In Lagos, at the end of each conversation comes the question: So you've moved back?
No, I reply. I'm just here for a few weeks (or months, or through Christmas).
Oh, I see, they reply, eyes glazing over.

Then the conversation stops as though there is nothing really left to say, no reason, as I will not be there long enough to make the saying relevant, the connection meaningful. I am not here and not there, but rather in a purgatory that is not really a place. I would like to be able to say, yes, I have moved back, or no, I will not, but cannot say either with any conviction. Instead, I respond, I am thinking about it, with the close-lipped, tense smile of someone who is stuck.

I have not really lived in New York for years. I am here physically, yes, but not alive. I am working and going to the gym and buying groceries and hanging out. After spending several years storing my belongings and living out of suitcases (to save money, I think), I now live in my own apartment with a giant closet in which I hang the most beautiful clothes. I have a lovely living room and kitchen in which I sometimes entertain friends. There is always music and laughter and joy.

Yet it is often with great reluctance that I return here from Lagos or most anywhere else I visit. Places where people do not live such regimented lives, packing themselves into crowded subways and yet trying not to see or speak to one another. I am aware that I do not have many of the things I would like to have in my life--like stable employment and a family. I do not know if New York has anything to do with that, or if it is just me. Sometimes I cry when I get back here, although I do not know exactly why. Maybe the tears come from feeling like a ghost--here in flesh, yet somewhere (anywhere?) else in spirit. Or maybe I am just lost.

But it is Brooklyn for now. I have been back over a week and still my suitcases lie on the floor, clothes spilling out like vomit. I do not know whether to hang them up or to simply stare, as I do, wondering if I should zip the bags up again and leave. I think if I did New York would not miss me at all. It is a quandary. --AL.

"I left Kano to live with my husband in Aba, a southeastern city near where my father grew up. The air here, I discovered, bubbles with the people’s unrestrained, stomach-clenching laughter, and for the first weeks it made me jittery. I couldn’t put my finger on why. It was not just the southerners’ boisterous talk, or the shocking Western way the women dressed. Here, girls could wear skirts so short they dared not bend over; their makeup stood out like street signs. And when they talked to boys, they stared them straight in the eyes...I realized then what had made me feel unmoored: the absence of fear. I had learned to live with fear in the north. It had become a second skin, and losing it had dazed me. I missed it and the boundaries it set." -- Ukamaka Olisakwe, "Growing Up Fearful in Nigeria"

I have heard stories about how beautiful northern Nigeria was before all the violence set in. It must be heartbreaking to give it up and watch it reduced to bits, piece by piece. Powerful reading. --AL.

I am five (or six or seven) years in to this memoir project and just today realized what I am writing. I have been talking about the book for some time now, but it takes awhile to sit with it, let it marinate in your bones, and have an epiphany. What I realized is: There were the people who stayed after the Biafran Civil War, and those who left, like my parents. I am writing about the latter. It is an interesting kind of experience contextualizing it, understanding where I fit in. It somewhat blew my mind for a minute today, but I am glad to be able to articulate it succinctly now, having spent so much of my life on this project. Writing a book is hard. There is the writing that, for me, comes before the understanding, the organizing and consolidating. Then there is the process of figuring out what it all means. Then you go back and add in the context as best you can (at least, that's how I do it), once you figure out what the framework is, how to see your life as a push-pull of historical, social and political forces. Then of course you have to make all the inner voices you have been over the course of five (or six or seven) years sound like one. It takes a lot of patience and more wisdom than you can imagine. I am writing the beginning last. I had thought I had already written it, but I realized that I hadn't, so I am doing it now. And now I think it's really best to write the beginning last when you realize what is at stake. This is not a roadmap, these are just my thoughts. I applaud and appreciate people who know where they are going when they put pen to page. But I think if I had put that much pressure on myself and even sought to articulate the project in these specific terms before starting it, I may not have written the first word. So it is okay. The work is coming. I am here.

i've been meaning to share an excerpt from my memoir project, Elizabeth's Daughter, that I've been working on this past year. the essays (and photographs and video) are meant to be read/viewed in conversation with each other, but this piece works as a standalone.

i am putting together a preview collection called 'Elizabeth's Daughter in Words and Pictures' that will be ready in the coming months (i hope i hope!). the purpose is to collect my writing, photos and ideas so far, as well as allow for my blog readers to engage a bit deeper with my work and potentially support my project.

you can read an excerpt from the essay "granny's house" here and also download/scroll through below. enjoy! --AL.
Grannys House by Iquo B Essien

1
i have met so many courageous nigerian women who empower me to speak my heart. one, a radio host and poet, says that she sat and asked herself about the things that make her happy--writing, family, friends, fulfilling work--and realized that she could achieve the happiness she seeks without ever getting married. she is tired of singledom being portrayed as an affliction one must be delivered from, imagines that if most women sat and really asked themselves whether marriage was right for them, the answer would be: no. as she speaks, i cannot believe my ears, that she dares say these things out loud that i have thought in private. i want to shout 'amen' or something of the sort, but i am still afraid to speak as loudly as she does, lest someone hear me.

another friend of mine says simply, of a man she is dating, 'we could have five or ten happy years together, with or without children.' i have never heard anyone say something like this before. she is lovely, an academic and a writer, committed to taking her career to the next level. she also confesses that she does not cook very often, the stress of market and all, to which i reply, 'i can't believe you're saying these things out loud.' we gist about all these women who talk of 'combining' career and family and motherhood. who drive from their full-time jobs back home at night to prepare dinner, who must look beautiful at all times and be good in bed. it is simply too much, she thinks. we laugh heartily at this unrealistic expectation nigerian men have, that we will be everything at all times. she refuses to combine.

