Road not taken;the love and the urge to grow

It's been a while since I read a Sunday Nation's lifestyle magazine. In the years between 2011 and 2014, it was a religious practice to wait for the next Sunday so as to read Mwalimu Andrew's column Staffroom diary,Yusuf K Dawood's Surgeon's diary and also Chris Hart's column on relationships,assume it was the literature for me and not relationship advise.

Highschool absorbed me and my magazine reading took a dive off the plane. 

But am glad I would later get to be a fan of the Nairobian and met the pen of Silas Nyanchwani in his retrosexual column and Tony Mochama in the pulse magazine, just to mention a few.

After those good years of newspaper and magazine readership,I have been slow about reading them. I don't remember the last time I read from a newspaper, leave alone the insiders, except the headlines I bump on the streets in the busy buzzing Nairobi days.

One thing I remember for sure, is the excitement that came with waiting for the next piece of writing, the perfect weaving of words that came with joy. The flow as my eyes went down line after line. Do they still write?

Ooh,I can't forget one interesting part that was Books and culture. I remember reading essays by great writers as Ngugi Wa Thiong'o among  others. 

I think it's also when I read about Kwani? Trust. When did you know of Binyavanga Wainaina(RIP)?

One thing that thrills me is how young I was doing all that. Am 21 now. The year was 2013. You've done the math?

I think I naturally love literature. No,I think my father made me love literature. And I believe it's the best thing I ever got to love. 

I have read so many things after those newspaper and magazine years, maybe I should get back to the norm,but the series that is the writings of the above mentioned writers is what I want to read every Sunday. I miss those days,the good days.

There were feature stories of people,men and women who have had different experiences and those too were beautiful, inspiring and worth the time.

I am going back if it means getting to feel the nostalgia I have for Sunday reading.  Reading is just a way of making sense of life. Reading good stories is a perfect human synchrony of life. By the way,what is life without travel? Travel through paper and words, reading?

Ooh,I forgot. There is one writer whose contribution to lifestyle writing is immense and the mention of the greats in media writing can't be complete without, Oyunga Pala. 

Now I want to be a better writer. I have learnt from the work of many and my name is beginning to aim for the stars. It's a flight.

A year or two post those magazine days,and in my late high school, I got so absorbed into poetry and prose writing. 

I immediately fell in love with American greatest poets and I began taking their steps and lessons from their marvellous works. Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes and Robert Frost took my heart. 

It is in this time that I wrote my first poem titled Echoing the deaf. I would later come to read songs of lawino and I have never appreciated East African literature like I do now.  I also found poems by the likes of Micere Mugo and Jonh Mbiti and realized that we are a nation with great wordsmiths.

It came as an awakening that there are beautiful works by our writers. 

Although I was much into writing poems,I indulged in too much of prose. I would read Marjorie Oludhe's works,Mejja Mwangi, Ngugi Wa Thiongo,Peter Kimani,Grace Ogot,David Mailu among others. I remember reading The Mzungu Boy,Coming to birth,The river between,Chira,A grain of wheat and Grace ogot's The Promised Land.

I read stories more than I read lifestyle and social commentaries in this period,and it seems the weekly opinions that came as society shapers by our 'top brains' faded. 

Those stories and poems I read shaped my approach to books. They made more sense to me as literary work than just stories like any other. I had received a warm welcome into the world of literature and had been baptized by great works to smoothen my transition.

In this period, a literature event organanized by Pen Africa in conjunction with KBC and poet and broadcaster Khainga O'kwemba was held, I was in form three. I was out of school at that time and I can tell you that hurt me. 

For the first time I realized how deep I had gone in the literary world. Present also was the celebrated Kenyan writer Tony Mochama who in my view is unique and brilliant,a genius in writing. 

The event was also graced by the late literary critic and Professor Chris Wanjala, a distinguished scholar and figure whom we all owe and give respect. In the words of  Chinua Achebe,a man who respects the great paves way for his own greatness,and that ladies and gentlemen is a must do.

Despite missing the event,i was lucky to bump into a full recording later in a special edition that was aired on the Books Cafe. I am a fan or radio, especially the KBC English and specifically the Saturday's literature program.

I can tell you for a fact that literature has become part and parcel of my daily life courtesy of that early exposure. It was never exciting to proclaim it's place,it even surprised me that I was in love with it more than I loved other things I have held on for long.

The love has doubled up the effort to associate with literature and I can say for sure that it's a road worth taking,a road not thought of before,but am appreciating and trusting the process. 

I am striving every single day to be a better story writer,to describe happenings and events in a captivating way, I know I am headed somewhere better.

My love for words and writers, stories and scribbles is amazing. If I ever say I released a book,a story,then don't say,he is a financial analyst,do they write too? 

I'll be like,hey you,it's a story. We live life and write stories,it's not a profession for the hard pressed by careers,it's just love.

When finally a path shall have been created,I'll want many to travel in it's presence. We tag along the good that's human experiences,for better days.