Where the Water Is...

Small mercies, bandages, and applause…

The story of Hagar and the well is one of my favourite stories in the Bible. Hagar and her son Ishmael have just been banished from Abraham’s house and sentenced to a life of sun, sand and scorching heat. In a world before compasses and maps, one weary step becomes another until Ismael reaches the point of death. His mother moves away from him and looks away- even in primordial times, no parent wants to watch their child draw their last breath.

Thankfully, God appears, speaks to Hagar and shows her a well of water. Hagar fetches enough for her son and herself, and all is well, no pun intended, with the world again...

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In my father’s house, there’s a well that is older than me. It serves as a backup option if the tanks ever run out. The well sits in the same position now as it did more than twenty years ago. If I throw a bucket down its throat today, the bucket would come back up with water. Same solution, different decade.

Many times, we want to do big things that take centre stage. We want to be the Amazon, a roaring river which serves nations, quenches parched throats, and sustains cross-border ecosystems. We want to provide the huge solution to the huge problem and be ushered onto and off the stage with a round of applause which mimics our huge efforts.

For a lot of people, a well, not a river, is what they need. Some problems need a bandage, not a hospital…Wells are steady, quiet, and present when you need them.

I also find it fitting that when God became flesh he met the Samaritan woman at a well. She had a messy past, but she became the one who told her town about Jesus. He could have sent the twelve, but he sent one woman, ordinary, local, effective and her witness changed people’s lives. A well to her people.

Being a well could mean making sure nobody has a bad day because of you, apologising when you’re wrong, helping a child cross the road, telling the joke that diffuses the tension, sending 5k today instead of waiting to have enough money to send 1 million someday... Small efforts can make a huge difference.

At the beginning of this week, I didn’t plan to write this so I’ll end it with the immortal words of 19^th century philosopher, Batman of New York:

“A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat on a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.”

See you around…

Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash

Counting Raindrops...

It always rains in April…

In April 2025, I put a laptop in a bag, bought a bottle of wine, and ordered a cab to the hotel where my colleagues were having dinner. Two hours later, I walked out of the hotel and they weren’t my colleagues anymore. It was my last day at the office.

When I got home, I changed my Slack display picture to that famous picture of Xabi Alonso waving goodbye, uninstalled the application, sat at my desk and scheduled a newsletter, the first of many I would write in the quiet routine I had built before I got pulled back into the suction of capitalism.

Sometime this month, while getting ready for work, I felt a wave of gratitude. Not loud, just certain. Gratitude for the fact that I wasn’t owed salaries. Grateful for the shaky moments that became miracles…

In April 2021, I had just quit a job which owed me a lot of salaries. In the months that followed, I formed the habit of standing in my kitchen, attempting to turn condiments into edible meals, and listening to Million Little Miracles as I wondered where the next miracle would come from…

I have learned that it is not my job to figure out where miracles come from or count the rain drops as they fall. It is my job to wait and trust that it will all work out, one drop, one decision, one miracle at a time…

You really can’t stop the rain or count the raindrops but you can wait for storms to pass. The thing about storms and difficult decisions is that you never really know when they will pass. Only that, somehow, they do. And you are better for it.

While I may not have a million miracles, I am no longer standing in the kitchen, listening to music, waiting and wondering how it will all work out…

Somewhere along the way, it did. And even now, concerns and all, it will…

The People vs. Aloaye

Exhibit A: Unread messages. Exhibit B: Good intentions.

Lately, I have been apologising a lot. For not being present, for not replying to messages on time, for not paying attention to what is supposedly important, for being human.

I am caught between apologising and saying “the best thing a man can do is the only thing he can do” because while it does feel like I am trying my best, that effort isn’t enough. There are only so many times you can heartily respond to “How’s your day going?” or “What’s up?” before saying “From minute to minute” or listing objects which defy gravity.

Recently, my day started with me receiving an earful from an acquaintance who stopped short of calling me an inattentive imp. The same day ended with a voice note from another acquaintance calling me kind and thoughtful for something I did on a whim. Talk about two extremes.

If you asked me, I would say my life has been filled with Gethsemane moments; moments in which I am burdened with differing opinions while living with the weight of the world on my shoulders.

In these moments, my life feels like the crowded Garden of Gethsemane. In the darkness of Gethsemane, I am many things to many people. Brother, son, friend, villain, funny guy, quiet guy, Christian, neighbour, a very one kain person. Each one of those has its assumptions and apron-strings. In the middle of all these, in the darkness of Gethsemane, there’s someone saying “Did I just hear muah” and another person staring into the darkness and wondering “wetin really dey sup between this guy and Mary Magdalene?”

