Take your time on this

Best friends become that for tiny things they don't even realise. My best friend always knows how to make me rethink life and decisions.

Anyway she shared this with me and I think it'd be good for you all to take time off and read it. never know it might inspire you for greatness ( because you all have inbuilt greatness)

XxX
Kui


...a great reminder when you don't feel like going on....it's by Ishmael Osekre...wonderful wonderful wonderful poet. enjoy!


Once upon a 2:30am

Its 2:30am, sun and moon have exchanged places in the skies, but I am still in the library; writing a paper I do not have to present tomorrow. Sleep has embraced the world around me in a city that doesn't sleep but, my eyes refuse to close and my mind insists on staying awake. Ideas are running through my mind at a pace faster than my fingers can move to write. It is not the first time and it doesn't feel like it will be the last.

I stop to ask myself why I am up at 2:30am in the morning, writing a paper I do not have to present tomorrow. I try to find reasons why I am up at this time of the night, but I find none. I think of my bed and I remember it is comfortable. I think of the air conditioner and I find nothing wrong with it. I think of coffee but I have not drunk coffee. I think of my room mate but he is quietly asleep.

I spend the rest of the time between my thoughts and my paper, like the pendulum swings, trying to make an argument on my writing paper at the same time, hoping to find answers to what is making me stronger than myself.

While writing on my paper about roots and wings; about why if my roots do not teach me, my wings will never know and why I amongst other things, I can never forget my roots and wings that have brought me here, I feel my words gain momentum and my sentences illuminate with color. In worlds of thoughts, amidst shapes and forms of imagery, I discover "it".

I discover why I am up at 2:30am in the morning, writing a paper I do not have to present tomorrow. I discover why sleep has embraced the world around me in a city that doesn't sleep but my eyes refuse to close. In an instance, in fractions of seconds I discover at the table I sit to write my paper that, I represent more than myself. I discover at the only illuminated table of the night in the library that, I represent the countless number of people who have added to roots that hold me in the rocks whose inspiration have given me wings to fly.

I represent those values which informed me that, "hard work breaks no bones," when I was growing up in Kokomlemle in Accra. I represent the advice to be better, the motivation to be stronger, the caution of knocks, and the ancestral proverbial wisdom that was imparted whether I was ready or not. I represent those I did business with on the streets in Accra when I carried cold water in plastic bags. It was a short experience, but an always to be remembered enterprise.

I represent my junior secondary school teacher Mr. Nyaonu, whose name I will not always remember but whose advice I will not forget. He took me outside the classroom one fine day and told me, "When people are meant to be exceptional, sometimes, their qualities are detected when they are young'' and he said, "You will be an exceptional one in the future."

I represent the young men of Kokomlemle who I grew up with. I represent those young men I left behind at home, who I helped to do homework and took inspiration from me and those adults whose words of advice were most crucial when I needed to be talked to as a child; they confirm the African saying that, "It takes a village to raise a child."

Its 2:30am, sun and moon have exchanged places in the skies, but I am still in the library; writing a paper I do not have to present tomorrow. The hunger that has kept me up will not cease; the hunger that I feel will not be satiated by food and water. As I write my paper, I am reminded that, I represent more than myself. I represent women who trade their property for their children to receive an education they did not have: my mother. I represent "Rabbi" the priest who refused to sack me home for fees and allowed me to go through high school for those debt stacked final years uninterrupted until my fees were paid later. He gave me the chance.

I represent Ms. C.S. Acheampong who must always be mentioned in the hall of fame of teachers/mothers who gave their students the best mentoring at the high school level. She took my first poems and essays and helped me find legs for words to walk on.

I represent Kojo Oppong Adjei, the radio DJ/programme director of Sunny fm in Ghana who discovered me at the University of Ghana, Legon, he negotiated an air time and a salary for me to have my first media experience on radio without prior training or expertise and insisted I went to school to gain tertiary education because he saw a lot more in me than I saw in myself. Kojo believed in me.

As I sit at this table to write, I represent Demay Ackah -Yensu the lady who spotted me at the British Council and made me a weekly guest amongst other guests she hosted on the book review segment on Metro TV in Accra. I will not forget her last words to me that, "I am a gem" before I left home for the US.

I represent Mr. Tom Pigmann who told me during my first month in the US that, "Osekre, I know your spirit will grow to fill up the places of New York." A motivation which drove me to successfully audition at the Apollo theatre, to get a spot on a community based station on Wall Street and to successfully host a poetry event at the Bowery poetry club in New York.
I represent those generations unborn whose lives will meet mine and whose ability to see further will depend on the shoulders that support my arm. I must not disappoint them. I represent the many more whose stories I can't tell but will never forget.

Sweet inspiration has embraced me on this quiet night of sweet encounters. I feel wisdom cooks the pots and inspiration feeds my thoughts and imagination spreads itself through my faculties. At one point I am contemplating truth, at the other, I am imbibing it. At one point I am taking leaps, at the other, I am making flights with invisible wings.

It is the year 2005, and I am at the threshold of a remarkable educational experience. An experience that has its challenges and its glories both of which I am willing to embrace.