Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

About 3 years ago, I embarked on a journey to to loosen up myself as I navigated life as a mother of four children, wife to a frontline health care worker and a global health researcher passionate about how to make evidence based interventions last. I made a commitment to keep something important, something surprising, something revealing, useful or unexpected about myself and my work. In the process of writing about anything from a given day, I discovered and developed the grant writer within myself I never knew existed. I also learnt how to write both simple and complex, hard and delicate aspects of life, many often left hidden like an invisible ink.

In three years I have learnt that there are seasons which enable me to flourish at my peak. Fall seasons for example last year. I wrote a grant every single month beginning in September. Of the four grants written, 3 were successful. I credit the success, to my commitment with keeping something about each day. Looking back, while I was writing those grants and working really hard behind the scenes to submit them, I let my mind venture into ways of being limitless like a rainbow or dreaming dreams bigger than oneself. I let words flow from my mind to this space just so that the real work of the grants could occur in ways that could only be described as sterling.

Nothing about my keeplist from September through December last year was petty or silly or weird or insignificant. All of them meant something to me and they still do. They were simply my way of navigating all the ways I literally last. See to be able to call yourself a researcher focused on sustainability, then there ought to be examples from your life that demonstrate how you go about lasting even with deliberate care.

So for me, each keep list followed a PLAN (keep people, keep learning, keep adapting, keep nurturing all the things that matter to you). I am focused always on the people that matter to me, those that bring joy and of course cause pain at times. All they ways they make my life colorful formed part of what I choose to keep. Then there are all the ways I learn through life. If I am going to persist and endure life as mother and a global health researcher, I figured that I might as well learn something about life whether serious or silly. During that time period, I learnt how to endure even my spirits were broken from my baby who wouldn’t stop crying at church. I also learnt about all the ways to keep alert as you find your voice. There were lessons on formalized curiosity, which only Zora Neale Hurston can eloquently teach. I also learnt about the significance of lions telling their own story. All of that helped me to adapt to life’s challenges that can block any attempt at writing any grant. Even though the grants were being written amid some serious stress and no one except my team knew about them, I never let the stress and struggles along the way have the final say. So we adapted where necessary remembering always that life is a marketplace, or like the Igbos say, uwa bu afia. We might as well take everything we want about life into our hands knowing like Lucille Clifton once stated, that the ‘surest failure was the unattempted walk.’ Or as the Igbos also note, life is a journey. All this was happening while writing a center grant that was almost not submitted due to technical difficulties. That day of the submission, I kept the significance of walking, even when everything seems so against you.

The first time I ever kept anything for the world to see and read was three years ago, with the very first post on my son and his rolling crayons. We had just begun homeschooling and we were both fed-up with it that the only thing that made sense that morning was to roll crayons on the floor. I initially wrote that note for myself, then felt the urge to open up a blog and keep it there so that I could be accountable to myself and all I was experiencing with life.

Our anniversary is today and I as reflect back to day one, all I want to fiercely do is nurture this list of all the ways I persist and endure through life as a mother, a wife, and a global health researcher. Nobody told me to write anything, let alone open this blog to share what was supposed to be private to anyone that was interested. This blog remains something I do on the side, a space, I have created for myself to marvel at all the questions and musings that flow through my mind, whether working or playing, but definitely living life on my own terms.

Everything I have kept for the past three years has led me to meet myself in ways that are so unique, that I truly know the power within myself. They have helped me nurture my inner creativity with all things grant writing for example or public health. I do not take each note for granted. I know each day is a gift and I am committed to keeping something from that day even if I am tired. Of course there are days of silence. Life will get in the way, that the thought of keeping anything is far from one’s mind. But there are days sterling like today, days were you are born again, over and over again, simply because you let your mind reclaim the power within you for each given day. I get to travel through life, my way, chronicle so much about life, my way, all because I started this journey three years ago. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but for today, our anniversary, keep, keep anything about your day. It’s how you last.