My Epiphany....

I have had two "Aha!" moments these past few days...one was the realization that I am too old for games when it comes to love...they do not sit well with me...but that is another post for another day....today I will speak of things I am only now beginning to understand....

 I’ve made a change. Some people call it finding God. Yesterday I was reminded of how inaccurate it is to say that. I knew where God was all long. I just chose to ignore Him.

I have struggled with feelings of failure. I wanted to be a lot of things when I was young, things I have not managed to be. What is achievement if when you look back at your list of goals from when you were fifteen, you cannot check off half of the things you dreamed of being or doing? What is the point of being here when you look around and milestones and years have passed you by without you achieving anything close to greatness?

They say count your blessings. Sometimes that is just a shallow way of comforting yourself. I know why I am not what I wanted to be. I made bad choices, did foolish things that amounted to the longest detour of my life. There were reasons for it…disappointment, youth, lack of knowledge of self…fear of being left out, missing out, looking or seeming or sounding boring…how many things do we do that do not truly add value to our lives, in any way shape or form? I am the biggest culprit when it comes to time wasting on things that I should probably do better to ignore, e.g Twitter stalking someone who is only as relevant as I make them…people concerned will smile at that one…

We know the difference between right and wrong. We often know the difference between important and useless as well. However, Man’ propensity for foolishness and affinity for worthlessness often trumps his potential to be great. So rather than just do the right thing I will go around it and play in muddy grey instead of choosing between black and white.

It’s not an easy journey this one, I struggle with me every day…because me is selfish and lazy and quick to speak and to get angry, hold onto things, plots and schemes and hates, gossips and disappoints, lies, cheats, disobeys, is proud and ignorant a lot of the time. Me wants what me wants and no amount of reasoning will get me to see anybody else’s point but my own. But life is a beautiful journey, full of lessons and I am learning many things.

I’m learning not to talk back so much. Half the time the next person has something to say which makes way more sense than what I was gonna say anyway. I’m learning to take advice, as in REALLY take advice not just paying lip service to what I’m told. I am learning to be patient and to believe that the truth is sometimes just that; the truth. One really important thing I am learning is to listen to the heart of another person and feel what they really cannot say. I am learning that there is nothing wrong with me, that I am the way I am for a reason, for a purpose and that when I am embraced as I am in my entirety, that is when I am at my best.

I’m learning how to pray…it’s so comforting…to know that somebody bigger than me is in control of all the things I can’t handle gives me such great peace. But I was talking to a friend a few days ago and something they said really struck me. They said something to the effect that nothing hurts like the hurt you feel when you realize that you aren’t as great as you think or thought you were. That is so true…and humbling.

I am only as great as I believe I can be and even then only as great as I work at being and in my working I have to always remember that I cannot fulfill my destiny by my own power and intelligence. Jesus walks with me for a reason.

I finally know with all my heart and soul that he sees me and hears me and cares what happens to me. I finally know that when I speak he hears and that nothing that has happened to me has happened by chance. Good and evil. And I am here now because of those things and because no matter what I do his footprints in the sand are always beside mine. To get where I want to go I have to die to myself and live a life that is worthy of the greatness I hope to achieve. I have to make the right choices, listen to the right voices. When the world overwhelms me I must find my strength in retreating to that quiet place within myself where only God and my dreams live.

Today, I choose to live in black and white. If it is wrong it is wrong and there is no justification for it, no excuse. If I do it I will apologize for being wrong. But I refuse to be that girl anymore, lost and on the border between obscure and mediocre fame. I want to be somebody. And now I know that for me to be that somebody I need to draw my strength from the One who gave me life and gave me breath and placed me on this earth. I am no saint, do not misunderstand me, I am merely a vessel of clay, pliable and available to be molded and shaped  the hands of the Master Potter into whatever great and beautiful thing he wants me to be.

“Mulungu sama gona…”

Unforgettably Yours,

Miss Mahogany

When I Think About A Man...

I was asked once what I defined as a real man. My definition is not a checklist. I looked around and saw what could be seen, compared the experiences I have had and the men that I know and I think my young mind has come to an incomplete definition. I think I will only ever be able to truly answer this question when I am much older but for now….

My earliest memories of a man are those of my headmaster at Nkhwazi Primary School. His name was Mr Bowden. He was English, lived in Zambia forever and wore glasses atop his pointy nose. He had blue-grey eyes and sandy blonde hair, very thin hair, people used to say he wore a toupee. He always spoke carefully, never too loud and was always polite. My favourite memories of him are the days he read aloud to us, I will forever love the story in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” because he read it so well. I used to think that if I ever met God he would look and sound like Mr Bowden. In those years being such a little girl, if you asked me what a man was I would have said, Mr Bowden. He kept us safe, he disciplined us, and he cared about us as if we were his own little children. I will always remember him smiling. That is not to say that my other male teachers were not men but nobody was better than Mr Bowden.

