I sit in mother Warm with sounds of life Surrounding me. It’s noisy and peaceful with nature Green and brown and blue Cloudy and cool from rain. The sinewy sweet threads of mangoes Tangled and stuck in my teeth The dripping syrup of mango Coating my tongue Ravenous for the sugar Of life And adventure. Memories of the honey laughter of familiar souls Mind sticky with the joy that has quenched My searching heart. I swallow Reminding myself to breathe and savour the sweet mango moment Of home To let it settle and nourish me To the bone.
Hunger and thirst Inevitable again They loom on the edges of… And time winds And I search for that fruit Again That I can’t always recall Yet know so keenly Longing for that soft warm embrace Of home
I have recently, and serendipitously, encountered a YouTube video of Audre Lorde reading her essay Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power and it uncovered something in me that I knew inherently but had began to forget. I recently left a company that I was at for four years. My experience there left me changed. When I reflect on the erotic as Lorde, Perell, Ayandastood and other thought leaders describe it—which is an “aliveness”— and how shows up in my life, it feels like that moment when you’ve been contorting your body to try and find that sweet spot of stretch. What I meant to say is that I realise I have been having a deadening experience. It has been some months since I left and I am returning to my self. I am feeling inspired again, and not just inspired, there has been action after inspiration. I am returning to my deep and livening love of learning, of consuming knowledge. I feel as though I am opening my eyes again for the first time and I am seeing bright vibrant colours, seeing not just sunlight, but the magical stream of light that is choosing to take rest on my deep brown skin, light that is nourishing the green of grass. I am seeing the way the water glimmers and because I live in the UK, I am guzzling the brief moments of sun like you drink water on a hot summer’s day, desperately. Passionately.
“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” —James Baldwin
So in 2025, I am committing– taking a vow– marrying myself to embodying “aliveness” in my relationships, in my work, in my hobbies, in my habits, in my clothes, in what I consume on social media, in what I eat, in the way I spend my time. I chose to live, in the only way I know how, kindly, messily, quietly then loudly, truly.
I did a grounding yoga today, and I felt steady. I was sat on my bed, sun streaming in as I languidly moisturised my legs. When I sat up and looked out of the window, which is often slightly ajar, I could hear the distant sound of a jackhammer, and I was transported to the sunny afternoons of my early childhood.
I have this one particular memory, though sometimes I wonder if it’s a dream or a string of random moments and feelings stitched together in my mind and produced to me as a memory. Anyway, it’s fuzzy, but there are two women: the first I cannot remember; the second is my grandmother, slim but firm and dark, sat on the veranda that surrounds our family home.
My younger brother and I have been playing in the sun, with other kids, I think, but I’m not sure. We’ve also had lunch, probably something with matooke. My grandmother is trying to corral us for naps, but we are resisting because, of course, we don’t need naps—we are grown and want to play. I remember a few moments before I succumbed to sleep, with my eyelids heavy and opening slower with each blink, thinking, I’m so tired.
When I think back, I remember a fuzzy, warm stillness, where all that mattered—all that existed—was that moment because there was nothing else. Completely calm, entirely safe, and loved. I was younger than seven.
I am the child who spilled milk Paralysed as the white consumes the ground beneath Seeping into the cracks of the floor Quenching dry wood Lost in the thick and brown.
I am the child who spilled milk Looking up Looking for mother as tears leak from my eyes My stomach churns with guilt and fear and glee.
I am the milk that is spilled Messy and un-contained Refusing to remain within The constraints of those chambers.
I am the spilled and spoiled Ruined by sealed lips and too much Space And too little room.
I am the milk Cherished and separate. Whole and alone And wanting Mother.
