’t keep joy quiet; it’s the boundless energy, happy eyes, hearts bubbling with thanks and lips speaking in delight. When it is present, everyone knows and feels it and “when e didn’t dey, e didn’t dey”.
Cause, it didn’t dey
So where did all the noise go? out the window and into the wind. In innocence, the noise first took the form of hope, child-like hope. You see, I held onto great hope as 2024 beckoned. Who didn’t? I took a leap of faith and held hope tightly as a cushion, not against the fall that breaks bones and leaves bruises; rather, that which breaks the heart and dampens morale.
Oh, what a leap, through the window frame; hope stretched its hands till they became flapping wings. What a delight to soar through the sky, taking in the view and enjoying the moment. The end of hope is a fulfilled expectation, the end of hope is a dashed expectation. As hope became “expectations that are valid to have”, the cushion around the heart worn out from anxiety became a vessel at the tempestuous sea drifting between moods and emotions; the actual storm that preceded the noise. In that sense, 2024 has been a rollercoaster of emotions hinged on certain expectations being fulfilled and some being dashed; in retrospect, I have experienced anger, then gratitude, joy, then anguish, patience, then despair, hope (because you want everything to be fine), then more anger, longer-lasting patience, and then quiet.
To covet and to be content are desires. To desire is to be Human.
Quiet, this final form; the tranquillity to the raging madness caused by stirring emotions. The plug to a leaky pocket of feelings that was both exasperating and draining. Quiet was first a numbness; a natural offshoot owing to a tiredness from the flux of emotions I previously felt. As time passed, quiet became a sort of prelude. For instance, I would be faced with a quite frustrating situation and instead of reacting, the ‘quiet’ would kick in. This delayed reaction allowed me to act out varying reactions in my head. I noticed what I was doing and began to employ it to varying degrees of success. I still am; and such interesting takeaways I have.
So for the umpteenth time I ask, where did all the noise go? somewhere in the background, blurred out of focus.
And Joy, where did it go? It didn't go anywhere. It's right here, where no noise is.
