Issue #27: Hi, It Has Been A While, Hasn't It?
It has been a while since I last wrote to you, hasn’t it? It has been fortynine days since the last time I penned down my thoughts. It doesn’t feel that long, though. It feels...
Hello friend,
It has been a while since I last wrote to you, hasn’t it? It has been forty-nine days since the last time I penned down my thoughts. It doesn’t feel that long, though. It feels to me like it has only been three weeks. Time flies when you’re having fun, they say. I wish I could tell you I missed writing but I did not. I had the summer of my life. I said yes to event invites I hitherto would have declined. I had a blast. Summer is over now, though, and the boisterousness of the season has been replaced with the sombreness of autumn. With that sombreness comes a disinclination to leave the house for virtually everything, which means more time to finish the pile of work I unashamedly ignored during summer. Before I tell you some of my autumn/winter plans, how about I regale you with tales about what I got up to during the summer months?
Here’s something you should know about me. I am very comfortable in social situations and can hold my own; I enjoy spending time with people, but I prefer my own company more often than not. I also like to travel solo. Only two of the over thirty countries I’ve visited were done with a group of people; the rest were solo trips. I choose solo trips because I have found that it is challenging to coordinate a group trip. People have different preferences and temperaments, which often cause clashes during group trips. Conflicts are normal and expected sometimes, but I’d rather not pay for a trip and have the experience tainted by pesky quarrels. It’s why I declined a few group trips I was invited to join, so I surprised myself when I didn’t hesitate to accept an invite to join a lovely group of nine people on a staycation to Birmingham. I was sceptical at first because I only knew two people in the group, but I had the time of my life, and I was thrilled I agreed to go. We went shortly after the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, so the excitement and energy of the games still hung over the city like a thick fog. I must confess that I was a bit shocked at how lively the city was. I sometimes wear the hubristic lens of someone who has lived in London for a long time, expecting every other city in the country to be some quiet backwater. I was quickly reminded of Birmingham’s status as the UK’s second-largest city and its rich history. Luckily, the people were warm and calm and pardoned by haughtiness. All told, I had a fantastic time in the Midlands, and that trip has made me more open-minded about group trips. I will definitely plan some and accept more group travel invites.
A day after returning from Birmingham, I departed one noisy city, London, for another, Lagos. After a two-year hiatus, I visited Nigeria for my dad’s 60th birthday. It was a short trip, so I had prepared myself to be stressed. Before COVID precluded us from travelling, I visited Nigeria at least once a year. I’d go home, see my parents and notice faint signs of ageing. It was what it was. My mom came to pick me up at the airport this time, and I was overjoyed when I hugged her and smelled the sweet scent of her shampoo. We were locked in an embrace for what felt like forever; when I pulled back and held her to look at her face, I noticed that the grooves of age had been carved deeper into her face. There were more wrinkles around her eyes than I remembered when she beamed at me. Two years is a long time not to see someone, and she has aged a bit in that time. Ageing is a natural process, but it fills me with trepidation, especially when I see its effects on my parents. It reminds me that their time with me is ever-shrinking, so I must make the most of it. Anyway, after the airport, my mom took me to a restaurant to eat some of the best amala of my life. You may know that I grew up in Abeokuta and that my family still lives there, so naturally, my dad’s birthday celebration was held there. I took the train from Lagos to Ibadan via Abeokuta and was impressed by how clean and efficient the service was. I got to Abeokuta in under two hours. The only complaint I had was the slow speed of the trains, but I was informed that it will change once the lines are entirely constructed.
The birthday celebration was a success, and the old man was happy. I was happier to see extended family members, many of whom I hadn’t seen in a decade. During the afterparty, where people were euphoric from consuming alcohol, a close cousin and I bemoaned how emigration has made it harder for us, the younger generation, to assemble and celebrate with family as often as our parents and grandparents did when we were kids. We both recognised what a tragedy that was and how painful alienation is.
I am not boring you now, am I, friend? You are still reading, are you? I asked because I have one more tale to tell you, and it is the one I am most proud of. A few weeks after returning from my trip to Nigeria, I finally did the London-Brighton charity cycle trip I had trained for for months. I raised £465 for Crisis UK towards their work to tackle homelessness and did the arduous 89.4km route in 4 hours and 13 minutes. Words cannot describe how immensely proud of myself I was when I crossed the finish line. I enjoyed it so much that I am already planning my next long cycle trip.
Now that I have regaled you with stories of how I spent my summer, I suppose you’re now wondering how I intend to spend the colder months. The truth is that I don’t want to stay in the UK during winter, so I have a few trips to warmer countries lined up. Before those trips, though, I will cycle more, write the pending code for the two products I have been working on, write more articles for this newsletter, and try my hands at writing short stories. I have been meaning to write short stories for the longest time, and I think I now have my first idea. You will receive it in this newsletter when it’s done.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope to write to you again soon.
The social preview image that is shown when this post is shared was generated using Stable Diffusion, and the prompt was “A writer writing behind a shelf of books in a dimly lit room with candles”