The Viewing Center

For Tomi; thank you for reminding me to write.

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Remembering that love cannot be compared, because each person we fall so deeply for, is unique and gives too many different feelings.

Sounds, smells, different ways that the eyes sparkle: some ringed with mysterious soulful darkness, and some a soft, mellow brown, defying the description of chocolate and aiming for something paler, like strong Lipton tea but full of light.

It's in the differences in hand holding; some tuck your hands in theirs, and some link fingers in equality. Sighs, whispers, even the intensity of spats. That's why love cannot be compared.

If love could be compared, I would like to believe that I haven't seen it all yet. To believe that the best love stories I will live through haven't yet manifested. I would like to believe that, yes.

However, this belief will never erase the truth that I have in fact, been well loved in the little moments, the bursts of light and the stolen moments of dark explorations that are now engraved in the paper of my soul.

In my well sheltered, living-at-home-and-not-complaining life, I have only once been to a public football viewing center. Unless the experience will be guaranteed to trump that one time, I may never visit one again. I may never visit another public football viewing center because I don't want to mar the first experience, ingrained as it is in my head.

I remember that my companion was someone I had been half in love with since my first year at the Polytechnic. I find that kindness, good looks and a haunted, broken but still bravely struggling to fly aura in a person always gets me.

As I sit here typing, I am staring into the distance remembering that it was evening, perhaps 7pm. Night falls very fast in Northern Nigeria, so it seemed later than that. The road away from the lodges was rough and uneven, and even with my glasses, my eyesight is really bad. It must have been a cold night, because we were wearing jackets. People were walking by, but I remember only being able to sense and smell them, but not fully see them. A lot of experiences I have had, revolve around sensing, intuiting, but not truly seeing with the physical eyes.

He held my hand, and I will never forget that. He did not hold my hand in an obliging way; not in the manner of forced gentlemanliness, nor as an afterthought. I'd like to think, because that's how it felt, that it was deliberately protective, and all my life I have been grateful for everyone who has loved me enough to shield me.

We made small talk until we got to the road, and then he took me across the road. Crossing roads is deeply relevant to me.

You know the way you probably just look left, right, calculate the distance between approaching cars and then stroll or streak across the road?

It doesn't work like that for me. I have very little perception of distances, and I struggle with directions, crowds, and loud noises. Many times, and probably many times more in the future, I have paid Keke or Okada riders (commercial tricycle and motorcycle riders) fifty naira to take me across the road.

Perhaps this will explain a little about why seemingly insignificant gestures are so deeply appreciated by me, and perhaps it will not. This story has no moral. I'm only remembering.

I remember feeling safe, secure with him. He wasn't particularly large, but his presence was filling, comforting.

On the other side of the road, we walked down until we got to the viewing center. Students were everywhere. A few familiar faces, more strange faces. The viewing center was little more than a large shack. It was four poles spread out, and boarded across from side to side with planks. There was a loud generator by the side of the door, and you had to walk carefully or you would stumble over the thick black cables and wires running from the generator, across the floor, some hoisted onto the walls and through the room inside to connect to the television and speakers.

The crowd was pushing to be admitted into the center, so it must have been an important football match. You paid at the gate, waited for your change, and then squeezed in.

Love is when there's a crowd pushing, and you're a slightly confused person with glasses perched on your nose, protected by the arms of a skinny, determined person who is deep down fighting depression and anxiety. That's love.

We squeezed in, and the entire match is a blur for me. But every time there was an uproar, voices raised in protest about some foul or the other, I was not nervous. There were arms around me, and I was safe. And when the match was over, and it was time to say goodbye, him to his lodge and me to mine, that safety tided me all the way home.

Remembering that love cannot be compared. Because even though these experiences with this particular person were few and far between, spotted by inconsistencies that we both could not help, they still happened.

In fact, this poem I wrote in 2018 was dedicated to honor our absolute incompatibility.

A fish, she fell in love...

With a bird, who roams about above

Unstable, he has no particular home

And the fish, her deep seas he couldn't roam

And so by her shores he sat

And wooed his fish, almost won her heart

Until the wind started to blow again

And his restlessness, birdie regained

Fishie is left slightly distraught

Birdie was not as wonderful as she thought

And so this fish, she swims on...

Unashamed, brilliant as the sun...

Because she knows she can always admire her bird from afar off...

And he will look down once in a while, and appreciate that she is tough...

Fish cannot be caught...

Wild birds, to be tame cannot be taught...

A fish and a bird fell in love, it is true...

But there is no home in seas so blue, or skies a lighter hue.

Torera.

Remembering a situation where it was my turn to be brave for this person. Where I stood up to literal authority figures and ranted and raved. Staying with people, unshakeable loyalty has always been a strength I possess.

Perhaps I will one day make a compilation of my experiences ranting and raving for my loved ones, and perhaps I will not.

Selah.