2
a local uyo publisher, who heard i was writing a memoir about my mother, has offered to do a feature story on me in his magazine. he invites me for a drink during which he will conduct the interview. he does not know my house, so i wait by the side of the road for him to pick me up, the occasional car slowing down as tho i am a prostitute. finally a truck stops and it is him, i climb inside and we drive the short few blocks to the hotel where he is meeting a friend--a pdp politician, fat with open teeth. another friend joins them, and another, and then i imagine i must really look like a prostitute--young, unmarried, surrounded by all these brash older men.

they order a bottle of red wine and the publisher removes his sandals as tho at home, rubbing on his big toe. they talk of the floods in lagos. the politician, a geologist, tries desperately to describe the laws of tectonic plates to the publisher, who refuses to believe that a tsunami will ever sweep away the island. the pitch of their argument rises and rises, until i excuse myself to check my e-mail. i have work to do and this outing is proving a waste of time.

at the front desk, i learn that the internet is not working. on my way back to the bar, i pass the restaurant where a table of youngish men are finishing eating. one waves at me and i wave back--as i am the sort to say hello to a perfect stranger--and he jumps up from the table to come talk to me. in a slight british accent, chuma tells me that he and his friends performed at a huge concert for the governor's birthday party, missed their flight and are stuck overnight.

he asks what i am doing here. i say that i'm supposed to be getting interviewed about my work, but the interviewer hasn't asked a single question, instead keeps topping off my glass of wine. chuma jokes that perhaps the guy isn't as much interested in my art as my art, tracing an hourglass figure in the air. i laugh. he gives me his card, i say i'll call, knowing i won't. back at the bar, the publisher makes a point of asking why i spoke to this other man, why i accepted his card, when i am supposed to be here with him. i realize that this isn't an interview over a drink at all, but just a drink. he is a fool. i pity his wife and son--who is always jumping on him and disturbing his sleep, he says, and is the reason he rents a fifteen thousand naira hotel room in the middle of the day for a siesta.

i tell him i'm going home.

3
on a long walk from the hotel, she thinks of how it was when they first met. when he spoke to her and she glimpsed the softness he hides beneath all the jokes and laughter. she liked the way he smiled and kept looking off to the side as tho seeking refuge from the intensity of her stare. did not notice him taking tiny steps backward, too, uncomfortable with how close she was standing. perhaps it was all there in that first meeting--her coming forward and his backing away, her coming forward again, oblivious. and on the long walk to the lekki gate, past the water that she wants to sit and stare in, she does not know whether to laugh or cry at having seen him again.

he stood there in his brown caftan, waiting as she ran to him. they hugged and she exhaled a breath she'd been holding for months into the space between his chin and collarbone, breathed him in again, filling her lungs with his scent. they kissed. and then he pulled away to go inside where they talked--with none of the urgency of those past months, when he'd say, i miss you, i love you, when will i see you again? and when he slept off that night, she lay next to him wondering why she still felt on the other side of the world. as if he had erected some invisible, impenetrable force field guarding himself from the ferocity of her love. and before she left the next day, when she gave him a gift--a book--it was not out of love, but rather fear that she might never see him again.

and that morning when she leaves, walking past the boats and water, she thinks of her life and her lost love; until night covers day, and the pain of loss no longer dwarfs the ache of love.

4
ambo comes on foot through the front gate, a surprise that he has come at all on such short notice. we met by chance last christmas in calabar, through friends of friends, and i'd recently heard he moved to lagos. he is tallish, thick through the neck like a rugby player, a former fashion designer turned lawyer specializing in oil and gas. manages to stop by the house in ikeja mere hours before i'm heading back to new york.

we exchange pleasantries, chat about our mutual friends, while my cousin's three children play nearby. i introduce him to my cousin's wife, who has come into the parlor. when she leaves, he asks, 'are these her kids?' 'yes,' i say. 'wow. she looks so young.' 'well, they're tall, so they look a lot older than they are,' i say. the eldest, named after my mom, is seven, and the youngest is two. i try and imagine having had a child at twenty seven, when my cousin's wife was pregnant with her first. i can't. 'so when are you ready for yours?' ambo looks at me, smiling. i suppose, at twenty nine, it is not a ridiculous question to ask, though i find it slightly off putting.