The breakup of a friendship for me feels something like a potato peel to the heart. You’re left astounded about how certain you were of its permanence just yesterday. But I think the unveiled truth of adulthood is that change is certain, both a comforting and completely frightening concept. 2021 forced me to once again face this idea of permanence, to be grateful for the beautiful experience that friendships are, even when they change into something else. The joy of life is our connections with others and the value those add to our short and fleeting lives. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful for every encounter I’ve had with every person I’ve had the opportunity to meet, for it’s forged this version of me. The version of me that knows that change is always coming, but slowly learning not to be afraid of it, and to know that in my lows, these are not permanent, nothing is. And that’s ok.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”
It was the 58th anniversary of Uganda’s Independence recently and naturally, I was reflecting on what that means for me and for Uganda. I was trying to figure out how I could celebrate as someone in the diaspora both in a meaningful and in a fun way, (because 2020 will not come and kill me). The fun of it was the easy bit, but my spirit didn’t feel settled with that one dimension alone. Previously, I battled with this particular intersection of my identity. Was I Ugandan enough if I spoke broken Luganda? Was I Ugandan enough if I didn’t know Ugandan history? What did it even mean to be Ugandan? The person I was—am, someone whose ideas around respectability politics, gender roles, sexuality, femininity and so on, differed from my understanding of general Ugandan society, was there even a space for me? Although I yearned to embrace Uganda, would it embrace me back?
At present, I have become much more comfortable with my identity. I am who I am and no one can take that away from me. However, as we have painfully learned, healing and growth is rarely linear. Sometimes, I remember some of the ways I used to bully myself in my childhood, wanting to assimilate in a culture that would only accept me if I skinned myself, or believed that whiteness was better, that learning a skewed version of the Slave Trade was all I needed to know of Black history, and that any resulting anxiety was because I was wrong and would never be what is right. So, with the celebration of the independence from British colonial rule (at least in the physical sense), what does this mean for me? As I write this, I think perhaps it’s simply a celebration of myself, as a Ugandan girl in the diaspora, who doesn’t speak Luganda fluently, who is still learning Ugandan history, who is still trying to find her space in the diasporic Ugandan society. A celebration of reclaiming a part of my identity that was muddied by internalised anti-blackness, colonial thought and white supremacist education.
The question of who one is, is something I imagine is explored for the duration of one’s life. So, although events in my life have forced me to come face to face with myself, and hold myself tightly, despite my own struggling, now is the clearest I’ve ever seen me. Therefore, from the 58th Independence Day, I celebrate the independence of me and of Uganda. I celebrate continuing to stitch who I am back together and loving the scars left behind.
“it is being honest about my pain that makes me invincible. – yield”
As the food preparations for our little picnic were under-go, I scoured YouTube hoping to find the perfect upbeat playlist to mark the occasion, while I moaned about how ridiculous it was that there wasn’t a Spotify app on the TV. Around me, the warm air blew in the smell of the sun as one of my friends assembled a cheese board and the other, poorly sliced tomatoes. We set up a beautiful spread of cheeses, grapes, crackers, salad, corn, coleslaw, hot dogs topped with cooked aromatic onions all enjoyed with mimosas. With my friends’ laughter laced with mild intoxication from the Prosecco, I couldn’t help but be grateful. Grateful for my friends, the food, the weather, my pleasant mood, the front garden we sat in, the occasional bees that caused us to yelp, the sun, our lives and that moment. Things could be a lot worse.
Lately, I’ve began incorporating gratefulness as a form of humility and as a way to remember to slow down when my mind begins to race, and my breath quickens. I recognise how grateful I am to be where I am, to have the things I have and to have accomplished the things I’ve done. Recently, I finished my final year of my undergraduate degree and amongst a sea of other emotions, I was mostly relieved. University is no small feat and it is far more than walls that make a building. It’s making it through trying to figure out who you are, trying to understand society, realising the rest of your life is beginning and trying not to have a premature existential crisis but failing…often. Making it through university is sometimes letting go of the expectations you had of yourself, people and things, and if you do the work, starting to see the world clearer. It also means removing the rose-tinted glasses that childhood innocence often affords you or realising that despite a shitty childhood and adolescence you can choose to be different. Sometimes, it’s realising that university isn’t for you and choosing a different path. So, I am relieved and although none of the things university forced me to endure have subsided, I am starting to find an equilibrium. Despite corona virus being thrown into the mix with racism, I am here…post university, mid pandemic, pre-career and I’m learning.
THE EVOLVING KIND 