#EvaDaily On Chimamanda Adichie, to marry by-force in Nigeria and my Mom's makeover

#EvaDaily July 18th, 2015

9 51
I am listening and reading Chimamanda
She says she laughed a lot while writing Americanah
I want to start cleaning my house at 10:00AM
I want to buy water.

Chimamanda: "I grew up a person who loved books. I yearn as a reader. human beings books
I write what I like to read. I find the reading of it as a reclaiming.
I wrote it because I wanted to - on 'Half of A Yellow Sun'. I get royalty checks from my works.
The voice of the blog was free."

10:14 Beginning cleaning my house out!
**been cleaning and listening to Chimamanda.

Hicks: "If you are doing less than loving whatever it is you are giving your attention to, you are not who you were really born to be. Negative emotion means you have pinched yourself off from the wonderful being you were born to be
You are where you are. I am where I am relative to all things."

4:55PM
Finally finished cleaning. I am happy with the result. I am moving into a new house. It is such a very beautiful apartment with beautiful colors and trees and flowers!
I am going outside to finish Americanah in the next hour. I write by 6PM till 9PM
I am very happy with myself right now and my results so far. I even had a bath and got my makeup done - Just because. I love the look too! Should take a picture.
4:57PM taking selfie

5:02   *H
Selfie Fail.
Mom just called. She is coming over from a wedding and bringing some food for my Dog. "Should I come?" she inquires. It is really so sweet of her. Mothers. I love that we can share some time even though we don't really say much to each other which I am going to begin to change. From just asking her questions about her day.
So I have also decided I am going to stay here listening to the music + Mirror work

**5:13 Very pleasantly surprised by Cool as Ice by DJ Jimmy and Ice Prince
**5:18 Just took the photo. Mom is here!

**5:21 Aaaargggghhhhhh Toooooo surprised! Wande Coal + Iceprince + Eva???? Tortoise??? When did we do this one biko? Hahahhaha! Wow! Spitter lomo Eva yen sha.


6:21PM
Yes it is in fact true that I am a deep person and I tend to think of things sometimes in unnecessarily deep ways but I cannot help myself. I ask questions about everything. Tintin hates hen I do that shit. I just see the story in everything. A connection here, another there. I can weave life stories around many situations and I just tend to look at things going through its back door rather than going through the front. I am always looking for a connection. I am always looking for a why, whether I would find the answer or not. Sometimes I come up with my own conclusions, hypothesis, whatever I can come up with. It is all like an experiment for me really and I can't help myself. Plus its kinda like how I am in a relationship as well. I am looking for a connection.
I do not like clutter. I am something of a minimalist and as soon as there is clutter I feel like my mind is clogged up too. I find cleaning very therapeutic in a beautiful sort of way that you would find doing anything really that brings calm and serenity and a sort of warming peace.
When I went home I felt a sort of pity for myself. I was looking for calm and love. Real love. And I could only get it from home.

Now my Mom comes around and I cannot help but feel the real love I go home to find.
I just finished doing my Mom's makeup. My God! She looks so beautiful and I am watching her really feeling herself now. She loves it. She is so happy, taking selfies and shit. I admire her in this moment as I always do. Makeup really makes women happy. I cannot wait for the Workshop on July 25th!

Father Lord in the Name of Jesus Christ I thank you for your protection everyday upon my Mother. I am so very happy that you have blessed me with quality time with my Mom.
Through Makeup today. You have helped me love this beautiful thing again and I am so blessed. Thank you so much for helping me to make my Mother happy.

6:28PM
I woke up this morning and I really just made up my mind that I was going to de-clutter. Free up the space. And because the space had become so free I was feeling myself enough to want to do something.
I refuse to look down on anyone.
I want to make women all over the world very happy and I can see how makeup helps us do that

6:34PM Just spoke with Oreva on the phone. Buy a new Laptop for Oreva.

6 37 PM
I am patient with myself. Writing helps me be patient with myself. Patience with myself is discipline. Love. Respect.
Now sitting outside to write and read.

7 56

8:55PM
In all this time since 7:56, I have seen Bidemi. She came to my house like she does, hiding behind my gen because Frankie was barking and she was doing it like an amateur thief would, but with a childish charm that made her appear far from harm. I let her in and she sat with me on the Yoga mat on the floor.
I stared at her a long while and finally asked her "What?"
She says to me "I want to collect something from you. Then I ask "What?" a second time and she said
"Come and give me cloth. I don't have cloth."
I look at her a while, the silence building up between us, her small 13 year old legs folded up to her chest, her eyes expectant of my reply.
"What have I told you about asking for things?"
"You say that I should be saying that please" she says, scarcely interested in what I had told her the last time. What did it matter. This is the new time and she wanted cloth.
"So? What do you say?" I ask, giving her a small smile, the best I could afford.
"I will say that please"
"Please what?"
"Please I want cloth."
I keep my eyes on her, wondering in my mind what life could do to you if you worked as a house help at 13 and didn't even have clothes to do your job, like the people you worked for didn't see you everyday. What kinds of people are these? But these questions didn't matter. Bidemi wanted cloth. Something pretty. She said so herself. "All the cloth I have no good again".
Or was it just the greed of a child I was hearing? Nahhh even a child deserves some greed in this world.
I find her the smallest of my tops I could find. Something pretty too. Wrapped it in a small plastic bag and she was on her way, headed now the direction that led her out of the estate and onto the path she had been sent on previously for her nightly errands.
"I have told you, don't be branching my house when your madam sends you to go do something. If you want to go out, ask her permission. You can tell her you want to go see your friend in the estate."
"Yes ma." Bidemi had said.
And looking at her I knew my words had gone in one ear and flew out the next. What madam in Nigeria could you tell you were going to see a friend as a 13 year old help? Especially if your madam didn't notice your existence enough to know you deserved some new clothes.


9 10PM
As I was writing that at 8:55, the security guy, the one with the big round belly walks up to me, as I went back and forth on the swing
"Hey! This one is for children oh, madam, not for person like you. Go siddown dia!" He says pointing a stout index finger to the bench under the big tree on the playground.
I, in my less than serious sort of way responded by saying
"So I can't be on the swing? I nor small like pikin?" I asked him, referring to my size and not my gathered number of years on earth.
He says "Ahh you suppose don born na."
And I felt like for real??
I for done born pikin? As I never come born, how e come take consign you? Nigerians and their ever insisting need to tell you what should have happened to you and how your life should be by now based on their myopic view of the world. "When are you getting married?"
 Some would ask you, as though you ever told you were interested in the first. Na wetin dem send me here come do?

That was my mind rambling within my skull. But as I got off the swing, upset and not upset at the same time, I thought about walking back into my apartment.

I should start planning for a baby girl. I might not be ready now but I need her here in 2 years.

12:01 AM
Been watching Forrest Gump since 10:30. Run Forrest, Run!
Now its time for some Americanah.

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