'i have a lot of projects i'm working on and i can't seem to figure out when i'll have twenty years to devote to a child project,' i say, laughing, hoping this will be the end of it. but ambo launches into a retrospective about his career, being formerly married to fashion, how the top five nigerian designers are all unmarried workaholics. he tells me i should combine my career with family and, as he goes on talking about a colleague whose son just graduated law school, i see the genuine longing he has for a different life than the one he leads.

his eyes are wistful. 'i wish i had not neglected that part of my life. i really love this,' he says, taking in the children, their story books, the cartoons on television. it is the kind of tender moment i am unprepared for, the kind of thing i find completely disarming. i sit quietly for a minute, and somehow manage to articulate something i've never said out loud--an explanation, of sorts, or perhaps a peace offering.

i say that the thing i know called marriage is a thing of sacrifice and struggle. that i do not think of a wedding and a home or even a handsome man, but rather the struggle i will pass through as a wife. that it is something i do not want. there is the distant hope, yes, that i could enter into it and not be crushed by the weight of this institution. but i am more likely to meet a man and fall in love and spend the rest of my life with him than to marry and become his wife, an unconditional servant. it is something i would hardly wish on my worst enemy. ambo argues, trying to reason with me that my marriage could be different from all the ones i've ever seen, that every person has a different story. this makes rational sense, i suppose.

later on, after he leaves, i think about something a gifted writer told me once when we were discussing my book. we talked about how my mom wanted to be a nun, but came to the u.s. instead and married my father. i spoke about the difficulties she passed through in the marriage, the crosses she carried. when she asked whether i was married, i said no, that i didn't quite 'understand' its usefulness. and she said that one of the most interesting parts of the book will be understanding why the main character (me) feels the way she does about marriage and motherhood. why she resists and rejects it. that it has everything to do with her mother.

i suppose i only half heard her then. it was not until i said this to ambo, months later, that i finally realized the truth in it.

5
she longed for a mate who wanted nothing from her, but to whom she could freely give her entire self. someone elusive, whom she had not been able to find in all her years. so she loved and lost and loved some more, until their faces and names blurred together like the swill at the bottom of a pot of stew. and at the end of loving, of filling herself up with them, she wondered why she had not considered simply loving herself.

i am heading to akwa ibom tomorrow for a few days. have been dragging my feet like a petulant child, only because i have a difficult time tearing myself away from the lagos-style enjoyment of life. while there i will not be conducting any further interviews toward my memoir project, elizabeth's daughter, although i have spent the past few days putting together quite a bit of writing from the past year.

i'm pleased with how it's progressing, and should be able to publish a few essays very soon and at least start the ball rolling with a publisher (wish me luck). tho it might take several years, i'm certain the linked essay approach is my best bet at moving steadily toward the goal. will workshop some of them here, if i feel so inclined.

heard tons of wonderful songs and poetry at bogobiri open mic yesterday, namely from the ever fabulous wana udobang. found myself wanting to share something, sang a couple of songs, but it would have been great to do a reading, too. in light of this, i felt compelled to repost a poem i wrote awhile back in response to seeing an old picture of my mother. enjoy. --AL.

mother

on a hot day in
february 1964
a white buick waits on a
winding, dusty road
somewhere in akwa ibom

the parched shrubs and
sun-bleached road
communing their boredom, waiting
for your girlfriends to
get inside the car

while two, stylish young men in the front seat
rev the engine and
tune the radio to high life

there is another girl
clad in a white polka dot tank top
who has just handed off her camera and is
cutting a line back toward the car

(and a moment after this picture is taken she will turn and shout
"but i told you to wait!"
giggling)

there is another girl, no more than twenty
standing behind the car
smiling
whom i cannot see so clearly

i think it is you, but
she appears like a
ghost--
a lone head with a jet black afro
floating
and the same
cheekbones
gap-toothed smile
and
dark amber-colored irises
that are my own

perhaps it is my own image, like a
phantom
reflected off the shiny Kodak paper;
your face,
burnished by the hot sun to a
deep bronze, and
your teeth shining bright

years after your father died, but
still before the war
you are all joy
and
eternal hope

and
i wonder whether
if i could have met you then
as a young woman
whether we might have been
friends

(on the back of the photo you wrote:
Veronica, Alicia and their friends.
They took me on an evening ride in their mother's car)

before leaving new york, i attended a day of writing, reading and fellowship at hedgebrook(lyn) organized by alums mary armstrong and holly morris--who runs powderkeg, a women writers' collective on flatbush avenue.

we arrived at 10am for tea and fruit and spent the day writing, before dinner and a reading. i'm not sure what i intended to write that day, but a story visited me that has been circling my creative mind for years now, about black women, depression and suicide (heavy stuff). it is something like for colored girls, but different.

i shared a bit of it at our reading, and afterwards one of the participants emailed me saying she used to ride the ferry every weekend and dream of jumping off into the hudson. the honesty of it took my breath away. i have excerpted a few words here. if you also have a story that you would like to share, please email me at: alligatorlegs [dot] gmail [dot] com. --AL.

