The ABCs Of Last Saturday

So because I do not shed tears anymore when the world slaps me in the face, I regard myself a warrior. I am somebody’s mother now and so, naturally, a superhero; the lie I keep telling myself. In some of my dreams as a superhero, I have worn capes and flown with one of my arms, its fingers folded into a fist, pointed at the sky and gracefully reaching for the clouds. In those dreams I have fought cloud monsters, one of them a strong-looking gorilla with huge muscles, arms like those of a robot - the ones with hinges and visible joints - hind legs like a lion’s and a definite hairline. In another, I have fought one monster cat with numerous tails made of teeny tiny rock pebbles burning in flames, a grossly huge cat with a spooky and disgusting face. I have fought the monsters with just one look from my eyes and made them fade into oblivion. Such have been my weird dreams that perhaps do not translate well into reality.

“Hello Annie, good morning. We’re all set for the class today. See you at 9?”

“Good morning too Vera, yea sure thing.”

Such are the kinds of conversations I currently have in my inbox every Saturday morning and where my light of the day begin. I have become deeply connected with the situation that every Saturday morning when I wake up, I can almost feel the fresh smell of books and envision one of them with my name on it as the author.

Another Saturday and just like the rest, this one is special and relieving. Not relieving in the usual kind of way that defines ‘a sluggish mood’. My current type of Saturdays do not involve the norm of waking up past 10am, gargling my mouth wash and downing the morsels of the previous night. My current Saturdays do not allow me to cover myself in the couch with my unwashed body, watching movies and napping all day. They do not allow me go out on those blind dates that I can only be available for on Saturday afternoons because apparently, it is not secure hanging out with a stranger in the dark hours of the night. Currently, my Saturdays do not entertain the thoughts of leo ni kurelax na kujiachilia and they do not respond to kuna fom kali leo either.

My Saturdays have become totally different from the others before. I get up with the birds and trod the path where for long I have always wanted to be. The path where I had dedicated my weekdays and not at all my weekends. The path that leads me to waking up early in the morning and leaving the house with an empty stomach. That does not sound interesting at all but it is the path I would rather tread, the place I would rather be at and the path that gives a definite meaning to my whole weekend.

This one Saturday, however, is marked with uncertainties and it seems like my path is dwindling and heading me to the wrong direction. Okay, it is not like waking up early in the morning is becoming a problem so if in case that is where your thoughts are leading you, dismiss them, ha-ha. I actually wake up earlier than usual, do my morning routine of prayers and exercise and I even make breakfast! To give my nanny an easy time when she comes but does she come? Trouble begins when Ma Sarah, my baby’s nanny gives me an I-cannot-make-it excuse and my head starts spinning, literally. Why would she even do that when I had even offered to tip her off!?

“Hey Vera, I’m just about to leave the house so I call my nanny if she’s still coming the way we’d agreed last evening and guess what…?”

Yes, she does what they usually do when you need them the most, she bails on me! I needed her and she knew it and then she waits for me to call and tells me she cannot make it! She should have at least let me known about her predicaments earlier, that could have been better but still it could not have dismissed the fact that I still wanted to curse and slap my madness on her- for the record, I did not, that woman is practically raising my son and I do not think a curse can help with that- Our conversation goes something like this, where I can only pick bits from the long statements she records from the other side.

“Hello, Ma Sarah, umefika wapi? Naondoka already.

“Aki Annie pole sana lakini siwezi kuja tena…Sabbath…watoto…mbali. Pole mum.

“But we talked about it yesterday, shida iko wapi tena?

“I wish ningeweza kukusaidia lakini…”

“Ni sawa tu, hakuna shida, nitajisort.

The last statement has got totally nothing to do with the situation am in by the way, nothing is okay. it was just so I could get her off my back. I get irritated and hang up to save myself from listening to her chronologically placed excuses and the agony of listening to her forced depressed voice. So it is at this point that I decide to send a text message to one of my moderators, Vera, to at least let her know of my perceived absence from the class,wishing my sisters would have chosen a better day to go out.