Long story, there are people who believe, for good reason too, that I don’t put enough “heart” into our relationships and they are right. There are others who believe, for good reasons as well, that I’m not a terrible person. Maybe they are right too.

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When it’s all said and done, it feels like I am on trial and giving my version of events to a jury of my peers while standing in a dock fashioned from trees I planted, nurtured, and felled.

If there’s one charge, I would stand trial and be found guilty of, it would be for my WhatsApp becoming a graveyard of unfinished conversations. And that’s because I genuinely cannot keep up with the flurry of messages that require replies.

My case is simple: more people, more expectations, more “problems”. As grateful as I am to have the “blessing” of knowing so many people, there are only so many conversations I can be present in and these days I don’t even want to be in any conversations. I don’t even talk to myself anymore.

In my experience, people are more roses in need of constant watering than sturdy cactuses. And on a lot of days, there are only so many calls and texts I can enthusiastically reply with blistered hands and a distracted mind. These days, I just wan dey abeg...

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Stay. There’s more.

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Between the first word of this newsletter and this one, I watched this video. In it, people between the ages of 5 and 75 answer the question “What do you regret?” That is such a burning question. Their answers are a mixed bag of responses- Words left unsaid, actions left undone, risks not taken- some of which I can relate to.

Recently, in the middle of a conversation, a friend mentioned the age I turn this year and as the seconds after that conversation have become weeks, I have felt the heftiness of the age I’ll turn in November. While my regrets change from day to day and I have learnt not to dwell too much on them, lately my regret has been that one age-shaped elephant in the room. Usually, I tend not to ponder on regrets because you can only do so much and hindsight comes with 20:20 vision and no time machine. But that one has stopped me in my tracks…

This is the part where you are expecting me to disclose the regret. I’m tempted to say it here, but I’ll add it to the growing list of things I’ve left unsaid. All I can say is that I should have done more.

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Let this travel

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When it’s all said and done, I like to think that for everything left unsaid, every risk not taken, an opposite exists. And I think the scales should balance out. And if I should stand trial for the way I have navigated relationships recently, I know I should have been more present, put in more effort but as it stands today, I’m a bit exhausted so I’ll roll the dice and live with whatever the verdict is because today, I just wan dey abeg...

Photo by Athena Sandrini

Read. Feel. Return.

Memories...Do not Open

What remains when everything else has already happened

17 June 1994

The final game of the World Cup. A football player with a ponytail and the name “Baggio” written on the back of his shirt, picks up the ball, walks up to the penalty spot, places the ball on it, takes several steps back. If Baggio scores the penalty, Italy could win the World Cup, and he’ll be remembered forever…

Baggio begins his runup. In the stadium and in cities around the world, hearts screech to a halt. He has been the star of the tournament, the standout player by several miles…

Baggio completes his runup, he kicks the ball, it sails over the spot, past the goalkeeper, over the bar, and into the stands. He misses. Brazil wins the World Cup. For an eternity and then some, Baggio, arms on waist, head bowed, is rooted to the spot. He hasn’t moved since the ball was kicked. Somewhere in the distance, a commentator says “Baggio died standing”…

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Memories…Do not Open is the title of my favourite The Chainsmokers album. That title feels more like a loud warning than a subtle reminder.

On the right side of my office desk sits a spinning top, a memento from Inception, one of my favourite movies. When I spin it, I often drift to the last time I watched the movie with one of my favourite people. As the top whirls, I think more about the person than the movie. Eventually, the top stops spinning. The thoughts don’t.

These days, parts of my life feel like a museum. I turn the key and get instantly swamped by a deluge of thoughts from a day that is not today. There are books on my shelves, notes in a box, and a small army of daily habits and gestures, all tied with people-shaped apron-strings.

When we experience people and have great memories with them, we die standing. When I take a step back and gaze into the animated sea of memories, I feel like an insect stuck in amber, forever frozen in moments. In certain spots, there’s laughter on my face, in others, a frown, in another, a nickname on my lips.

In a lot of ways, I am stuck standing, living in those moments, laughing, smirking, shaking my head, the many motions of thinking and overthinking and trying to take it all in. The “how”, the “what”, the “why did this have to happen?”, the “I should have done better or handled that differently”…

In these moments, I fully understand Baggio standing still for as long as he did. Just looking into the blur and taking in the gravity of the moment, knowing that nothing will be the same again.

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When it comes to life and people, I am as inspired by the dying words of Don Corleone (“Life is beautiful”) as I am by the words of Mo Gilligan when he said “Money comes and goes, but friends are the family that you choose forever” in his new special. You should watch it; it’s one of the best things I have watched this year.