"Somewhere a black girl stands at the edge of a river. The sun shines; the sailboats float over rippling waves; a rouge-lipped woman blows a man a kiss. The girl sees none of these things. She stares into the river thinking of her life; her lost love; the rotten trees and the putrid-smelling honeysuckle. She is alone, penniless, empty, and her life seems a terrible waste. She whispers into the wind, is this all there is? A fly buzzes by. Nobody hears.

A sweaty, burly man jogs alongside the river. He does not see the black girl's pain, but only how the curve of her full backside cuts a silhouette against the sun. He winks, thinking it a shame for such beauty to go to waste; but she doesn't see.

Removing her sandals neatly, the girl plunges her feet deep into the cool water. The muddy bottom seeps between her toes and makes her smile--happy to feel something else besides this aching in her heart. She walks slowly at first, sliding through the mud, feeling the rocks on the soles of her feet.

She shivers at the cool rush of water, the dampness climbing up her legs. The thought of ending this pain makes her feel, suddenly, like a bird flying. She is free. And this lightness carries her forward until she is running toward the horizon, nearing the buoys that bob like pistons where the river floor drops.

Like a stone, she slips quietly under the water and is gone. As the sailboats sail onward, a butterfly floating over the waves is her only witness."

pictured above: jamal mahjoub, fidelity ceo reginald ikejiani,
diana evans, ik mbagwu, and helon habila

i'm in lagos again, after a week in enugu for the fidelity bank international creative writing workshop at the university of nigeria, nsukka. it was a mixed bag--the good parts being the instructors, in the persons of helon habila, diana evans, and jamal mahjoub. the bad part, which threatened to undermine the instructors' efforts, was fidelity bank itself. they were inept. disorganized. laughable. and i seriously questioned their ability to execute any manner of things, including meals and photocopying.

the workshop was held in abuja last year, but was moved to enugu this time around--a fact that likely posed some financial and travel difficulties for some, myself included. that said, the trip was worth every kobo given the close-knit relationships we forged with our instructors over the course of the week. they were wonderful teachers, coaches, and i look forward to continuing to share my work with them in the future. there is plenty more to say, but perhaps it is better addressed to the organizers themselves.

you can find out more info about dreams at dawn, an anthology of writing from past fidelity workshop participants, here. i'm not yet sure where the book is available for purchase, but will post the info here when i get it. and find out more info on the farafina trust writing workshop, taught by chimamanda ngozi adichie and binyavanga wainaina, here. it is going on now in lagos and will culminate with a literary evening on saturday, july 2 at eko hotel, victoria island. --AL.

Update: Read a response to this blog from Fidelity Bank's James Eze here.

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the guardian asked a handful of contemporary writers to comment on their rules for writing. zadie smith weighs in here. i found her list to be depressing, pessimistic, and utterly without joy. so here is my list. keep in mind that i am not an award-winning published author, although that doesn't mean i'm not also a writer. :)

1. write first thing in the morning every day, preferably before you get out of bed. let whatever is in you come out in its own way, whether it's last night's dream or a memory of something that happened in childhood. these writings will help you find your voice, and serve as creative fodder when you sit down later at the blank page.

2. always carry a pen and paper, preferably one of those small journalist notebooks that can be pulled out surreptitiously in public. record what people say, do, an image/sound/smell that moves you. these will come in handy as prompts when you write.

3. acknowledge that writing is an act. understand that to be a writer, one must do this action as often as possible while also suspending judgment of the nature, purpose and quality of the writing. excessive self judgment, doubt and criticism are hindrances to the creative process. and as an activity, one must maintain a healthy body to write effectively. this means taking regular breaks to avoid neck/back pains and carpal tunnel, as well as eating healthy snacks while writing.

4. share your writing in a safe and supportive environment. this can be with a close friend, significant other, or a peer writing group, but make sure the person(s) you share it with respect(s) and want(s) the best for you. avoid exposing yourself to unnecessary censure or criticism, as this can send your writer self into hiding.

5. laugh, cry, live, love. your life is fodder for your work, so be sure and live it to its fullest. but remember that you must not also have lived it in order to write it, so be bold.

6. take long walks in nature. breathing fresh air clears my head while the walking allows my thoughts to wander, gather, and collect themselves. i've fixed many a difficult passage this way!

7. no matter how uncomfortable you feel, write on. this one i'm borrowing from stephen king. he says that what makes a writer is her ability to write even when she feels like she's 'shoveling shit onto the page'. the point is to keep at it when the going gets tough. being a writer, or any other kind of artist, means being able to sit with your discomfort and move through it for the sake of the work. what you leave behind when you're done may later help someone else deal with their own experiences.

8. embrace fearlessness. writing is not for the faint of heart. so be bold and write what you really mean to say, not what you think other people want to read. if it comes from your heart, it will resonate with others.

9. write now, edit later. one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over as a writer has been turning off my inner editor and allowing my writing to flow. having read lots of articles and books on flow, i've learnt that this editor (really the superego) is the single greatest obstacle to creativity. the key to writing is productivity as opposed to slippery concepts like talent or perfection. so keep your pen moving, and you'll be fine.

