I’m still waiting for Kainene.
I am always feeling like an impostor writer. Very often, I struggle with accepting that I actually write anything that’s worth reading. Other times, I worry that I don’t read enough literature, and that that gives me less of a right to call myself a writer. So, whenever I’m not applying for work, I’ve settled for calling myself “someone who likes to write”. But enough cho cho cho about me. A while ago, I finished reading Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.
At first, it was very easy to stan Olanna. She was pretty, “illogically beautiful” in fact. Pretty privilege is apparently a thing, yeah? And she had a welcoming personality. Basically, she was the type of person who was easy to love, someone who made any relationship with them a comfortable one.
Kainene, her twin sister, I disliked immediately. Maybe it’s my lazy streak talking. But Kainene immediately came across as someone whom it would take a lot of effort and to love. She was too mysterious, so I just wrote her off, and focused on her prettier sister whom Ugwu thought spoke impeccable English. I sided with her even more when Odenigbo did the rubbish he did, or was made to do.
When did I start liking Kainene? I can’t say for sure. It certainly wasn’t after her partner and twin sister slept with each other. I guess that just made me begin to tolerate her, to want to hear her side of the story.
But over time, I began to realise that I was getting less and less interested in reading about Olanna having to care for a child that wasn’t hers, and more excited about seeing Kainenne.
The movie too, really helped keep the book in my head. Anika Noni Rose’s portrayal of the character was really captivating.
But the war took Kainene.
Well, not literally. She went out for supplies for the refugees and never came back.
It was the civil war, anything could’ve happened to her. But the thing that love does is that it makes you radically optimistic. And just like many other families who were in the same situation at that period, Richard, Olanna, and Odenigbo kept hope alive, searching for her everywhere.
There’s a scene in the movie that really impressed in my mind. Richard and Olanna are on a drive searching for any news about Kainene. Suddenly, the pain becomes too much for him, and he starts to cry, and Olanna has to yell at him and take the wheel, else he’ll have them both killed in an accident. It is easy to call him a weak man in that moment, until you understand what it means to wait for someone to love you and they keep making you wait. Now imagine feeling that way, knowing that they are not loving because they want to, but because they have ceased to exist, because they are no longer being.
He doesn’t need it, but he does kinda redeem himself later, on a solitary drive where he is searching again, his head out the window. He sees a woman in a yellow gown, a trademark wear of Kainene’s. What’s more, her frame is just like Kainene’s, slender, but with that powerful stance that Kainene would’ve had even though the war had taken all her money and was shopping at a regular market.
I can imagine his heart leap in joy, his breathing quickening, the excitement. Until, the woman turns and he sees that she is not Kainene. She is just a random woman who has chosen to wear a yellow gown that day.
The movie ends with Olanna and Odenigbo marrying each other for another nearly 50 years, but Richard stays single, waiting, just like I would, just like I am.
I stop sometimes and picture myself as Richard. What would I do? Personally, I’d rather be sure what happened to Kainene, I’d rather hear that she’d died rather than continue to live with this twisted knot of hope and despair and guilt. Sometimes I like to be sure, even if I’m sure of the wrong thing. Sometimes I’d rather be wrong than confused.
If he were a real person, you know, a real human, not a fictional character, I like to think that he’d try to entertain another person, maybe just to feel something, it’s not popular to stay waiting for a person who you don’t know if they’re alive or not. But I can tell what happens if he were to try that. Kainene was the type of person that comes and fills your insides and leaves little space for anything, or anyone else. No one else would suffice, no one else would suffice for Richard.
It’s the same thing with some of my dreams, little hopes and aspirations that lurk in the deepest parts of my heart. I’m realising that try as I may to forget them, the sparkle of their light still shines into my eyes, and nothing else can do. I’ve agreed with these dreams to keep me wide awake by 2am, fill me with desire when I wake up, and like a lifesaver’s grip, pull me out of the murky waters of despair whenever I’m feeling too down.
Certain things are so strongly ingrained in me, into me, that nothing else can replace their value in my life. Nothing else will make me happy unless I am able to achieve those dreams, to use certain talents. The desire is always there, always burning. Though the struggles that life brings may try to reduce their flames to a dull glow, they’ll always be there. I see these things when I want to sleep, think of them when I wake up.
