… But Seriously

For avid lovers of music, this calls to mind that album by Phil Collins. I wonder what he was thinking naming the album as he did. What was he taking seriously? Was it the something that ‘happened on the way to heaven’ or ‘that’s just the way it is’? By the track listings, Lovers would take ‘find a way to my heart’ seriously as farmers would ‘wish it would rain down.’ Politicians may take to the ‘heat on the street’ as Christians yearn for ‘another day in paradise.’ I take the advice from a ‘father to son’ more seriously. Interesting album it is. I remember listening to that album every other day in the year 1996/97 and I took that pretty girl in the “Do you remember” video very seriously. Only she seem not to remember who I was and Phil may very well be waiting for an answer till this moment.

I have something different in mind though. 

It is a familiar sight. Very sure you can count a number of them right now. Frowns that tell you the anguish of others or smiles that fades in such a way that make you wonder where it came from in the first place or outbursts at the slightest of things that make you stare speechless deciding if hell now resides in the human mind. Don’t be in a haste to exclude yourself as one who has never poured acid on anyone over a minor rather involuntary transgression or probably nothing at all. Do you remember quarrelling and raining curses on a conductor who pleaded you board his bus with change (“#1000, #500… No enter oh!!!), or the driver for not driving as fast or slow or smart as you’d prefer, or a fellow passenger who simply requested you adjust to allow him space, or another passenger who asked if you’d be paying with change, or a pedestrian who slightly brushed past you in a haste, or a seller who tagged a price slightly higher than you’d expected, or that driver who horned to get you out of his way… Oh!!! Now you remember. I remember bursting out on a bus conductor who simply asked I don’t place my legs on the seat with my shoe on (it was a rainy day). I feel awkward right now wondering what he or my friend thought of me.

We all at one time or another have displayed that one minute madness ranging from keeping mute or hissing in response to a greeting to the blatant insults that could lead to exchange of fists. A more humorous strained civility is the question “what is good about the morning?”(Or afternoon or evening as the case may be). And really nothing is good about them.

Being a victim several times of these strange outbursts I often ask: “why the heat on the street?” All of our life is filled with one misery or the other. It’s either one sticks closer than a brother through our life time or one replaces the other. So at each point its one unsolved problem or another that you practically look to the skies for answers. Recall that day you gazed at the sky in disappointment, hands supporting your waist leaning on one feet and you probably didn’t hear that driver horning to get you out of his way? That day you were driven past your bus stop while you were lost in thoughts hands on window frame supporting your chin looking aimlessly into the distance. You also didn’t hear that passenger asking your adjust to allow him space? Or that sleepless night you laid face-up hand clasped behind your head while you thought very hard what step to take next. You didn’t even hear your alarm go off? Maybe you did but it was the one pounding in your head. At moments like this you only wish it would rain down on you. That’s just the way it is. Is it daily bread, family issues, relationships or health? It is never a rosy bed, rather has a tight grip on us all.

Life may be hard and cruel painting drawn faces, injecting dejection into every soul and leaving its bitter after-taste on every tongue but the often unbelievable part is it is also beautiful. It is filled with colors – dark to bright and if you check well your hue isn’t all dark… no one has it all dark. So all you and I have to do is find a way to the heart of the bright side and we probably may have found a cure-all to all this.

Whatever life throws at you, hang in long enough my friends. That driver isn’t to blame. Nor are that passenger, pedestrian, seller and conductor. That conductor was definitely not to blame for my being owed four months NYSC allowance. 

So next time you are moved to strain your civility, think twice. And the next time you are a victim of such outbursts, tell the person ‘there’s just another day for you and me in paradise.’