10. publish your work. this is not a hard and fast rule, nor is publishing a necessary end of writing. but if you're reading this blog, you're likely not from among the elite privileged class of the world (or are you?). published writers from outside this class are vastly underrepresented. and i believe it is incumbent upon those of us with the ability and desire to publish our work to go ahead, so that others might read them. if you're still waiting for permission to tell your story: granted. --AL.

writing can be a very solitary act--done in private, with only my eyes and god watching. so letting others in to the process can be fraught with its own challenges. of course, i don't write simply for my own eyes; i write to evoke and to be understood. but sometimes the writing fails to achieve those aims. and i'm not sure what to do in these cases.

i am not likely to elaborate or elucidate, to speak or even yell. perhaps i feel the distance insurmountable, our human nature too hopelessly self interested to be overcome. in this way, i believe misunderstanding (indifference, apathy, violence) to be a failure of humanity.

writing and other narrative art forms can be a powerful antidote; however, i'm quite sure that i don't believe i will ever be fully understood by anybody. that another person will fully grasp my experiences as though they were his/her own and see me as 'self,' no longer 'other'.

it is a wish of mine, both for me and humanity, but i sometimes wonder if it is a great fantasy. altho i must say that i have found understanding and communion with other writers. have uttered the words: yes, i see myself in you. i remember there. --AL.

taking great pleasure in reading some of my writing today. at the risk of oversharing, thot i'd post this. a nothing passage, really, part of something much larger, but i like it. this is my voice. i feel it much stronger now. --AL.

I rest my head on the seat, watching the palm trees on the horizon as we make our way over the hilly, unpaved road leading from the village back in to town. My driver, Ekemini, turns the radio on to a station playing American R&B. I am content and at peace and without a sound. Speechless. It has been a great day. A success. I have spent time with my Uncle Joseph, listened to all the old stories about my mother. Am beside myself with pleasure, so much that I can feel it bubbling up and out of me like a divine radiance.

And I want to feel love, to be touched, to express my joy on somebody. Badly. So badly that the feeling squeezes my womb and turns my insides around. I want to see A— tonight. To smother his face in kisses. To love and be loved. As we turn onto the main road and the bars on my cellphone return, I see he has texted me a message, likely hours ago, that he is coming to the house. I send a reply that I am on the way home from the village, have been swallowed in a bad network for hours. He replies, see you later, which I know could mean hours or days.

Leaving behind the peace and tranquility of the village, we descend through a police checkpoint into town. Surrounded by the chaos and friction, the lusty feeling in my gut fades as my insides harden up again. I sit in silence all the way home until I hand Ekemini a fistful of Naira notes.

"Is that enough?" I ask, glancing back into my lean wallet. Money is depressingly short these days.

"Yes, yes. Aunty, thank you. Thank you very much." He gives me a wide, boyish grin, his dimples shining from cheek to cheek.

And I am grateful for this man--the only one in my life who shows up when I need him. I thank him for his time and wish him a good night, slamming the car door behind me and walking in through the front gate.

My mind drifts back to earlier today, when I sat drinking a cup of coconut water in Uncle Joseph's backyard and Ekemini wandered in to ask permission to leave for awhile. The sun cast a beam of light across his face and lean shoulders--clad in a rumpled green shirt--and I felt myself drawn to him for the first time. I saw his patience and devotion, his willingness to accept whatever it is that I give him from my heart. At times like this, when I am lonely, I find myself wondering whether he could love me.

As I walk into the house, I think that I should give him something to remember me by when I leave. Yes. I will buy him a new shirt.

there's an interesting article online by hedgebrook alum rahna reiko rizzuto about why she left her children for six months, to pursue a writers' residency in japan, and ended up leaving them, and their father, altogether.

i don't often speak about marriage or motherhood because the institutions strike me a bit like mlk jr's beloved community--an unattainable ideal, or perhaps a figment of the imagination, that may never exist in reality anywhere. i don't have ample examples of positive marriages to provide evidence of the benefits of this union. since i prefer to deal with what i see reflected in my reality, marriage has been largely irrelevant to me. i also have never been clear that motherhood is a better institution than selfhood. perhaps why i have walked away from every man who has ever dared utter the words 'marriage' and 'children,' usually within mere months of our meeting. i wonder, does he think i'm just going to slip into this perfect picture of a life he's imagined for himself? is he crazy? i'm not falling for that trick."

don't get me wrong: i would love to be someone's partner, perhaps even for life, but i have never wanted to be someone's wife and all that implies. i am a free spirit, have a tendency (and perhaps, a desire) to float around from mate to mate like a muse. i like to sample a little bit of everything on the table before i choose what i want to eat. and i value my freedom, my independence, my singledom somewhat fiercely.

but lately (oh, lately) i have begun contemplating giving up this freedom. you could chalk it up to my upcoming 30th birthday this year, or the new gray hair on my head that brings the count up to two. or maybe i'm just tired of these fleeting relationships i have that, nevertheless, leave my emotional energy sapped dry.