At secondary school, I didn’t care, boys were annoying…somebody kissed me in the ninth grade, I absolutely hated it, vowed it would never happen again. It really was disgusting though, saliva everywhere. Men never really mattered even after that. I was surrounded by boys, cute boys who wore Theirry Mugler’s “Angel” and told me pretty lies they copied from song lyrics. A bit of this and that and more boys in university, with no direction and nothing real to offer. Looking back it’s been a long road to here, and all along, I ignored the definition of a man. I should have listened to my mother.

Now I am 25 years old, been through a lot of ups and downs and seen a lot of things in my own life and in the lives of others. When I think about men, I think about my father, who took the time to help raise his seven daughters, cared about everything we needed and made sure we were disciplined. My father has never been cruel to me or my sisters. Even our beatings were always mum’s responsibility. He prayed for us and watched over us closely for as long as I can remember.

When I think about men I think about my grandpa. He used to work at the bank and came home every night like clockwork, always after 5pm and before 8, in his suit carrying his briefcase after a long day at work earning his money to take care of and provide for his family. Always prayerful and kind. To this day he is still my favourite guy. He doesn’t work anymore, but he stays at home quietly and firmly steering us through life, being a pillar of strength for my grandma, making us laugh and loving us in every way he can from the awesome hugs he gives all the way to sitting down under a tree with me to talk about heartbreak.

When I think about men I think about all the great people I have met in my life who stood up for their manhood and what they believed in and where it applied loved and cared for their wives and children.

Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t all there is to my definition of a man.

Family time and working tirelessly to provide are only part of it. Single men these days are a problem; especially where I am from. A typical young man these days has this kinda thought process where if he is in school, he studies to pass and spends weekends drinking, smoking, womanising and wasting time. The type that does anything different is rare. Once they get outta college, they get jobs, work till Friday and do exactly the same thing they did before, then at some point they add a woman to the equation and marry her. Then their life becomes, work to take care of wife, drink, smoke and womanise at weekends, go home to fight about it, maybe beat her up and then start again on Monday. A monotonous cycle that their poor sons will watch and then one day probably emulate. It has a lot to do with the culture in which we live.

When I think about my sons I want them to grow into real men, raised up in a different culture. Young men who will get a good and relevant education in the things they love and are good at. Men who will know the difference between leisure and recreation and time wasting.Men who will be polite, respectful and hardworking; who will fear and love God, who will love and respect all the women in their lives and cherish and protect them because women are bringers and nurturers of life. Young men who will plan and prioritise their lives, make right choices at work and in play and move with direction and focus into the destinies they are meant to fulfil.

When I think about a real man that is my definition, the type of man who cares, loves, protects, tells the truth, is well-spoken, educated in the things if life if not educated in books, because some great men never really went to formal school. When I think about a real man he is the type who provides for his family, finds a good woman and treats her as such, does right by her, tells the truth to her, makes her part of his essence, will not beat and abuse or misuse her or take her for granted or leave her at home to go chasing after children who cannot keep the homes they themselves are kept in.

When I think about a real man he is the type of person who knows himself, recognises his weaknesses and faults, knows what he wants and where he is going, someone who can lead and hunt for success and for peace and happiness for his soul. When I think about a real man he is a whole person, not a person struggling with demons within himself and punishing those around him for his own inadequacies and shortcomings; he is the type of person I want to have around because I know he will protect me and love me and live his life in peace with me because he has found and he knows himself and he is perfect in his imperfections ad going exactly where he is destined to go.

About writer’s block and other handicaps….

I like to talk and tell stories, to listen to other people tell stories and analyse their stories. I know people who think I am good with words. I am not actually good with words, I just find spoken English really boring so I try to spice when I type.

Yes. I put a lot of effort into my texting.

Sometimes, I find I have nothing to write. Not even in my private notebook. A couple of weeks ago my significant other, also a really brilliant blogger, mentioned that he has had writer’s block for a while because, and I paraphrase, he has not felt anything particularly inspiring. Today, I find myself empathising with him because I gave myself deadlines I have failed to meet.

This happens to me fairly often even with my music. I wake up in the morning, and can’t feel a song. My mentor gave me a task to write every day two years ago, he will be sad to know that I haven’t written in nearly two months. I have nothing to say. I feel stuff, but I can’t write about it.

