Just Water the Plants: This Post Is not About Plants

 

I've always thought of myself as someone with a black thumb, despite my family's farmer roots, I feared I couldn't keep a single plant alive.

This was supported by my various attempts to keep plants in a pot and also when I had an actual garden. I basically employed a gardener so I wouldn't kill everything. 

Now I have a few plants in pots on my balcony and one day, I woke up (after three-fifths of them had died) and resolved that I would do better when it came to tending to them.

I put an alarm on my phone to remember to water my plants.

That was it.

Just water the plants. Regularly.

I didn't always follow through even with an alarm. But I did find that with watering going from zero times to maybe even once a week, I was reversing the rapid decline of my balcony garden. I went to Diani for one week and made my son promise to water them every day.

He did.

And the plants that were left were flourishing.

Let's backtrack a bit.

So life has been hard right? Internally and externally. Shit has just been hitting the fan so much lately. So much so that I've even seen fit to overlook my feud with 'God' and started well...praying. 

Do you experience God?

That's not an original quote from me. It's from Children of God by Maria Doria Russell. Or maybe it's The Sparrow. Father Emilio Sandoz asks his caretaker that question. 

It wasn't a happy thing for him - to experience God. Clair Fraser from Outlander also experienced God. She called it having a moment of Grace. 

I did too. 

For me, it's been different. Usually, I get these...moments of Grace...in times of extreme stress when I don't know how to proceed. They could come in terms of a revelation, or some person telling me something that answers a question I've been pondering. It's all very...existential.

Anyway, it had gone away for a few years but once I started praying well, it came back. I look at it this way, I opened myself up to the possibility of receiving these messages again and the universe resumed talking to me.

So there I was, seeing those seeds sprouting green and healthy and I went huh, all they needed was constant watering.

Maybe I don't have a black thumb. Maybe...I've just been neglectful in the past.

So I'm trying this new/old thing where I'm watering my plants.

Well...I am actually watering my plants and they thriving thank you very much. But it was also a metaphor for many other things in my life.

My son.

He's been having a hard time of it and I was at a loss as to how to help him or even if I should. Think Eagles and their babies - should I drop him out of the nest and just see if he'll fly or...what? And I worried that maybe I took it for granted that he would be okay, that he'd figure it out, that he didn't need me. Then I worried that I was being a helicopter parent and he'd never learn to stand on his own two feet if I was there to solve all his problems for him.

Parenting is super hard guys.

Water the plants.

So I tried to do that. To be present, available if he called upon me, to provide positive reinforcement and trust that he would do the rest. 

It's hard to trust guys. Phew. It's so hard.

But that's where I am with that.

It's a constant battle but we move. 

My health.

Being in my forties, I don't know if my health is deteriorating or if this is just normal wear and tear. Anyway, at the moment, I have very high inflammation in my body and still searching for a cause. I'm also trying to get rid of the excess weight in my belly. 

It's a frustrating journey for lil old inconsistent me. But I'm trying to be consistent in 'watering these plants' which means doing some sort of workout as many days of the week that I can. I use Justin Agustin's site which has very gentle exercises which don't make you feel like literally dying when you think about doing them.

A great side effect is that when my son finds me working out, it motivates him to go to the gym and achieve one of his own goals. Going back to being a parent; the exercises I do are very gentle, but the way he sees it is that I am effortless in doing difficult exercises. I'm just like..." When will that pedestal you put me on sometimes, develop feet of clay?"

It's great guys. It's great. wonderful. 

So I'm taking my meds, seeing the doc when I'm supposed to, and making sure to work out regularly. We await the results. 

Water your plants...consistently. 

I'm failing to do that with my work though. I can't seem to keep a deadline to save my life these days. Twitter is a huge culprit. I spend too much time on there. It's an addiction at this point. But I'm trying to use the Focus app on my laptop and just trying. 

Of course, I know there's more than Twitter to blame here. I might be burnt out. The worry about everything else in my life isn't helping. Neither is the less than optimum health. So I know that once I've gotten those other things nailed, my work output will improve and my bruxism will disappear. 

We hope.

Sometimes even when you water the plants consistently, birds come and eat them, or slugs, or they get a disease...life happens.

So do your part and then leave it all to...God? The Universe? Everything? Whatever higher power you believe in. Just make sure you leave it all on the floor, no regrets.

If the plant still dies, at least you know you did everything that you could.