and don't get me wrong (again): i hate those movies where the independent, no nonsense career woman is ultimately rescued from the exile of singledom by a (strong, handsome, and yet sensitive) man. that has never been my story. first off, i love myself as i am. not in that 'i'm so fabulous' kind of way, but in that bone deep understanding that i am a person of conscience, of spirit, of intelligence, and of value with or without a mate.

it is a prevalent assumption that all women want to marry and have babies. but when i was a little girl, i never dreamt of any those things. i had baby dolls, but they were often my patients (i wanted to be a doctor then) and rarely my children. i would leave them lying askew under the dinner table for days at a time, later chiding myself for my carelessness, knowing deep down i would make a terrible mother. and this notion changed very little in adolescence and young adulthood. i was simply too selfish, too insecure, too neurotic to be trusted with another person's heart, let alone a child's.

i would raise children who were desperate to find the care and validation they never got from me in the world around them. they would end up as emotional doormats or, worse yet, in abusive relationships that would land them in therapy for decades. i was not going to allow this to happen under any circumstances.

but over the past few years, i find myself changing. i am slightly less insecure, less neurotic. i still don't want kids, at least right now, but i can at least dream of having them one day. no matter how i've felt in the past, i always figured that one day i'd rise to the occasion of being someone's mate and mother. i'm not sure if/when that day will come, but i'm not sure i'm ready to decide that it never will.

i was thinking about it a lot today, and then i read that article, and then i was ambivalent again. i think it is courageous to step out of the mold of traditional femininity to pursue one's art/dream. another major reason why i have never wanted to marry/mother is that, deep down, i don't want to resent my spouse/children for limiting my ability to achieve my creative dreams. i have been happily wedded to myself as an artist for many years now, and am still laboring to give birth to my creative ideas. there just hasn't been time/energy/room for anyone else.

i just really hope that i'm not missing something.

i am somewhat reluctant to share this here. however, as i write this memoir about my mother, it brings up all these unreconciled notions about marriage and motherhood that i need to work through somehow. thankfully, very few people read this blog. --AL.

mrs. usanga (l.) with CCC students

Classes have long been dismissed and this corner of the quad is absent the voices of girls on their way to lecture hall. Vice Principal Affiah and I come to the music room, an enclave nestled behind the assembly hall where Cornelia Connelly students hold plays and meetings. Where the soil has eroded away, the building's foundation stands half a foot above the ground.

"Watch your step," Mrs. Affiah says, pointing to a giant crack in the cement that has caved in near the doorway. I hop over it and step inside the room, where a tired-looking, middle-aged woman in a headtie and native dress sits at a table with three other teachers, discussing the events of the day. They greet us as we walk in and I wait to be introduced.

While Mrs. Affiah banters jovially with the women, my eyes graze over the room. Etched into the wall in chalk are a series of chord progressions, the day’s lesson, I imagine. Unlike the music rooms I've known in the States, this one has few instruments aside from an odd pile of traditional drums wedged into a dark corner between the door and a bookshelf. In the adjacent corner sits a pile of costumes used by the cultural dance group. There are no books to speak of. But how do they teach here? I wonder.

The women quiet down suddenly as Mrs. Affiah introduces me, finally, as the daughter of a late old girl of CCC.

"The face is very familiar," says the woman in the headtie. "What was the mother’s name?" She asks the question of Mrs. Affiah, her eyes fixed on me.

"Her mother was a sister to Lady Valerie Ebe." At this news, the woman lets out a yelp and claps her hands together, jumping to her feet.

"Elizabeth! She was my school mother. We stayed in Saint Joseph’s dormitory together."

She flies over to where I stand, taking me by the wrists and pulling me closer to the sunlight streaming in the door. Opposite the doorway, a student swings by both hands from the branch of a frangipani tree whose tired stump pokes out from a rubbish heap. As the woman tilts her head backwards, inspecting my cheekbones, eyes, and mouth, I can hear the girl laughing with her friends on the ground below. After what seems like hours, she releases me, satisfied with the results of her cursory examination.

"Same face," she says, returning to her chair. She sits down with a sharp exhale that deflates her shoulders and chest, her face bearing a melancholy expression as she bows her head in thought.

When she finally speaks, it is to say, "My name is Felicia Usanga. Your mother was my school mother. There was nothing that she wouldn't do for me. She wrote me letters even after she crossed to that side." She raises an arm overhead and points across the room, like a compass, to America. "Until 1975 when she said she was getting married. She said she would send a letter with the new address, but we missed each other. I never got the letter. When I heard about her death--"

She stops mid-sentence, her voice choked with tears. I feel sorry that she must feel this pain again, to look upon the image of her long lost school mother--gone forever, without so much as a goodbye--in my cheekbones and smile. But in another way, I am glad for her pain. We share something, motherless daughters, an emptiness inside that can never be filled, an ache that will never wane. Her sadness helps me know for certain that I am not alone, that my mother was loved. After a long silence, Mrs. Usanga speaks again.

"I am happy for this day. God has brought us together again. I could have left early after classes, but God asked me to wait and see. I didn’t know that God asked me to wait and see good things."

