Khaled Juma, in his poem, Oh Rascal Children of Gaza, starts of by complaining. He’s complaining about a group of pesky little children who play outside of his house. He is complaining about the noise that comes with these children. The kind of noise where you can’t do anything, listen to anything without distraction. He doesn’t seem to be quite fond of the chaos that is these kids. He’s pissed of that they broke his vase. He is pissed off that they stole his flower. But then halfway through the poem, the tone changes. It changes from an angry tone to one of longing. Those children aren’t there anymore. They are, at best, gone to a better place, where they know nothing but peace. And at worst, they are far away, in another place. Hopefully safe, but with their joy and innocence taken away. And Khaled, who had started off by complaining, asks the children to come back. He asks them to come back, screaming and shouting. He asks them to come back and break the vase. To come back and steal the flowers. Now that they are gone, he wants them back.
Silence.
It is customary for me to go home when my baby sister’s back from school (she doesn’t really give me a choice though. She’ll call and ask if I’m coming home, which I understand to not be a question, but a demand). She was home for mid-term a couple of weeks ago. But that Sunday evening, as my other sister (I have two wonderful sisters!) were leaving to go back to our places, my mom made a comment that only made sense when I read Khaled’s poem above. She stated, in a slightly sad manner, that the house was about to get quiet again (baby sister was going back to school the following day). It as then that I realized that my parents had become empty nesters. And that they looked forward to us coming back home. They looked forward to the chaos we brought with us. To the noise that came with us being home. Once upon a time the TV remote belonged to dad. And whenever he was in the sitting room, we’d watch whatever he was watching. Most of us are aware of the unwritten rule that came with our dads - silence during news hour. But I’ve realized that for a while now, dad doesn’t care if we talk through the news anymore. He doesn’t really care that we watch the news. Often times we get lost in some discussion or debate, and realize that it’s past news time. Before, the noise was unbearable. Now, silence is.
Looking Down.
I’ve climbed Ngong Hills so many times now that it feels like the just taking a walk in the park now. I owe it to being around people who had and have the energy to do stuff. I was up there recently, courtesy of realizing my dad, despite living right next to them for twenty years, has never been up there once. And when we went up, I couldn’t help but notice a childlike excitement in him. It was the same excitement I saw with groups of people for whom this was the first time they had been up there. There was a guy screaming his lungs out all the way through - he probably just discovered scream therapy. Hopefully he got it all out. But I was in awe of people’s visceral reactions. Reactions that cam with the realization that they were at the highest point within an 100 kilometer radius. Reactions that I hadn’t had in a long time. And it made me realize that something as simple as this could bring joy to people. And I had to remind myself that this is something special, no matter how used I was to it. It was places like this that, if the time comes and I have to leave this place, I would miss the most.
Looking Up.
My shags is also a high place, among the hills of Makueni. But the difference between Ngong and shags is that, while in Ngong I spend most of my tome looking down in the distance, in shags, it’s the opposite. In shags, there is no light pollution - at least not yet. And whenever I’m there, and I look up, I’m reminded of just how many stars there are in the sky. I Nairobi, you only ever get to see the brightest stars in the sky. In shags, you get to see the bluish cloud of light that the stars produce. And whenever I’m there, I just spend the better part of early the night outside, staring up. It is in moments like this that I wish I didn’t know astronomy. Because then I’d be filled with wonder. Maybe I’d think that those bright objects were the souls of those who had left our world. Some of them the souls of the children of Gaza.
Disclaimer.
The main thread holding this article together is the concept of simple pleasures we take for granted. But as I write this, I realize I have to make a disclaimer. And that disclaimer is simple. Get your money right first. A lot of these simple pleasures cannot be enjoyed on an empty stomach. A lot of them cannot be enjoyed if you’re wondering how you are going to survive into next month. If you are in this position, the highest return on investment is to fill your stomach. It is to focus on surviving into next month. Enjoying simple pleasures is a privileged thing (though even people with privilege usually don’t). And it is precisely because it is a privileged thing that it is taken for granted. The people who don’t have it, want it. And the people who do have it are so used to it that it becomes their baseline. So go get your paper. It won’t solve all your issues. But it will sure as hell make solving those issues a hell of a lot easier.
There’s a reason the most enlightened and accomplished people in history were royalty, or royalty adjacent. From Abraham, who was rich as fuck, to Moses, who was raised as royalty, to Buddha, who was a prince, you have to achieve a level of monetary comfort to be able to enjoy the small things.
Hope.
But while you are in the process of getting your money right, don’t forget or lose yourself. Because that race for more never ends. We live in a comparative world, where whatever you have, there is someone out there with more. So while you go about your life, I hope you remember a few things. A few things that will keep you grounded enough to enjoy the small things. I hope you stop trying to be special in a way that hurts you. Because a lot of us are trying to be special, only to end up even more anxious and afraid. And anxious and afraid are two things that do not go well with truly enjoying life. You could take a hundred trips to the coast, but once you’re back home, you’ll find them there, patiently waiting for you. I hope you fall in love with your sins, because failure to do so just ensures that they will drag you back down in the future. I hope you learn to let go. Because letting go allows you to experience surprise, and look forward to the unknown. I hope you undergo an ego death. Because it is by getting destroyed, and building yourself back up, that you understand yourself better, and understand what you want. I hope you notice the stars in the sky, the moon as it’s rising. I hope you love yourself, before anyone does. I hope you remember the last best day of your life. And when the time comes, I hope you allow yourself to get lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Simple.
There is a guy. A weird guy by all accounts. This guy, for a long time, stayed at hotels, with little furniture. He didn’t like having to bump into things when moving around, so he kept as little furniture as he could. He replaced them, weirdly enough, with flower arrangements. He’d move from hotel to hotel, room to room. And he’d have with him only a suitcase with clothes. No cars. No house (until recently). This was the lifestyle of a man who had a Grammy. A man who had an acclaimed mixtape, and two acclaimed albums (not counting the Apple exclusive). A man who had written songs for and featured for some of the biggest artists in the world. From Jay Z. To Beyonce. To Justin Bieber. To Kanye. A man who counted among his close friends the late Virgil Abloh. This was a man worth more than ten million dollars. But, it seems, he liked it simple. He barely did any press conferences. He hadn’t toured in years. And since his last album, he’d barely put out any new material. When Aziz Ansari asked him for advice on doing things on your own terms, the advice he gave was simple. ‘That’s easy man. You just have to be comfortable with making less money, that’s all.’ Whatever you do, remember that one of the greatest joys is the sound of children laughing. You don’t have to do much to get that.