Summer Blues: Life is a beach

(First published in Next Newspapers, March 7, 2009)

 

I miss my wife. She is gone home to Africa to laugh with her sisters until her sides hurt, to eat mangoes until her teeth ache; and to dine on suya and sad stories until her stomach churns with the stress of too much food and information.

 

The children and I miss our mother and wife. The house is not the same without her. In her absence our spirits lose their nerves and their will. Maybe the ocean will help.

 

We will go to the ocean to play in the waters. Well, my children will play in the waters and I will stare at the sea until Africa waves back at me. So we are headed to the seaside, to the Atlantic Ocean, to feel Africa.

 

Dawn on the road in America. We are headed to the beach, the children and I. Well, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and I. The children are asleep in the truck, but Fela refuses to go to sleep.

 

He leans out of his vinyl hut and speaks truth to America s deception. They will arrest us today but I don’t care, I am enjoying this god, wearing nothing but his underwear and his saxophone, wailing truth to America’s power.

 

Suffering and smiling, I listen to the guttural voice of the priest’s, born of privilege giving voice to the dispossessed. The truck rocks with Fela; there is despair and desolation and truth and lies and suffering and smiling everywhere, even in America. The truth escaped Nigeria with me and after all these years, Fela reminds me that the truth stays constant. There are no mysteries, only lies.

 

America taunts my denial. Even after all these years, Fela’s words haunt and hurt badly. What happened to Nigeria? What happened to Africa? And what am I doing here in America? What is the purpose of all this restlessness? Here in America, I am in my middle passage.

 

I am like Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo, seething, gazing forlornly at the Africa that my siblings in Nigeria say exists only in my imagination. They say Africa has moved on for good or for bad. And they say I need to move on. Even our masquerades are now rap artists wearing Dallas Cowboys tee shirts. After all these years, what force pulls us back to the womb of our past?

 

We are going to the beach to forget our miseries for a little while. The children have their iPods. I have Fela and Sunny Ade and Osita Osadebe. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is coming with me. I will read her stories on the beach and hope the lifeguards save our children from the ocean’s foaming rage.

 

I cannot get enough of Adichie’s stories. They remind me that we are making progress. She takes on our old story tellers, leans off the sturdy eaves of her defiant hut to give her own masterful call and response riff. From Achebe to Adichie, there are no dead white writers here. Yes, life is good.

 

Adichie’s stories are the affirmation of my mother’s stories and the bravery of Africa’s women and children. Ogaga Ifowodo is coming with me. I will read his oriki of suffering on the devastated shores of the delta. I will read aloud the dirges of the children of the delta, to the privileged of America. They must hear Ogaga. They will hear Africa on the beaches of America. Life is good.

 

I am sitting here on the beach staring at the Atlantic wondering when my wife will come back. I am wondering if I will ever go back home to Africa like I said I would almost 30 years ago.

 

Maybe I should resign myself to squeezing joy out of the remains of my current dispensation. I understand now why Kunta Kinte was so angry; dislocation aches the bones. We stayed too long in paradise and trapped ourselves in our own private prison. We are at war like no one has ever seen.

 

America is a strange place and I am in a strange place. In America, doors are always opening. And closing. I miss Africa and grandma coming down the little path. My spirit carries me past wretched bridges to nowhere. We are miserable in the new order called life.

 

In the new order, there is no order. Systems germinate and thrive out of seeming chaos. Chaos wails foul as we insist on order. There is no order; that is so past tense. Flow with the waves, relax your muscles and you’ll end up on the beach of the life, grinning sheepishly.

 

The Atlantic Ocean comes roaring, bringing forceful memories of Africa and the joy of my children to my feet. The waves rise, menacing walls, malevolent spirits foaming in the mouth; my voice dives tremulous into the jaws of the masquerade. “Children, be careful!”

 

The masquerade swallows my boys and spits them out, inedible offerings to greedy deities. The prayers rise in me and stop at my feet, putting jarring brakes on my boys’ death wishes. Out of the ocean, Africa comes crashing at my feet, steamy, hot, sweaty, salty, fertile, taunting me in the sterility of my exile. And a guiding light says to me from across the seas, “WHAT are you doing here, Okonkwo? Come home!”

 

We are back from the beach. The children had a great time. I was miserable. I missed my wife and Africa. But she is back now. Back with bottles of groundnuts and malaria.

 

Africa gives her lovers chills and headaches. In-between the delirium of her fevers she raves about Africa. She loved Nigeria and she can’t wait to go back. But the chills and the headaches of her malaria come in waves riding on the toasty heat of a body battling demons. Welcome to America, honey.