The Art of Living Forever

A writer’s musings

I was six when I read my first book. I was about nine when I first fell in love with reading. I am not sure if it is words that I fell in love with or the stories they told — I have always loved a good story.

I grew up in an impoverished country where electricity and fully packed store shelves were distant memories. At that tender age, I could not fully understand or articulate my country’s woes. I did, however, have an inkling that ‘things were bad’, because every adult let out deep troubled sighs whenever anyone enquired about their wellbeing.

Every night, our country descended into literal darkness, and small cooking fires sprung up everywhere, which also doubled as sources of warmth during the winter. We quickly developed a routine where all the children would huddle around the fire and one of the elders would launch into a tale to keep us from wreaking havoc and getting lost in the night.

Stories of magical kingdoms and talking beasts soon filled our dark and dreary nights with unimaginable color. They were often accompanied by wild gesticulations and dramatic pauses by the chosen storyteller for the night. Our mouths would hang open in disbelief and the storyteller would stop to savor our incredulous expressions as we hung onto their every word. It is the very first time I got exposed to the power that the storyteller wielded. It is also how I came to have an insatiable desire for a good story.

So when one day, my sister brought a strange-looking book from school , worn out and tattered, with all the African folklores under the sun, of course I devoured it. It was as if I’d finally discovered where the candy was hidden. The stories were warm and familiar, like the fires we’d gotten used to. Where pages were missing, my imagination would step in and fill the gaps. I did not have to wait until nighttime to find out what happened next anymore. Finally, I was not at the mercy of the storyteller.

It was the first time I discovered books were portals to new worlds and, being the explorer that I am, I was intrigued. Since then, I have walked through life with my head buried in a book.

With time, I also started to wield my pen, and it felt as natural as breathing. I immortalized experiences on paper and gave voice to my inner groanings. It is then I discovered that to write is to live forever. But most importantly, I realized that as much as I was constantly in search of good stories, mine was a good story too and deserved to be told.

To be a writer also means to feel everything deeply. Otherwise, how can you write a moving story if it does not move you first? So I have also gone through life with big emotions that constantly demand to be felt.

But I have come to terms with the fact that from the moment I decided to spend my life chasing and making good stories, I traded my sanity for immortality.