-- Excerpt from Elizabeth's Daughter, a work-in-progress by Iquo B. Essien (aka Alligator Legs)

i got into a virtual disagreement of sorts with one of my friends on facebook about sharing work. he is also a writer, and regularly puts his work up on his blog. i emailed him a poem i had written once upon a time that he wanted to share. he wondered why some people, myself included, are so private about sharing their work with the public. i responded that i am either not a poet or an unfinished one, not yet ripe for public consumption. he said something about labels being a very 'american' thing, before we agreed to disagree.

i feel hesitant, always, to share the writing that matters most to me. i have always been a perfectionist and worry about being judged by work that has not quite matured, about it following me around for years like a shadow. i haven't screened any of my student films anywhere. i doubt that i ever will. (curiously, there was a retrospective of spike lee's student films at the brooklyn academy of music last year that was sold out.) maybe someday, if i rise to the notoriety of a chimamanda, i will subject you all to my youthful short stories, reworked and repackaged for 30USD a pop. but this has never seemed appropriate for the moment 'now' as opposed to 'later.'

i also have a profound distaste for the kind of 'bad' (this is a subjective opinion and judgment, of course, take it as you will) poetry/prose i am barraged with daily online. while i appreciate the boon of instantaneous self publishing that creates more opportunities for myself and others to get their work out in front of people, i tend to think that more editorial restraint need be exercised.

all in all, i really do believe that the process of growing and maturing as a writer/artist need not be performed in public.

however, all that being said, i had a really great writers' brunch/reading on saturday that has relaxed my anxiety and boosted my spirits a bit. i think i will share some work, a few paragraphs from the memoir project i have been researching/writing the past several months. i haven't reviewed this particular chapter in months, but found it very touching and astounding that i managed to write this. read it here. --AL.

there is a question i have asked frequently ever since i was a little girl. that is, who am i? i suppose this stems largely from being born in the west to nigerian immigrants. without the luxury of being born in my parents' place, the question begs an answer.

i live at the nexus of over a half dozen cultures. there is white america, black america, brown america, immigrant america, akwa ibomites in america, akwa ibomites in nigeria, nigerians in the diaspora, and of course nigerians in nigeria. i have always held it up as some miraculous thing, having access to all these cultures, but it is a major task to remain conversant in all of them.

at some point, tiring of the politics of black america, i can simply say i am a cultural outsider and don't understand what they're on about (i used to do this alot as a kid, in fact, i hardly understood some aspects of black culture although i secretly wanted to be "cool enough" to be black).

at some point, tiring of the politics of being an akwa ibomite in america, i can simply pronounce my name in that weird way that sounds like 'spoon' instead of 'song' and pretend i don't know how to say good bye in ibibio. this is much how i walked by the 'concerned citizens of akwa ibom' group three weeks ago, protesting kidnappings near the UN. although i came to join them, they looked like a bunch of crazies shouting on the street with their placards raised, while a passerby shouted back that akpabio's built so many good roads and how could they possibly jeapordize the success of the state in this way. i was happy to pass by unnoticed.

and tiring of politics in general, i can always sit among a gathering of my white friends and pretend to be somewhat cultureless and colorless. (it is the path of least resistance, and yet the one i shun the most.)

but who am i really? i tried going through all my blogs to find a place where i say definitively who and what i am and found nothing. a part of it is i love personas, am intrigued by the way other people project their realities on to me. there are friends who've known me for decades and have been told on several occasions that i was born in the u.s.of.a. and still don't believe me. i am a sleeper cell, in their eyes, who will one day take over america and redistribute all her resources appropriately to the developing world. or i'll simply take over hollywood and move it out of country, hire native nigerians (and maybe indians) to run it and say to hell with white people. (i am not that interested in hollywood. i might also respond that the nigerians and indians would label me as not being 'authentic' enough and reject the offer, not before chopping all the money and running it into the ground, of course.)

so what does it all really mean? are place, race, culture, custom, and nationality everything? or are they relative? i have always fancied myself a bridge between cultures and it seems that, despite the many internal questions that still prevail, this is finally becoming a reality. i'm now the family historian, of sorts, and the first person people think of to ask obscure questions like what year my mother came to the u.s. from nigeria. (it was my uncle, her elder brother, who asked. he's also the one who brought her here.)

they place their hope in me, marveling at how i am able to simply plop myself down in akwa ibom and not complain about the electricity or have a care for what's going on in the states. some of them have never thought of going back, but secretly long for the courage. i imagine that, as a person who craves an existence that is not relative, it has been very important for me to create a space for myself there. perhaps also why i am an artist, so that i can live and create any- and everywhere.

if i could only choose one thing to be, it would be an inspiration. appropriately so, my life now seems to be less about 'who i am' than my chosen purpose and what i represent for other people. i am not sure whether to raise disclaimers about being their great hope, or to simply embrace it and rise to the occasion. i only hope that i will be able to express the pluralities that exist within me in a way that i do not misrepresent myself.

