“What’s that one most important decision you made in the last 5 – 10 years that’s most shaped the way your life is right now?”

This year, I’ve decided not to start off by whining about how much anxiousness greeted the last few days into writing this and just start off anyway.

I think I just did.

I’m just going to give a few minutes to have you go back to cover art for a re-look. Not necessarily because I expended mental energy in creating it (of course I did), but because it is littered with bite-sized nuggets and I simply want to know what you make off it, pre-explanation.

The creation of it was inspired by a bird and its chick that has a home by my window. We’ll get there soon, stay with me.

The cover art – a bird about to fledge (first flight), admiring successfully fledged birds, sunrise, shrubs, time, and what I call a fledge-note. El-dorado is a place of boundless opportunities, the point you get to, and then it’s all upwards and onwards.

Every single element on the art lends credence to the entire concept – timeliness, new beginnings, boundless possibilities, and the audacity (or lack thereof) that greets new realities. In my MIP6, I’d mentioned el-dorado was just in sight, well here we are.

The new realities of Working From Home (WFH), have made me quite reflective lately. There is this mother bird that nested in an elbow joint of a large pipe behind my window. Every morning, I usually have to go hoist my WiFi outside by the back staircase, so I have to pass by her home, and sometimes, she darts knowing looks at me. I decided to name her Naila.

There is this silent bonding Naila and I relish in every morning. One afternoon, I decided to pay her an unscheduled visit, she wasn’t home, a cute little white egg was. She had been sitting on it all the while! 

The next morning, I greeted her with renowned respect, she greeted me the same way – quick, darting glances.

Days and weeks passed and the singular egg became a cute chick. She didn’t throw a party, no aso ebi, no DJ, nothing of what growing up in South West Nigeria would teach you. Just a new life, adjusting into the new quietude. I decided she was female and named her El-Nino – the little one/the kid.

We still maintained eye contact every morning, some mornings Nino is tucked away between Mommy’s fathers, other times, she pops her head out to say hi.

Then one fine windy morning, the chick wasn’t there! How rude, I thought we had a thing, they could have least told me she was moving out. Yes?

I started to reflect on the last minutes and seconds right before Nino’s first flight.

Why did she leave? Was she nervous? Or anxious? Was she scared? Worried? Did she think she would fall and die and never achieve her birdly potentials? Did she feel peer-pressured or encouraged by other birds in the distance? Did she feel she was about to be free? Did she see uncertainties or endless possibilities?

What was she thinking trading safety and comfort for unpredictability anyway? Why did Naila allow her? I should sue for irresponsible parenting.

Most importantly, how did she even know the right time for the flight?

Or did she even fall and was gobbled up by someone higher up the food chain? Between shuddering at the thought and chastising myself for not checking the floor, I hurried out to inspect for feathers or dead body materials.

None. Thank God.

I had to quit worrying about Nino and hoped wherever she is, the angels that brought her thus far, are holding her up, helping her live free. Most importantly, I hope she’s enjoying her freedom.

Freedom?

Somehow, those thoughts of her final moments before her first flight made me draw parallels with humans and our existential hesitations in decision making.

I realize we know nothing about freedom, because what we wish for is a more comfortable and luxurious cage rather than freedom from our chains. For us, freedom from chains is unfathomable, because if we are truly free, we would have to face the unknown. Actually, it is precisely the unknown that so frightens us and from which we so desperately try to insulate ourselves.

After all, the unknown means making ourselves vulnerable to new and unforeseen circumstances, people, and feelings. As such, what we want is not freedom, really, but a better, more comfortable, and luxurious version of the same prison cell we already are familiar with – we would rather have familiarity and a sense of certainty.

We reason to ourselves that we are doing the rational thing, but in actual reality, we are really bullied by the horror of feeling helpless, scared, overwhelmed, and out of control. It is these feelings of utter fear and helplessness and the realities of uncertainties that we are truly afraid of.

These are the bars of our golden cage that separates us from true, lasting freedom.

Often when I see a bird darting in the sky, I think of Nino and whatever it is she might be going through.
Is she worried, scared? Is she better off for that single decision to leave?

The world is so broken and sometimes it leaves you cold.
At night-times you can’t feel the fire to guide you home.
The demons will harm you and try to steal what you know.
But the angels, they brought you, and they’re gonna hold you up.

When the timing is right, somehow, you’ll know.
When nobody stands, stand on your own.

Here’s to God in whose palm I’m engraved.
Here’s to you making the hard, tricky decisions, for you and everything you hold dear.
And here’s to God again – my chief muse and eternal support system, whose Spirit leads me where my trust is without borders.

Akerele Oluranti
4:47am, 01/08/2020
T: @Super_Akerele
IG: @superakerele