Rinse, Repeat or Resolve?

 Do you sometimes feel like a hamster on a wheel, constantly running at the same spot? I wonder to myself, does the hamster mind not moving? Do they know they're not moving or are they thinking that they're going somewhere?

Unfortunately for my own morbid mentality, I don't only wonder this about hamsters, but also people. Do you feel like sometimes we just do the same thing over and over, and expect a different result? 

Yes, we'll vote for the criminal who wants to be president to escape the ICC but this time, it'll be different.

Yes, we'll go to the streets and riot because a cop shot another black man and this time, they'll listen.

Yes, I'll mix my drinks and get falling down drunk again; it's different than all those other times because I'm doing it socially, I haven't seen people in ages. I'm just celebrating.

Just one more soda then I'll stop drinking them. I'll only drink water from tomorrow.

And around and around we go.

Wouldn't it be better to just acknowledge that we're going to stay in the spot we're in, forever? No ifs or buts just, 'this isn't working'. 

 Thus leaving you free to scrap it and find a plan b or...live with it.

I've come to terms with the fact that I will probably never stop drinking sodas completely. I might go long periods of time where I manage to avoid them but sooner or later, I'll probably find myself chugging a Fanta. 

Sorry Jared Padalecki. 

(Yeah okay so context: Mr Padalecki is part owner of GoMantra Labs and as part of their marketing, he's been encouraging us to stretch, drink water and sleep for at least 6-8 hours a night. So I happened to reply to him when he asked us how we were doing with the water drinking and I said I'm still drinking soda in addition to water. And he said I should try to stop. I told him I would try.)

One thing I've realized about myself is that locking myself into a routine is tantamount to shackles on my wrists, in my mind. So I watch y'all videos where you have a whole thing that you do when you wake up from face masks, under-eye lotion, teeth shining, makeup etc, and I'm like dude...I will commit to brushing my teeth morning and evening and showering every evening. That's it. 

The rest is too much.

I just don't care enough about how the world sees me or whatever.

I do want to live healthy, free of pain and disease and have a long life. These are actual desires of mine and so I will go out of my way to achieve these things. If I look at drinking water not as something I have to do but as a way for me to have more energy and be more healthy, I drink more. However, Fanta is still addictive. Especially Kenyan Fanta and sometimes my body just wants that sugar (and sometimes it doesn't). So I'll drink my soda guilt-free because I've let go of "I'm not supposed."

That's my solution to the issue of drop soda, drink water. I'm gonna drink soda, drink water, not feel guilty and go about my day. 

Three questions to ask yourself:

Am I deliberately hurting anyone?

Am I hurting myself?

Is it anyone's business but my own?

Once you know the answers to these questions you shall find peace.

It's an Ill Wind

It's been an eventful two weeks for me personally and the world in general. Nipsey Hussle was gunned down and as a result the good works that he has done have elevated him to an icon. (I was gonna make a pun about an icon (not) living but it's too soon, right?)
Anyway, so first thing I learned that I didn't know before is that he was Eritrean-American. And of course my extremely biased ass was like, "Hmm, that explains it."

And when I say it explains "It" I'm not trying to perpetuate the narrative that Africans are better than African Americans that somehow proliferates on twitter - and I think is a product of the same insecurity I am about to talk about - I simply mean that it makes a difference when you know who you are.
I'm not just pulling facts out of my ass you know? According to his bio, when he went to Eritrea, he came back a changed man; because he went home. Where he wasn't less than or different or to be feared. He was just one of the whole. He stepped his feet in the soil of his homeland, and he looked around and probably thought, "Oh, so that's where I get that." or  "Damn, these people actually feel invested in their own well-being and development from the highest level of government."
It gave me a glimpse maybe of why so many disenfranchised join gangs. It's because gangs are their governments, their structure of society. Gangs are the thing which are supposed to ensure their well-being and development. If you don't belong in a gang, you're out here alone and the biggest gang in the world - the police - has a target on your back.
It sounds so dramatic and yet it's people's daily reality.

Imagine a man dying bringing so much understanding to some random human miles and miles away from them. Isn't that amazing?
When Lauren London's kid said at the funeral that Ermias came to him in a dream and showed him paradise, I felt that, I was triggered, I remembered when my mother came to me, and my sister. When my cousin came to my sister. Always with the same subliminal message. "All is well. Be happy."