When I go through my bank statement, I cannot remember how every alert made me feel. With friends, it’s a mixed bag. A gallery of random pictures make me remember inside jokes followed by raucous laughter, nicknames, and conversations that only ended because the Sun had set several hours before and there was work the next day.

On a random Friday evening, my phone lights up with a call from someone I haven’t seen in half a decade, the minutes pass and leave a reminder that time and distance can only dim, never kill, affection.

In my experience, moving on from people-shaped memories is such a hard task. You want to move but your feet have a mind of their own and even if they didn’t, there’s an anchor of memories holding you in place. Even movement comes with its own burden. Where do you stash the inside jokes, the nicknames, the memories, the plans?

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Be here for the next one

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In a recent video of Roberto Baggio, he’s visiting a stadium. He waves to the fans and apologises for the miss in 1994. The ponytail is gone. The regret lingers. And I get it. If he could, he would do so much differently. And that’s life. We only get so many chances to do things the way they turn out…

In the years to come, some memories make your face give birth to a smirk, others cause your eyes to dim and leave you just staring into the distance, a top spinning on your office desk, your arms akimbo, staring into the beautiful chaos of it all.

What remains, remains…

See you soon.

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Let someone else read this

For Abel…

A thank you note, eighteen years after…

I cannot remember every topic I learned in my fifth year of secondary school, but I can remember the first topic in SS2 clearly. Money and its theories. The Conservative Theory. The Speculative Theory. The Precautionary Theory.

In the eighteen years that have passed since I learnt these theories, I have practiced every one of them. I have made money. I have lost money. However, this piece is less about my experience with money and more about the man whose chalk strokes illustrated the theory of money.

Mr. Abel Wakegire was my class teacher in SS2 Mercury. He taught Economics. I had always known it was this subject about money but with Mr. Abel, it was different. He taught with heart, with personality. He was the one whose strokes on a blackboard and explanations laid the cornerstone for a lot that would follow. And what a year that was. Demand curves, the law of supply, market equilibrium, giffen goods, the invisible hand of the market.

Beyond Economics, Mr. Abel taught me attention to detail, the discipline of pausing and double-checking. My mind has always been restless, forgetful even. In SS2, this showed up in the form of drawing my curves without labelling them “D” (for demand curves) or “S” (for supply curves).

A few weeks before a test, Mr. Abel had cautioned me about this “habit”. I heard the lesson. When the test came, I forgot to apply the lesson. The cost? A points deduction because my demand curve could very well have been illustrating anything between two points; the omitted words would have made it evident what story the line was telling.

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SS1 was my worst year in secondary school. I cannot remember anything beyond literature lessons and serving more punishments than a repeat offender. God, SS1 had me in the trenches of sufferhead. I was punished for coming late, for missing notes, for failing assignments, for making noise. I think the only form of punishment I didn’t experience was crucifixion and that was because the school had used up its wood supply making chalkboards.

Thanks to Mr. Abel, SS2 was easily my best, most impactful year. I had the best grades, served the least amount of punishment (not because of favouritism, I was better behaved and less riotous). Heck, I was even part of the school’s teams to a few competitions. What a year. That year should have been anything but a good year. I should have struggled more that year than the one before because at the beginning of the school year, my parent’s marriage had begun its death throes, by the end of the year, the separation was final and in some way, I was largely unscathed because books and writing (that was the year I started writing) were a welcome distraction for me.

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Ultimately, Mr. Abel taught me the benefit of a gamble, of believing in and taking a chance on people. I don’t know why or what he saw but he took a bet on me at the start of the school year and made me class prefect. In third term, he nominated me to be school prefect; I would go on to be library prefect.

When I look down that eighteen-year-old tunnel, my one regret is that I never got to thank Mr. Abel before he passed last year…

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For the longest time, I have wrestled with the feeling of not being or doing enough. I have skimmed the surface of my potential and know what I can be and what I can do but there’s a wide gulf between here and there, a gulf largely carved by doubt-inspired procrastination. Oh, lacking self-belief as an adult is quite the experience…

Lately, I have been thinking about legacy. For Mr. Abel, a core piece of his purpose, one he perhaps never realised, was teaching Economics with heart. For me, I have no idea what my purpose is, at least not the entire picture. But as I have heard more times than I have fingers, clarity come from doing, not wondering

While I have lost the opportunity to thank Mr. Abel, I think the ultimate tribute is to take another gamble, this time on myself. Here goes nothing….

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cursive-text-on-a-paper-11341894/