'Honestly, I had no idea how we got there. The first thing I
saw was a group of us standing from the balcony of a house that clearly took
aim at the sky. We were so far up that when I cast a glance at the ground below
that was nearly thousands of feet from us I got squirmish. The balcony had
strong rails around it, which seemed purposely put in place to protect people
who stood there from falling off. Being kind of terrified of heights, I stood a
few steps from the rails and leaned to a wall that made me feel safe and
carefree enough to savor the view from the top. Everything that below us was
amazing to watch from the top. First the grass! It was neatly cut and each
strand stood firmly next to the other and was eagerly sprouting. Some of the
long grass swayed lazily in the direction of the wind. There were a few trees,
each planted few steps from each other. No matter how eagerly tall the trees
were, they were beat hands down by the height of the building, but they were
professedly content with their height. Their leaves seemingly delighted to be
growing there, clapped gently in a celebration of sorts as the winds blew. Birds,
Locusts, Grasshoppers hopped from the trees and the grass each making its own
sound whose combination created a tranquil harmony. The view from our vantage
point was purely one to behold.
I had the feeling that I was around strangers because none
of the faces of those people was familiar. Even if it was clearly our first
time to meet each other, we vividly enjoyed each other company. We laughed and
made fun of people who were acrophobic, occasionally one person (the most
courageous in the group) would start a song and the rest of us would join in
and when we ran out of depth of the lyrics some of us hummed and the others lip
synced- Britney Spears style! We were not professional musicians so we didn't
mind being musically incorrect. Our unfamiliarity had been quintessentially dissolved
by one common desire: someone who looked at us from a distance would have
presumed that we had been friends for ages. That we were of different
nationalities nobody could tell except ourselves and the people who had brought
us there. Our differences had simply faded out at the face of our passion and camaraderie.
We were comrades in the world of creation. Our love for words had brought us
from different corners of the country and the continent and assembled us there.
One of
us (most likely a Kenyan) suddenly made the comment- "it's time for the
next session!" Those who had wrist watches glanced at them and agreed and
those who didn't checked their phone and nodded as well. In a nearly straight
neat single file we trooped to the room where teaching would be taking place. The
navy blue curtains had been drawn and light rays pierced through leaving the
room so bright. Despite this, some light bulbs were still on! The tables in the
room were orderly arranged to form a semi-circle and had chairs placed behind
them. They were also were classically covered with navy blue clothing that
matched well with the curtains creating a relaxed ambience, perfect for
learning. The walls were painted white and had figurative and evocative
paintings hanging from them. One painting showed a Kenyan Masai who stood on
his left leg while his right was folded resting the entire body weight on the
left. He donned a leso that had black
and red stripes which was intricately tied on the right shoulder and dropped
all the way to the knees. He supported himself with a thick rungu which I had read that was
sometimes used as a weapon at the imminence of danger either threatening them
or their livestock.
The largest paint and perhaps the most significant, was of a
woman who sat on a three legged stool facing her two children whom she fed
porridge from a calabash.
Just like the two children in the painting drunk from a
calabash of porridge, all of us were eager to drink from the calabash of wisdom
and experience of the speaker. The paintings accentuated the beauty of the room,
it was warm and welcoming: But it was second to the aura of the woman who was
intently working at the front setting up her presentation. We gushed at her presence
and some of us who were overwhelmed by excitement walked to the front to say
hallo. When we were settled down, she introduced herself; not that she really
needed to seeing as we knew her fairly well. She was a media queen who had
climbed the highest rungs of the international mass media ladder. She was a
bestselling author of two books. She had initiated a platform where budding
African writers could share their content for the continent and indeed the
whole world to read. She was a perfect woman with a crown of knowledge in the
world of writing and we couldn’t wait to hear from her.
I sat a few step from her, my face beaming with excitement
as if I thought I could siphon some of her knowledge through osmosis. I was
right where I belonged, surrounded by hungry writers and with a woman I looked
up to right in front of me ready to share her knowledge with me. My world at
that moment was perfect, even problems that so often hung over my head were at
bay. In fact if God was to speak to with a still voice and ask-‘my daughter,
what do you want?’I would reply- ‘God I love this moment, I can’t think of
anything thank you for the moment’
When our speaker was done setting up, she faced us and begun
to talk…’
Then I abruptly woke up.
I had arrived from slumber land. There was no shred of
reality in all the beauty I had seen; it was all nothing but a dream!
Jesus the Messiah! I was on my freaking bed having a darned
dream. What a deuce!! I simply sat straight up, overwhelmed by the sadness that
there was no icon, no writers around me and no exquisite paintings; and wished
that it was real, I wanted it to be real, I needed it to be real. But we all
know the saying- if wishes were horses…every dreamer would turn their beautiful
dreams into reality within the snap of a finger!
***
People have different kinds of dreams: There those that
unfold and make you pull your sheets as you shiver in horror. They cause you to
perspire like Kipchoge Keino dealing with the vexation of the very people that
once cheered him. There is neither brevity, nor speed there. If you try to run,
you end up running fast on the same spot. Their constellations are not made of
stars but of scary blood thirst monsters with you on their dinner radar. They
are so bad ass that they have earned a special name, a name that paints in bold
the intensity they have on their victims, a name that accurately punctuates
their reputation of scaring the hell out of children and adults alike!-
nightmares!! They shake you, terrify you and you really begin to question the
integrity of your friends who say you are brave. If the gods have a bone to
pick you, and choose to embarrass you, they ensure you scream so loudly that
you shake the very foundations of your voice box leaving you with a reputation
of a sissy adult.
But it’s not all bloody and scary. There are also beautiful dreams
which take themes of; love- the watch men of slumber land see to it that you
meet your dream man/ woman there. They don’t stop at that; they take you to
exotic places, Paris, Maldives… (you name it!) Where you delight in each
other’s company. Marvelous dreams also present themselves as accomplishment of
an arduous task and solution to a quandary. The kind that when you wake up from,
and you are engulfed by an urge to go back to slumber land where it all went
down. For a goodbye, they leave you with a desire to make your bed your office,
yearning to recreate the moment and this time perhaps make it permanent.
My dream was beautiful. It was a manifestation of a dire
need I have had in my heart since I started my journey in blogging. The need to
learn! If there is anything of great value I have grasped through my writing
journey, is the need to learn! The surest way to run aground in this race is
closing all doors that have opportunities to learn behind them. When you learn
the chances of falling drop drastically. Why? Because new knowledge opens your
eyes to failures that you wouldn’t otherwise see. It allows you to see hidden
fresh opportunities and imminent threats.
But no one can permanently reside in slumber land, at least
not when you have not bid this world goodbye for good. And again, one of the golden rules
in the adult guide book cautions against leaving in a dream. So whether the
dream was the sweet kind or the freaky ones you have to kick the blanket and step
out of slumber land to make the good ones come true and slay the dragons in the
scary ones; while wide awake!
Don’t slumber for too long, stay awake!
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