Tag: storytelling
-
Keep your habits!
Octavia Butler once shared the following: ‘Forget talent! If you have it fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent.’ As I begin to slowly wrap up this year, I am making sense of all I did this…
Written by
·
-
Keep representation!
My daughter made art the other day. Her rendition of the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. In it there was a woman playing tennis dressed in a orange and yellow top and red and pink shorts. Her name was Jennifer Walker and according to my daugther, she had helped the US to victory with her…
Written by
·
-
Keep knowing you belong here!
I picked pieces of my broken self yesterday, ran through forest park windy paths, listened as scars fell off, watched too as a brown and black furry creature crawled off, the earth as I ran thinking, knowing that all things work together, even things I cannot see together, all blasting in ears and head weary…
Written by
·
-
Keep blessings!
The woman who feels everything, knows the name of her pain, the source of her gains and certainly how to carry rain. To see her too, like the desert waiting, or like a flower blooming, for tomorrow praying, but today dreaming knowing what she feels is daring, but grateful still for this wild blessings. May…
Written by
·
-
Keep karma!
‘I promise you l, I’ll be right back like karma.’ I love these lines. They are from an artist my son listens to on repeat. His name his Phyno and my second son is his biggest fan. Phyno sings and raps in Igbo and has been a tremendous source of comfort for my son when…
Written by
·
-
Keep sustainability in mind!
Since the pandemic began, I cut back from a lot of things and people. Cut back from conversations that were unproductive, people too. I focused on things that elevated and forced me to keep anything. Last year, I took it to another level. Death has a way of helping you find your purpose and mine…
Written by
·
-
Keep lions telling their own story!
What makes for knowledge? How is it acquired? And how should it be used? I have been grappling with this notion ever since I arrived at the place called home. I came to teach, but I found myself being the student more than the teacher. I found myself asking questions internally and also doing so…
Written by
·
-
Keep formalized curiosity!
Zora Neale Hurston described research as a ‘formalized curiosity.’ One that involves poking and prying with a purpose. I have been blessed to call research my job. To engage in this formalized curiosity full time is the best gift I have ever given to myself. Many take it for granted, but I know what I…
Written by
·
-
Keep alert!
A swarm of insects stroll in perfect stride, one after the other, all heading somewhere, any where, no where. The skies above them, stretch out like curtains, something reduces them to nothing, something leaves them light as dust. Something in the wind. Lord, it’s coming for us.
Written by
·
-
Keep knowing that we are legions!
I see dust coming from the sky. A cloud full of dust. Coming towards me. In it, there is an army with no cowards. They surround me, ready to do battle for me. They will destroy all that ails me in a single night. Destroy them so I feel no pain. Only peace and joy…
Written by
·
-
Keep witnessing.
When a woman dies, and her cervix is to blame, catapulting her from the prime of her life, to her grave, what remains as a witness to her life, her stories, her cervix, her silenced voice? Who will resuscitate a life cut down by cervix? As I watch my life story slowly change, with cervical…
Written by
·
-
Keep Ije Uwa!
I am learning everyday, life is short. Love life like air, like mango trees. Ije uwa. Only this matters. No matter how small, keep your story. Write it as a note, a song, a book, the wind, or the kernels of a sheri mango. For candles will blow, tears will fall, even mangos grow old…
Written by
·
Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 