i have no answers and certainties, only questions and relativities. i exist as a being in the flesh, but perhaps am closer to a concept than a reality. i think it would be easier for me and those around me if i was some other way, but it wouldn't be authentic to who i am. such is life. --AL.

we will bury my uncle on friday. his wasn't a good death, after a long life filled with love and laughter. he was young, unmarried, and childless when his house burned down to the ground two weeks ago. we can't seem to figure out if he put something on the stove and fell asleep, or if it was some kind of electrical fire, but it started in the kitchen. i'm not sure that how it started is that important, although something about not knowing what really happened leaves the matter unresolved.

in his heyday he was the epitome of cool--sunshades, bellbottoms, a blazer thrown casually over his back (see him above, center, jamming with his band). and tho he hadn't been back to nigeria in over 30 years since he left, he was spoken of fondly and often by those who remember him simply as Uncle F.O.B.

i sat on this blog over a week wondering whether to publish it, thought it too morbid, but have decided to go ahead. simply to say that a man named Frances Okon Bassey, the last child of Obong Paul Okon Bassey, died in his sleep from smoke inhalation related to a fire on march 2, 2011. he had an offbeat sense of humor, a flair for dramatic fashions, and was loved by his friends and family.

i cannot shed any light in the way of mortality, fate and providence. i can only say that i wish i had known him better. there were circumstances beyond my control that prevented this, i think, or maybe i simply was not wise enough to overcome them. --AL.

light on blogs these days, turning my gaze inward. i thought, upon returning to new york, i might easily descend into apathy. haven't yet, at least i don't think so. tho it is unbearably cold and alternately snowy and rainy, and always gloomy. suddenly i can't remember why i live here, can feel myself outgrowing this town. the problem with the new york artist is we all live in a bubble. at a certain point everything becomes endlessly self-referential or irrelevant. i don't know what to make of it anymore. i'm not quite sure where this is going. sorry. what i wanted to blog about i don't feel like blogging anymore. ah yes, apathy. --AL.

wonderful essay on the dangers of a single memoir by hedgebrook alum manijeh nasrabadi. i have been thinking a lot about this in light of the memoir project i'm working on. what nasrabadi describes about the publishing establishment with regard to iranian american memoirs sounds eerily similar to writing about africa and her diasporas. at least i am certain, both in nasrabadi's case and mine, that one must first write for oneself and then for others. --AL.

"My agent told me how I should envision my book: it should start with 9/11 as a catalyst for my decision to travel alone on a one-way ticket to Iran, my first time going to the country my father was from, where his entire extended family still lived. I would then be like a tour guide, she said, outsider and family member at the same time, showing my readers what life in Iran was really like. The fact that my family members are working-class Zoroastrians was added caché. We haven’t heard that before! I should write about their rituals and attitudes towards the Muslim state. I should write about their persecution as religious minorities. Flashbacks to my childhood in DC with my Iranian immigrant father and Jewish American mother would then be interspersed with the action in Tehran.

Ever so grateful that someone had given me permission to speak, ever so araid of displeasing the powerful people who had gone out of their way to help me, I tried to write this book. But it wasn’t working. The writing felt timid to me, overly concerned with explaining myself and my family to an audience I was told to imagine as ignorant about Iran but open-minded and eager to learn. What was never said was that this presumed audience was white and middle class. I was supposed to write for this demographic because they buy the most books. What I couldn’t put into words at the time was that I felt I was being asked to participate in a new form of assimilation, to perform a certain version of difference, to become the 'Other' who could then be revealed and made knowable within the dominant American cultural framework." -- Manijeh Nasrabadi, The Essay I Never Wanted to Write

i am finally leaving akwa ibom. i can't say that i'm ready to go, only that i need to go, have reached that place where i've gone as far as i can along a particular path and must find another road. to be perfectly honest, i never quite got over the nuns of my previous post. writers are very fragile people and my inner child ran very far away (i'm still trying to coax her back).

regardless, i have gone a lot further than i thought i would have by now. going back through my pictures i see trips to my mother's old school, to her village, to ikot ekpene to visit the old cardinal's house (he is late, my mother took us to meet him when we were girls). i can't imagine what i've been doing here all this time. the audacity of trying to wrap my arms around the history of a place, a time, a person. i also can't imagine what took me so long to get here.

i have loved and lost; found my voice; my dreadlocks have grown; and i've added not less than five pounds of fried plaintain weight. it will probably take me a while to process all this, but i would like to thank sister mildred, sister ekerete, mrs. usanga, justice philomena, uncle adam, aunty valerie, uncle felix, aunty nyong, my cousins and friends, my driver ekemini, my grandmother, my grandfather (may he rest in perfect peace), and my mother (may she rest in perfect peace). i am forgetting too many; please forgive me. lagos is waiting. --AL.

Update: I had a dream last night that I won a prestigious writers' residency. Wish me luck. :)

sarah ladipo manyika has a wonderful new piece, a nigerian composition, in the current issue of wasafiri. there are various military protections in place (you need an institutional subscription or some such to view it), but thought i'd post the link anyway. i will check with her and see if she will let me share a line or two. --AL.