“What do I do Vera, I do not want to miss today’s class for anything.”

As I await Vera’s response, I struggle with the thoughts of tagging  my son along or leaving him behind with the neighbors. The latter thought though does not go well because neighbors in the city like to mind their own business and that makes ‘the nyumba kuma initiative’ thing quite a hard nut to crack. My neighbors are too reserved and getting to know even your next door neighbor is quite a hustle but the few I have gotten to acquain also are not very suitable for a chil care so I am left only with one option, which is also a hurdle.

As hard as it already is, I decide to toughen my skin and wake my baby up to face the chilly weather but I am so broken when I see his gentle cute face with his eyes closed so peacefully. Today is the day he is supposed to be resting fully from the early morning wakie wakies of school time and I was about to ruin it. It seems like he is having a moment of his life and he is probably dreaming of a very heavenly venture in baby land. As if that is not enough, he had attracted a cold some few days back and the cold weather I was about to expose him to was not making me feel good as a mother so I decide not to disturb him.

Vera has not responded yet and I decide my Saturday is as good as ruined, without thinking twice, I remove the clothes I had dressed up in for the day and get back into my night gown. I bend down to tie a knot on the lower edge of the gown to make it less restrictive and For some reason, which I pin on anger, while getting back up, one of the underarms of the gown get stuck at the door knob and it tears into a rugged look. The gown is an old one and it had recently started to wear out. I had assumed the cries and the signs it gave every time I wrapped it around my body. First off, it had lost the only button it had, its color had faded from a beautiful shade of tan to some funny color I cannot describe and now it was tearing into rags little by little. It was not womanly anymore and my mum had formed a distasteful attitude towards it but I still insisted that it was my best night wear and I was not ready to let go of it.

My night gown was not the issue and it wearing out was not helping the situation either. This was to be one of my favorite days but I was already envisioning a failure. I was about to experience a breakdown. My mind was filled with a lot of thoughts, trailing from why, how and who. I was beginning to fuss over everything, I even imagined that I was not meant to go through the Saturday trainings because of my position as a mother and this was a major sign of that superstition. With my night gown now on, I jump back into bed, kiss my baby’s forehead and decide we are staying indoors today and doing whatever I do best.

I needed to relax but I could not. Oh dear! Where is the lemonade when you need it? Where are the hands of God when you need a revelation? With no one else in the house except for us two, I begin to feel like I cannot face the day anymore so I draw back the curtains in the living room, which I had earlier allowed the morning dawn to shine through and lay back in bed, waiting for Vera’s response which is now taking forever. Then I allow my mind to wander through the ‘what ifs’. What if I decide to throw caution to the wind and expose my son to the weather? After all, it is necessary and pessimism is not what I require at this moment. What if…

The proceeding ‘what if’ is not given much attention because Vera’s text message comes ringing in. She tries her best to offer a solution and so she begins to sound like a psychologist, asking me if I can think of a solution before she gives her ideas. I feel prompted to come up with something but...you know. She then gives me the idea of tagging my son along but then that has already been exhausted and there is no going back to it and so I wait for a different idea to form in my head. My phone rings but this time it is Gabriel, who convinces me so well that I have to tag my baby along for the classes and even offers to pay for my cab, a  very good sign that God works in mysterious ways. Without further ado, I convince myself that nothing worse can happen so I pull myself together and start whispering good morning greetings into my son's ears.


The next thing I know is that I am requesting a cab and climbing down the stairs to the driveway where we are now expecting the cab. In my vision I see myself flapping my cloak on one side, taking my scepter in one hand, hitting it on the ground and tightly wrapping it in my palms, stiff and erect. I take the walk of victory because now I feel like sovereignty is mine to savor. To Vera and Gabriel, you guys have been heroic and I thank you for the care you have shown me and my son.