I think expression is an elementary part of human nature. How I express myself goes to the core of who I am, woman, sister, lover, friend, person…I have to be able to speak and write and sing my heart and mind. Yesterday I was sad…so inexplicably sad, and in tears and emotional for most of the day…and I wanted to write a poem about it, bleed my feelings onto paper. I picked up my pretty journal and my black pen and….nothing….two hours later….nothing…so I recorded  a voice note and went to sleep instead….that is how I knew….no inspiration….

I miss being inspired…I miss waking up in the morning so inconceivably filled with joy and passion that there aren’t enough words for me to say how I feel…I miss going to bed at night so depressed or overwhelmed that I cannot get out of bed without writing a song about the depth of my melancholy. I look around at my life and it feels so excessively mundane, so empty of things that motivate me to keep going day by day…I am in love…I have a great family, I have wonderful friends and my career as I like to call it is about to jump off….but I am looking for something….something deeper, something more, something I cannot identify with words even though I want it so badly I can taste it like a nosebleed.

I am not crazy…I am just empty…and sometimes empty is good…because empty means I am ripe for filling….filling….with good or bad, happy or sad, love or hate, promise or disappointment, hope or despair….ripe for filling….and yet…why does it feel like the dry and empty moment when there is a pregnant anticipatory pause between the wind and the waters breaking into rain….this part…I hate this part….because in this part I have no control over any outcome…I have to wait like everybody else, walk quickly and hope that when the rain comes it waters my crops and does not leave me locked out, soaked and stranded, deafened by thunder and blinded by lightning and wondering how I gave up my umbrella….

I read this passage and realise that my frustration has cured me of my writer’s block….it’s never that serious anyway…nothing ever is…and the things that are I have come to find usually fix themselves…I will be just fine….19 more days….

Salvation....

He swept over me, an avalanche coming down the mountain called Hurt.

Mindlessly breaking through my defences

He knows it not

Still

He knows nothing of where I have been

Of why I was climbing

I watch him quietly live his life next to mine

Finding the places where we fit

Living in those moments

Watching stars glitter and fade

Watching clouds grow, break and pass on

Holding hands

In silence and in pain

I do not know what I do for him

I am nothing

Used and abused by myself and others

Torn down, bruised and beaten

A heart worth nothing

In pieces destroyed

And yet

They came to him

To speak their truths, their exaggerations, their lies

He kept moving

Bursting through my defences

Taking me as I am

And loving me

Or not

I still doubt him

Doubt myself

I still wait patiently for him to leave

My truth, they always left me

That’s the part they haven’t told him

I cannot shout from the rooftops what I feel

We live our love in secret

Hiding in plain sight

But I believe in him, in me, in us

In those little things I know without knowing

In the declarations we have made

In the dark

Holding on to nothing but each other

I believe in that

It cannot be pretence

The way he breathes my name

It cannot be a dream

And yet

When I wake he is not here

I search for shreds of what I remember

Memories that will not be again

Confusion

And then he is here

An avalanche

Mindlessly coming down the mountain

Destroying every barrier he encounters

I failed to recognise the mountain’s real name was Freedom.

Defiance

I have journeyed long and hard

Living on tears

The sun bakes my soul

Like an oven making bread

I am a woman of substance

A substance formed in pain

I blame no man, no woman

No circumstance

Only myself and my poor choices

Write about me

Sing about me

Lie about me

Slander me even in jest

I remain

Untouched by your

Limiting definitions

Shallow perception

Your lack of knowledge

Your judgement

I am a woman of substance

I know only myself

I lay bricks to build

Destroy foundations that were

Pestle and mortar

Flesh, bone, blood and tears,

Creating mortal images

To represent my immortality

I am a woman of substance

You cannot destroy me….

Excellence.....My Journey Through Reflection

“QUALITY; a peculiar and essential character; an inherent feature or property; a degree of excellence; superiority in kind; a distinguishing attribute.

(The Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

I want to talk about quality in terms of “a degree of excellence.” I want to talk about it in terms of people.

But first, some background. I am an artist. In Zambia that can mean a lot of different things. But in my short time working here, I have noticed the importance of quality in every aspect of what I do. There is a huge difference between the reception I get now and the reception I got in the beginning when I knew nothing about my brand or even the basic importance of having one. Once upon a time, I thought I could just apologise for being late, wear whatever I wanted, say whatever I wanted, “be me” and people would still believe. I can’t tell you how hard it was to convince clients that I was nothing more than a rookie cabaret singer who played at Arcades on occasion.

