Once too scared to speak…Now I can’t shut up

Once too scared to speak… Now I can’t shut up!

I am she who has been asked to be quiet because women are not to talk

She who’s been told she’s not that valuable.

She who never saw herself as beautiful because it did not fit into Africa’s standard of beauty.

I am Adaeze Growing up a painfully shy child, was once nicknamed “the one who does not speak” by a teacher. She held that identity for years until she finally got sick and tired of letting it stop her from living the life she wanted, and started speaking up in her life, work, and relationships.

I am Ava defying the odds. Going through surgery 7 times just to walk. Doctors confined her to a crutch until she bacame jaded of the crutch and has decided to walk one step, one move, one round at a time.

I am Tife, who’s been asked to censor what she wears so she doesn’t seduce the man and blame him for rape until she came to terms with this truth, she is… Debonair (the shit) and nothing can stop her from blooming.

I am Sarah who’s learnt the art of being quiet as a feminine attribut but she becomes a god when she sways to the sound of her beat.

I am she who’s meant to respect her elders but never to expect respect. She was once asked to lead from behind but is breaking glass ceilings for others to strut through.

I am she who was once too scared to speak, now I can’t shut up!

My Ancestors came calling

I remember when a certain bible character said: “once has He spoken, Twice have I heard…” but what do you do when your ancestors call you three times?

First, it started with a random book I picked up on the Orishas, then, it led to a random Facebook message from a certain Oluwo. Writing in Yoruba and I quote: That which you seek is within you. You cannot run away from your Orisha. You are a child of Yeye Oshun, she wants you to come home”.

Triggered but certain that this was the metaverse’s algorithm playing mind tricks on me. I hadn’t even said a word to anyone about how I had been recently curious about the goddess of the water. How could this Oluwo know, I had thought and concluded this was a scam.

Weeks later, after having one of those moments of questioning existence and seeking answers to what’s more to life and would we ever be genuinely fulfilled? I heard on knock on my door at the break of dawn, after my family’s morning devotion- it was my neighbour whom we had all believed had been possed by an unknown spirit. Cyrus was at my door. Perplexed and apprehensive.

I wasn’t one of his best friends, hence, this was confusing.

Cyrus wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He went on to explain something in the lines of the forces of the earth aren’t fully aligned because… I am water and I am running! As a goody-two-shoes church girl, I shut the conversation down before he could further explain. I wasn’t ready to associate with an unknown spirit or let it possess me. Jesus is enough. I had told myself. Albeit, I had these thoughts and imaginations of seeing Oshun or being in the water and feeling at peace. I felt a sense of people telling me, I’m could be more. But I waved it off.

The third time is a charm they say, but for me, it discombobulated me. Here I was strutting at the market like the world was my oyster until I was approached by a middle-aged lady who greeted me thus: Ore Yeye Oshun! Oshun a gbe wa o! hands-on her knee and head bowed. It was surreal. I thought I found myself by a stroke of luck on a Nigerian movie set. It had to be a joke but that was the beginning of my questioning:

Are my ancestors trying to tell me something?

Do I feel jaded because I’m walking against the path my ancestors have set?

Are we our ancestors?

Do I seem to the world as rebellious because I’m choosing a road once travelled but now forgotten?

Maybe my ancestors went through slavery so I don’t have to.

Could the Aba women’s rebellion be a reminder for me never to see myself as a taxable object, to see myself as a functioning subject full of poise, grandeur and wit- a subject with high spiritual energy? How do you put a price on her whose strength is highly spiritual? How?

Could I be manifesting memories, life skills, knowledge, fears strengths and practices of my lineage? Could the spirits of my descendant and their descendants serve as my torchbearers through life?

Could it be vaguely possible that the things I enjoy doing, the spaces I feel naturally at home and easy to me are the same spaces my ancestors had done the hard work for? Are my ancestors and would I be one someday?