Verse 1:

My kajal painted eyes, saucer shaped surprise start to smile

When they see you over there oh you so unfair

distant prize..

Dazzling surprise why you wanna go and make me cry

The wind beneath my feet swaying to the beat when I walk

I’m always dancing in elevators boy that’s my secret

Perfumed fragrance I’m so amazing

J’adore Dior

Pre-chorus:

Will you ever be holding my hand,

Ever be know as my man,

Ever be here by my side,

Ever be there when I cry,

Ever be able to see that you are the reason for me?

Chorus:

If you could only see me right now

Singing baby out loud

My thick black curls crazy bouncing around

You’d come find me, try me, me

If you could only see me right now

Your name adorning my mouth

My thick black curls crazy bouncing around

I’d compel you, I’d tell you all the things you should know

Verse 2:

My common sense says I’m common since I can’t tell you this

I’d sleep through anything, overthinker

I can’t resist

I’m indecisive, I’d die for chocolate I must confess

I’m a story teller I’ll live for ever

I’ll climb that tree

In paradise it’d be very nice if you’re there with me

I’ll laugh at all your jokes, kiss you better

Be your grand prix..

Pre-chorus

Chorus

Bridge:

I’m a tall dark drink of insecurities

ahahah

I’m terrible but I’m awfully sweet yea

Chorus till fade

I hear your restless sighing

My heartbeat now is guiding your love to question why it comforts you

We barely knew each other

Didn’t want a man, no bother

Then in July discovered him too soon

I wasn’t ready, how do I start

Give me your hand don’t keep us apart

Too late my thoughts are racing

Tracing hearts and erasing

Because of you I’m chasing morning blues

The birds sing clearer for me

The daffodils adore me

If moths and bees could love me,

Why won’t you

Find the words, I’ll make you fall

Barricades, you’ll lose it all

Babe, this girl just wants your soul

Never say never just open your eyes

Imagine the endless adventures you’ll find…

On a very somber night, I started to go through my computer archives looking for nothing in particular. I think I really may have been looking for a song, the perfect song to match my mood. I was so sure I would find it somewhere in the retrospect of my life. Then I found it…….

The song mad world by Gary Jules. It’s a peculiar song that I could never quite resist even though the eerie piano tune and the profound lyrics are a little scary, forbidden if you will. I could never say to someone “hey listen to this song” because I somehow felt it was inappropriate to share the song which was to me more of an experience than just a song. In any case, I would listen to the song and fall into the creative mood that it put me in. Then I found a piano rendition and I thought “how about I write my own cover to it!”. So I did…

Now I can sing my own version and not get sucked too deep into melancholy. Here it goes…

Verse 1

Sitting  in the dark her face seems wasted

Sore and Jaded

Sore and Jaded

He walks in and slams the door behind him

So frustrated

So frustrated

Years before they’d been a happy family

Now that’s faded

Now that’s faded

People say theirs was a troubled marriage

Complicated

Complicated

Chorus

And I find it kinda funny.

Sitting in the high salon chair a few inches below the hair braider’s working hands, I get a flash of dejavu as I flip back a few pages of the book in my hand to the part where I had read a very similar scene. Chimamanda Adichie’s “Americanah” which I had longed for until a friend let me borrow her copy, was in my hand and I smiled as I went back to the beginning where she described the character Ifemelu’s visit to the hair braider. I had smiled as I read the nostalgic description of the salon room, the stiff air of heated pomade and salon chemicals all of which I remembered so vividly that I could feel sweat breaking out on my nose (this happens typically when I smell pomade especially in the choking salon spaces). Now sitting in the salon getting my hair braided it is almost surreal as the conversations ring so similar to the galling salon-chatter that Ifemelu had to put up with just to get her hair braided. The unnecessary barrage of questions about how long I have been in America and if I had a child and whatnot about accents, would have irritated me on any given day but now seemed to be so universal that it only made me fall more in love with Chimamanda’s writing. Over the course of the next month I project that my posts will be directly linked to or at least slightly allude to some aspect of “knowing” that I have come to digest after reading the book (which I am reading so slowly because every sentence sparks neural firing in my brain).

Which brings me to the “knowing skin” that Ifemelu longed for and eventually took on. I know very well what this skin feels like but more so the burning desire to acquire it. From watching American sit coms like friends, to reading fashion magazines and celebrity news, I discovered early on in life that the world of America I saw in the media was charming for the bizarre little nuances to their own western existence. I remember flipping through my dictionary in a frenzy to figure out what on earth the word “hickey” meant and my excitement was fueled by a desire to impress my classmates but more so because I liked the sound of the word. Then too, a woman said to me a few days ago regarding her daughter’s party: “mum’s the word”  and I immediately understood what she meant without any direct reference in my head as to where I had learned its meaning. Really I am grateful for all those American TV shows whose language became so common place to me that I was hardly surprised to hear for the first time the greeting “have a good one” in the elevator at my Pittsburgh apartment. That feeling of knowing immediately what an expression as vague as that means without having the American background of being used to it, this is the knowing that Ifemelu and I commonly share.

Yet there is more to it than that, it also includes being able to laugh on cue with your American classmates over something that would be completely lost on a fellow Nigerian. That knowing seems like a delicious achievement, something for which you would always be admired when your very Nigerian friends and family watched you display your new American glow in the midst of your American friends. And yet, there is a struggle, one that I find myself locked in now that my knowing skin is becoming more polished. That struggle is to know when the balance tips from the side of fitting in with classmates and colleagues to the side of being completely swallowed by their interpretation of events and the mind set that it creates. To resist the urge to chime in and say “awesome” when someone says something that is really just ordinary to you as a Nigerian. To stand your ground and explain to co-workers that when you say you “flashed someone” you’re not talking about exposing your nakedness but about giving him a quick ring on the phone. Or maybe even to suppress that agreeable voice that would immediately jump in and defend what your American acquaintance had done to the person who “touched her stuff” even though you as a Nigerian are secretly bewildered by why it is such a big deal. This is what I am in the process of learning now, the knowing of when to follow along and when to stand alone because the most important knowing which I must continue to pursue is: who I am.