Taking A Walk Through The City
Never in your plans. But it just stopped raining in the early hours of a Tuesday morning, the heavens above your small student’s dorm sends forth sunny rays pretending never to have known anything about the rain. The birds are tapping your glass window with their gold and scarlet beaks, and the occupants of the next rooms are loud – something kind of a ‘blessing’ came to them in their dreams. You hiss, open the windows and the smell of the red sand outside mixed with leaves of dead plants enters your nose. Is this a bad day? Is there not something arty about the day?
A walk round the city would be great.
I usually do not wake up from sleep feeling positive about any day. I am lazy and find it difficult leaving my bed to venture off into the unknown. Maybe, it was just as a result of depression. I have been taking antidepressant for long – since I entered my final year in school. After attempting suicide thrice, my friends thought it would be wise I go back to photography, painting or writing – anything art, just to make sure I find my way to healing.
Till now, I did not know what demon or angel dragged me out of the dorm and set me loose in the streets of Abakaliki, the capital city of Ebonyi state, one of the thirty six states in Nigeria. Without a specific place on my mind, I meandered through the day’s traffic, the crowd, the women in the street throwing insults at each other like heavy metals and finally I was in the almost noiseless zone of Polycarp Crescent, off Onwe Road. Seemed to be a place the rich men of the city reside. Everything that passed me was either on the bus or in the car or on bike, few were trekkers like me. The trekkers were more or less of lovers enjoying an early morning walk for whatever reason. The smiles or laughter on their faces whenever they said something or pointed at an object either laying carelessly in a funny way or flying towards them (freaking them out) were charming and magnifique.
Nigeria is facing a worse time in history (economically) and the people still have ways to come together in love, walk, talk and giggle. Why shouldn’t I be like these people? I fancied them. So, after meeting or passing more people like them (the couple walkers), I started giggling all by and to myself at any silly thing I encountered. One thing that fascinated me about these walkers was not just the laughter but the look in their eyes, the message their pupils communicated; ‘we know this is not funny but it is funny, so let’s laugh and kill our worries’.
Tired of heading north only, I took to my left admiring the new structures that were been erected. Some of the structures only germinating after two weeks of planting money and labourers as I learned later. I was amazed. Truly, money answers all things. I admired the green spaces I found there too that would soon disappear and got inspiration immediately to do a painting on landscape featuring the disappearing natural beauty of the city. Wonderful! The first original idea that came to me after three months of battling depression.
I woke up from my creative daydreaming, looked up and realised that I had walked for hours and right before me was a cathedral with the monuments of Christ, Virgin Mary, Joseph and other saints. The sculptures captivated me at the first glance and I left hurriedly for the premises. I have never dreamed of coming to this part of the city, I did not even know that it exists. The cathedral is set on a hill and from there one can see the busy city of Abakaliki. I scanned the faces of the people in the cathedral – all worshippers or men at work. I did a sign of the cross like the catholic and pretended to have come for prayers. The men at my right were working on two statuses of either Christ and his mother or Peter and one of the other female saints. The rigorous process that they underwent to put things together was a thing to marvel at and an exceptional way of bringing a work of art into being. I watched them with all curiosity and entered into a deep thought. I was thinking about my life; the challenges I have to face every day to put my life in order. Maybe, the demon or angel that dragged me out, took me to this place to learn this.
I left the men when they went on break and climbed to one of the buildings still under construction. From the upstairs, I saw the city clearly, the people running into each other, picking a fight or saying some kind words to one another and leaving, the two vehicles that had an accident, the school children trying to make it across the highway and the commuters in different gas stations waiting in vain to get gases.
I watched with all grace wishing I was with a camera. Nonetheless, I shut my eyes, took in a deep breath and click, everything was recorded in my mind and even though I later found it difficult getting away from that labyrinth of a street, I will never forget the faces I saw that each carried the essence of living.
I made it home happy and fulfilled, always planning for a time out into the city whether night or day because the city is an art in its own, though no one acknowledges this.
A walk round the city would be great.
I usually do not wake up from sleep feeling positive about any day. I am lazy and find it difficult leaving my bed to venture off into the unknown. Maybe, it was just as a result of depression. I have been taking antidepressant for long – since I entered my final year in school. After attempting suicide thrice, my friends thought it would be wise I go back to photography, painting or writing – anything art, just to make sure I find my way to healing.
Till now, I did not know what demon or angel dragged me out of the dorm and set me loose in the streets of Abakaliki, the capital city of Ebonyi state, one of the thirty six states in Nigeria. Without a specific place on my mind, I meandered through the day’s traffic, the crowd, the women in the street throwing insults at each other like heavy metals and finally I was in the almost noiseless zone of Polycarp Crescent, off Onwe Road. Seemed to be a place the rich men of the city reside. Everything that passed me was either on the bus or in the car or on bike, few were trekkers like me. The trekkers were more or less of lovers enjoying an early morning walk for whatever reason. The smiles or laughter on their faces whenever they said something or pointed at an object either laying carelessly in a funny way or flying towards them (freaking them out) were charming and magnifique.
Nigeria is facing a worse time in history (economically) and the people still have ways to come together in love, walk, talk and giggle. Why shouldn’t I be like these people? I fancied them. So, after meeting or passing more people like them (the couple walkers), I started giggling all by and to myself at any silly thing I encountered. One thing that fascinated me about these walkers was not just the laughter but the look in their eyes, the message their pupils communicated; ‘we know this is not funny but it is funny, so let’s laugh and kill our worries’.
Tired of heading north only, I took to my left admiring the new structures that were been erected. Some of the structures only germinating after two weeks of planting money and labourers as I learned later. I was amazed. Truly, money answers all things. I admired the green spaces I found there too that would soon disappear and got inspiration immediately to do a painting on landscape featuring the disappearing natural beauty of the city. Wonderful! The first original idea that came to me after three months of battling depression.
I woke up from my creative daydreaming, looked up and realised that I had walked for hours and right before me was a cathedral with the monuments of Christ, Virgin Mary, Joseph and other saints. The sculptures captivated me at the first glance and I left hurriedly for the premises. I have never dreamed of coming to this part of the city, I did not even know that it exists. The cathedral is set on a hill and from there one can see the busy city of Abakaliki. I scanned the faces of the people in the cathedral – all worshippers or men at work. I did a sign of the cross like the catholic and pretended to have come for prayers. The men at my right were working on two statuses of either Christ and his mother or Peter and one of the other female saints. The rigorous process that they underwent to put things together was a thing to marvel at and an exceptional way of bringing a work of art into being. I watched them with all curiosity and entered into a deep thought. I was thinking about my life; the challenges I have to face every day to put my life in order. Maybe, the demon or angel that dragged me out, took me to this place to learn this.
I left the men when they went on break and climbed to one of the buildings still under construction. From the upstairs, I saw the city clearly, the people running into each other, picking a fight or saying some kind words to one another and leaving, the two vehicles that had an accident, the school children trying to make it across the highway and the commuters in different gas stations waiting in vain to get gases.
I watched with all grace wishing I was with a camera. Nonetheless, I shut my eyes, took in a deep breath and click, everything was recorded in my mind and even though I later found it difficult getting away from that labyrinth of a street, I will never forget the faces I saw that each carried the essence of living.
I made it home happy and fulfilled, always planning for a time out into the city whether night or day because the city is an art in its own, though no one acknowledges this.
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