I sometimes feel like some of my dreams are like Kainene, and I’m Richard, waiting endlessly for something that probably won’t ever come. But I’m waiting still. Maybe because it is better to wait than to despair. I mean, think of it. If I were to stop looking towards tomorrow, and doing stuff that would keep me healthy until then, the alternative would be to move around aimlessly without any purpose or energy on my insides. It would mean to live expecting nothing. I tried this rubbish one time like that, and it wasn’t the shit at all. It felt like blindly swaying about in a smoke-filled room with narrow walls. The thing is, you would always bump into the walls, hurt yourself, and probably be too wounded to see any light at the end of the tunnel by the time you got there. It would mean to walk around without a heart, without purpose, to be empty. I’ve agreed with myself that I have too much inside for me to around empty. That fullness comes at a price sha {nights where I just can’t sleep, emotional imbalance, periods of angst and longing that turn into weeks of sadness and the feeling that I’m just circling a spot and I won’t actually ever get anywhere}, but I don gree sey I go pay.
Maybe because if I were to stop waiting and go after other things, I would lose the very little peace that I have. Kainene is the type of lover that comes into your life, sweeps every other thing off the table, and leaves only themselves for you to deal with. And they do this thing without even trying, that’s the worst part. Like, hey, why is it so easy for you to possess me by doing nothing but just being? And leaving them is so hard too, because now you have suddenly lost that single thing that takes all your time. And all that’s left for you is listlessness, confusion {it is so hard to learn to stand alone when you’ve gotten so used to resting on someone who made you do so in the first place}, and a restlessness that fills you up to your fingers.
These types of lovers can be evasive, like smoke, here today, gone tomorrow,like dreams.
Some dreams won’t let you sleep.
Some dreams draw hot tears from your eyes, down your face until the small stubble on your chin is wet like you’ve just taken a shower. Some dreams are so strongly a part of your soul, that the very idea of letting go of them irritates you from inside. And so you find that you are antsy all the time, feeling like something inside you is about to come out, but there’s too much covering it up, and the pressure from within is hurting your chest physically. I don’t even know how to explain it, honestly. But there is something about the primal need for fulfilment that we need to talk about more and allow space for. And this is why I understand my creative friends who cannot hold down relationships. Sometimes the need for space surpasses the need for companionship. It’s almost impossible for regular people to understand, and harder for them to tolerate in their arty partners. To be an artist is to lead a life of freeness, I don’t know how to explain it any further without sounding like I’m supporting our unaccountability to our lovers.
But hey, who love help? {me!!!}
Dreams are a beautiful, perplexing thing. The idea that an image of yourself in the near future can fill you with so much excitement in certain moments, and at other moments, reduce you to a tearful, screaming heap of anger by 1am in the morning, is very very bakan bakan to me. Sometimes, I find that I want to fly before I walk. So I’m learning not to put a time limit on myself when I dream, as in, I don’t want to imagine that I’ve achieved such and such by 21, it’s become more painful than exciting. I’m also learning to enjoy the moments. That means allowing myself to fleetingly splash about in euphoria when I write something I like. It means forcing myself to look at visual art online and see how long I can manage before I start crying. It means encouraging myself to explore more forms of art, sometimes having to force myself even. It means immersing myself more in the art of being.
The last few weeks have been a bit too crazy for me to do that. But in the short moments I’m able to manage,I gain so much. It’s like being in a crowded restaurant, and paying attention to the movement of the bubbles in your drink. It means listening to a song and letting yourself hear the faint notes in the beat, the parts of the song that are so hard for the artist to sing that they have to quickly fly over them. You see so much, stuff that no one else would notice,majorly because they don’t have the special eyes that you have, and also because they’re not even looking in the first place.
Omoo, I’ve either talked a lot of rubbish. Or I’ve said stuff that touched you on a very deep level. Eitherway, you’ve read up to this point. And for that, I say “ese” [it’s Yoruba for “thank you”}.
Again, Deborah is making amazing art, you should see it.
Odaabo 💜.