The first time I went to a meeting in half a suit and spoke my “school English” I walked out of there a boss. After that I decided to exude excellence and quality at all times, even just when someone recognises me in a store.

Now I pay attention to what I say, who I say what to, how I walk, how I stand, how I smell, how I groom myself, who negotiates for me, when I speak, what events I go to, which places I am seen at because if I am asking you to respect my grind, respect my ideals, believe in my brand and pay my asking price I sure as hell better be worth it. This is an essential part of everything that people seem to be forgetting around here.

Last night I went to one of the most prominent hotels in Lusaka for a little meeting. We walked into the bar and the first table we saw had not been cleared. The bar was not particularly full so it begged the question as to why the waiters were being so lackadaisical about keeping the place clean. Our waiter then proceeded to bring us drinks, no spoon to stir my hot chocolate, no ice in my friend’s glass and on top of that she had to mix her drink by pouring from glass to glass herself. These are basic things that people can’t be bothered to pay attention to or perhaps they decide not to care to pay attention. I would fire the whole staff in that bar.

I go to radio stations a lot. It broke my heart to walk out of an interview once and be accosted in the hallway by a young radio presenter, completely hammered at 11am on a Saturday, slurring his words as he asked me to consider a job co-hosting his show. First of all, say what you want about radio hosting, it is a very relevant occupation, I don’t see why anybody should be at work drunk. No matter what job they do. A person must choose to be clean, to be on time, to be sober, to perfect and respect his craft. A person must choose to deliver excellence.

We had an awards show last week. The first ever Zambian Music Awards and there was a lot of hype building up to them; so much hype that I was filled with trepidation when I went to the venue for the dress rehearsal on the actual day. To my surprise, I was greeted by the most beautiful stage I have ever seen here, lighting and seating so precisely arranged that it felt as though I was in another country. Not to shoot down my own, but it’s been a long time coming.

The ceremony itself was something to be proud of, from the master of ceremonies who was elegantly dressed in a well cut suit, well-spoken, on cue every single time, enthusiastic and professional throughout the show, all the way down to the effort that was seen to be have been taken by most present to look and behave like they were at an important event; because it was. Musicians being recognised for their efforts to create and promote art is an important moment. It filled me with pride to walk onto that stage and present the award for the Best Jazz Album, jazz being one of my personal favourites in this world of music and think how great it is that I am part of that world at a time when it is taking a definite turn for the better.

It made me think about excellence. Excellence takes effort. To be the best version of me, I must at all times be aware of my shortcomings, accept them and strive daily to work on them and improve on those things that are less than what they should be. That is why the team that pulled off that awards show did such a great job, because they looked at what was in their hand and made a plan and a decision to use what they had to get the job done as best they could instead of being calm about it and leaving the end result up to chance.

I am inspired by a young man I met recently. Every day I am struck by this person and the air of purpose and determination that causes him to strive to be the best version of himself he could possibly be. From the way he dresses, to the way he speaks, the things he speaks of , the things he wants to do, the places he likes to go, his excellent spirit, his politeness and air of calm confidence, the way he wakes up every day to get his job done, works at exhausting every ounce of passion he can muster and channelling it into the things he loves, his focus that ensured that he is as educated and worldly-wise as he is at such a young age, and improving his skill set and qualifications, spreading positive energy, purpose, optimism, and belief in self without even talking about it, just by being it. He is different. A unique mix of class and maturity and excellence that has earned my respect and admiration.

Sometimes you meet someone who makes you think about who you are and question whether or not what you are is enough or you are under selling yourself. He is one such person. There are many times when I am lazy and lack the focus that is necessary to meet many of my targets. I find myself procrastinating and ignoring things, ignoring goals I set for myself and placing them on the back burner because I can get away with not doing it when I said I would. Sometimes I fall into the bad habits of others or am demoralised by their seeming lack of concern or interest in things we set out to do together. None of this is excellence. But to be excellent one must decide to be.

So last week I decided to start waking up earlier, to get serious with my prayer life, to eat better and eat less, to take better care of my skin, to not be a slob just because it isn’t a working day, hanging around in baggy pants with my hair in a messy bun; I decided to write my goals down again and start working towards achieving them, to sign the documents that need to be signed and finish the process of packaging myself as a precisely conceptualised, easily understood and accessible brand, to get actively involved in helping in the communities around me, becoming a voice for the helpless and the underprivileged, a role model and mentor to young girls who are what I used to be;  to get my money right and make my family and my very serious man proud. Most importantly to live every day so that when I am done I will look back and know I did right by myself and lived an excellent life.

Unforgettably Yours,

Miss Mahogany…