Other bad things that brought good realizations to me, personally was the death of a medical student in Eldoret, Kenya. She was coming out of the hospital where she was interning when a man who she had known since childhood and who had been stalking her, cut her with an ax.
Immediately, the Kenyan men brigade known as mafisi (hyenas) were out in full defense of the guy with all sorts of rumors like she infected him with HIV.
Now even though that is CATEGORICALLY NOT TRUE, it would not have mattered if it was because there is no excuse for murder. It just makes me so sad that that has to be stated. I personally have heard so many stories of men infecting their partners (both male and female) with HIV, knowingly, and still expecting especially the women to not only stay with them, but when they get sick, this woman is supposed to look after them.
No one sees a problem with that.

But God forbid that a woman infects a man with HIV, why, that's an absolutely legitimate excuse to murder them! I don't know what level of self-absorption this is but its super mind-blowing to me. However, there were a lot of men who pushed back and said "shut up and sit down, yes we are trash. We are trash because we immediately defend such behavior instead of condemning it."
And so for once, it was possible to separate wheat from chaff just by reading these views. I was happy to see that all the men on my twitter timeline were on the right side of history, however I need to unfriend a few people on Facebook.

My phone got stolen two days ago. Not my smartphone, the other one I use for mpesa and bank SIM. I was kind of not sad because I hated that phone but it was basically my wallet so yeah, panic. On one hand I was like, if they stole that basic phone they must really have needed either money or a phone. I don't see that they can resell it for much so I assume they really needed a phone. So I was like, godspeed to them if they do. (yes that thought boggled me with it's generosity too) but of course I immediately called customer care to block my SIM and then went to bed in despair because I knew that I would need to leave the house during the day (it's hot AF) so I could go to the bank, cancel my bank SIM, get a new SIM card and possibly a new phone. FOR ONCE, I actually had a little cash money on me, enough to get me to the bank. Which was the first great thing.
Next great thing, money had matured from a job so I was actually flush with cash. Only I could not send it to myself until 1. I got a new SIM card and/or 2. I blocked my bank SIM so that if someone was trying to break into my bank account, they would not be able to withdraw the money.
So, I actually sat at my writing desk for ten minutes, debating whether or not to carry my rather heavy laptop with me to the bank or just pray that I had enough in my account to cover the cost of everything including a new phone or...my head was going round in circles.
In the end I decided to leave it.
As I'm getting my handbag, my hand goes to the big one in which the laptop can fit and picks up the laptop and puts it in the bag.
I'm like, "Oh. So I am carrying the laptop?"

I decided that since instinct wanted to take over I was going to sit back and not try to influence any decisions. I ended up having such a smooth day. I felt so free and floaty just following my instinct on everything, no conscious thought, one thing just led to another. I ended up at the cinema watching Captain Marvel instead of Us like I've been planning to for three weeks. Imagine my delight at realizing my fave supermarket had moved into the same mall as the movie theatre.
Basically it was a capital day. And I think I'm gonna live like that from now on. No forcing things, just going with the flow. Will Smith enforced the message by talking about the conscious decision to stop being militant and let things happen when they will. I was like "Yaas brother, preach it!"
There really is always a silver lining guys. Stay woke.

Today my neighbor told me a story about a girl who committed suicide. She lives on a close by lane and had been having trouble with college. Well, when she came home and was withdrawn, her parents decided to have a pastor pray for her computer and her....
You know because obviously that is going to improve her grades.+
So by Tuesday she was not answering her phone and by Thursday her mother was worried and sent people to check on her. She had hanged herself in her dwelling.
Guys?
Can the silver lining of this story be that you cannot pray away depression? Can we internalize that? We are experiencing an epidemic of suicide because we don't take depression seriously.
As a result of this story of course I called my son right away to make sure he's still depression-free and he gave me an update on a girl friend of his who had threatened suicide last week because her boyfriend was not willing to take responsibility for her pregnancy. While he hasn't set eyes on her  for a few days he says he's sure she's still alive because she moved in with said boyfriend. So he's still coming to college...but she's not. I'm betting her parents don't know squat.
So the silver lining for this part of the story is; be present in your children's lives please whether they are living in your house or not. So many parents have no clue about the inner life of their children.

