Memory is a funny thing. It can be triggered by a smell, song or even a word. One of my clearest memory from childhood is triggered by food, the aroma, and taste of Akidi¹. It takes me back to the summers my siblings and I spent in the village with my grandma.

After spending a small fortune on frozen green peas in order to recreate my grandma’s recipe, eating the result was worth it.

Sorrow is often an unexpected visitor

It comes when happiness has lured you into complacency

Like cancer, it spreads into every aspect of your being

Leaving you a numb husk of who you once were

Despair and regret are its bed fellows

They force you into a cocoon of longing and sadness

A prison you stay in of your own volition

Sorrow, an ugly thing that never leaves even after stealing your joy

If there is a day I’d want to change, it would be the day sorrow came to stay.

I had abandoned my passionate affair with writing for a more sedate relationship with science, the first time I heard the name Buchi Emecheta.

It was my 15th year on this little speck of rock hurtling through space, and I was hurting at the unfairness of being female.

I could feel the clutches of the Igbo tradition closing in on me like a noose.

In the stillness of the morning

Awaken me from my slumber

Like dew in the morning sun

I reach for the words with trepidation

These words that won’t let me be

Like an antelope in the Savannah

For the words never leave me alone

And my imagination makes my genius bearable

Till I have bled them onto parchment

Everyone praises my genius, my daemon

But every time I leave a reflection of my soul on paper

I lose a bit of the person I was once.

Books are often synonymous with knowledge. Everyone advocates reading. Billionaires, CEOs, Presidents and even online ads tell you to get off your butt and read a book. So when someone says they read over 100 books in a year, your default reaction is to think they are swimming in knowledge. Like knowledge is pouring out their skin like sweat. And you can’t wait to rub yourself in the musk emanating from their knowledge filled brains by asking them questions.

Of whom I once was

For the joy of change

And who I’m becoming