I Got Fired Today

To me processing my emotions is like having my eyes tested. You know at the optician's when they put those giant metal glasses over your eye and tell you to read the letters on the board? And you're squinting, trying to make out if that's an A or a D? That's me when I experience an emotion. I have to squint at it from a distant and try to make out exactly what I'm feeling.

That's what I did this morning when I got a very polite notice from one of my new jobs that they'd decided to let me go. How did I feel about it? Was I surprised? Sad? Relieved? Disappointed? All of the above? I'm not sure yet; still squinting.
See about mid-July, I got all these new gigs falling into my lap at the same time. Which was a relief to be honest because it's always better to have too many than too few. But of course, it's stressful too because you're not only concerned about meeting deadlines but remembering which deadline is which.
So this job that let me go had one of the tightest deadlines and I literally shifted everything around so I could work on it and meet the deadline. The client had a very elaborate outline which nevertheless managed to be quite vague on specifics. Lots of 'they should kiss but no intimate sex' and then 'he says from his point of view and she says from hers' and 'she discovered she's not pregnant' (what? when did they have sex?).
Anyway, so I'm writing. I'm writing. I'm writing...

I send in the first draft and the client is concerned that I'm halfway through and some things haven't happened yet. And she gives me more paragraphs that had things such as
scene
scene
scene
as instructions. (I kid you not).
Well, me wanting to do the best job I can for her, I ask her to please elaborate, maybe in point form so that I can really hone in on the problem. In short, find out what the problem is. I get no reply until 2 hours to the deadline when the project manager asks me to hold off on the project.
I mean, wow. Nine sleepless nights later man...
About a week later after I asked what was going on, the project manager informs me that they decided to let me go.
So you see why I don't know how to feel about it.
Well, being the person I am, I asked for the feedback that got me so summarily dismissed because I always have to know the why of things.
I ask too many questions.
I think that was partly the issue.
Well, according to the client, I was correcting her on her feedback and generally costing her time and money. She didn't see why I couldn't just figure it out instead of asking for more clarification. She felt strongly that I was the problem.
Fair enough.
Once I read that, I understood the problem and I politely asked the project manager to convey my apologies to the client for making her feel corrected and wished them all well.
I'm...I don't know.
Most of me has already moved on but the part of me that always needs answers wants to know how I feel about the whole thing and how I will incorporate this experience in my future endeavors.

It's weird because just after I got that dismissal, one of my other employers sent me a new project. Sometimes I watch my life from afar and try to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me that day.
I think what I'm getting is that in order for you, as an employer, to get the best work out of your employee or vice versa, honesty is key. When I read the client feedback, it was rambling and all over the place. But her complaining email about me to my project manager was clear and succinct, easy to understand. She felt more comfortable expressing herself behind my back than she did, telling me to my face what she needed.
Unfortunately, this is a very common phenomenon in the workplace and I am writing a memoir for someone who experienced the very same thing on a grander scale. It's a very immature attitude I find and one of the things that continue to shock me as an adult. When I was a child, I thought that being grown came with automatic maturity and even after twenty years of adulting, it still blindsides me that this isn't the case.

I think it comes from a place of not being able to give or take honest critique. Many people find it hard to hear the truth and they also, therefore, cannot speak it. And when I say the truth, I'm not talking about being mean. People confuse mean and honest, rude and honest.
Saying things like, "Gosh your books sucks so hard," might be the truth but is also intended to hurt. Contrast with, "Hey I didn't like your book because of A, B and C." that is a critique that is not only honest but also helps the writer to improve. It's genuine, coming from a good place rather than simply immature and mean.
So when I say, 'give an honest critique' I am talking about the latter, not the former and only in 2018 is it necessary to explain honesty.
So I think what I have learned today is, I feel...acceptance of what has happened.
That if I look at myself critically, knowing who I am and how I operate the answer to 'What would you have done differently?' is absolutely nothing. And that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes you're just a bad fit. Instead of trying to squeeze yourself into a space that is not meant for you, better to move on to find the space that is waiting for you.
Life is too short for bullshit people. Keep it moving.

Halt!
I have to a few announcements:
There are two group giveaways taking place on instafreebie this month in which I am participating.
 Summer August Hot Books featuring Child of Destiny and 224 other books and
Other Worldly Creatures - The Craved Fantasy Giveaway featuring In the Shadow of the Styx and 46 other books.
Read, enjoy and for the love of Mike, review, sign up for newsletters and spread the word.
Love you big time.
Happy Sunday!