Dear Bolu,
Ba-ba-badum-bum budum budum.
Kiwanuka's voice fills the vacant atmosphere in my room. I know what comes next. I know what follows—more badums, more budums. I've been here countless times, consumed by a melody so rich that it could never, even after a thousand plays, be stripped of any of its virtues. Heaven only knows how many walks I've taken in its warm company; how much thought I've spared inquiring, by small and large orders of magnitude, into its meanings and motivations; the aggregate approving and disapproving nods I've sacrificed on its altar in harmonious sync and pleasant disbelief; and the number of nights I've laid in bed with its chorus.
Heaven only knows.
I've been here countless times, but today is different. It's been a week since I played any music, and I have never been hungrier for a song. My soul is famished, and my ears, parched. It was never going to be easy starving myself of music for an extended period, but my underestimation of the difficulty didn't help. At every turn was a battle between my learned impulse to play a song and my wavering resolve not to, and I watched each skirmish unfold without enthusiasm.
The first few days were the worst, as I struggled to adjust to my tuneless reality. Bathroom concerts featuring rich musical performances from my speakers turned into graveyard shifts punctuated only by the sound of cold water pattering gently against my body. Daytime whims, like the itch to play an album stumbled upon in a subreddit or to loop a song due to a striking lyric, went unfulfilled and left me dissatisfied. At night, the tunes that lured me to slumber were out of commission, so I chased shadows with my eyes and counted sheep until sleep found me. I'd picked a fight with a delightful obsession, and I expected to win. The cost—joyless days and silent nights—was, however, unbargained.
It got better, thankfully. The panacea for all of life's struggles, encapsulated in the clichéd pill that we ought to make lemonade out of the lemons we are given, became my salvation. I asked how I might make the most of the situation, and I found peace in the answers. It meant that I stopped fighting my displeasure. I let my frustrations manifest with little resistance—I let them pass without consuming me, and they passed swiftly.
One of the answers was to document the songs I felt like playing, and naturally, I created a playlist for that purpose. It grew quickly because, it turned out, I'm flooded with tens of music prompts every day. It contained songs I'd forgotten about—titles from old loves and past lives—, personal favourites, trending melodies, themes from TV shows, and some random inexplicable tracks. Usually when I create playlists, I avoid duplicate entries but I ignored that rule this time. Songs were added as many times as I felt the urge to play them and the result was a collection of tracks I called Ààwẹ̀. I would break my fast with Ààwẹ̀, with the most guiltless self-indulgent solo music orgy. It would be my gratification. It would be deserved.
Curating a playlist wasn't enough. I also had to find a way to listen to songs without violating the conditions of my fast, and my solution was to sing. I've always maintained that my voice is only half as good as the jarring chorus of a hundred steel cutlery hitting a tiled floor, but I realised, after listening to myself sing track after track, that I'd been rather unfair in my assessment. I may not have Sia's impeccable pitch and control or Nas' cadence and rhythm, but I say the correct words with discernible melody. And unless I want to dominate karaoke nights or perform for an audience holding a thousand flashlights, that would have to do.
Oftentimes when a song popped into my head, I needed the internet to remember the title so that I could update my playlist. I needed help to get lyrics right when I sang, and although I often got the melody wrong, it didn't matter—it doesn't matter. I'm here now, at the end of my fast, and it is Ààwẹ̀'s first track, through Kiwanuka's voice, that delivers me. For this one song, I don't need any help with the lyrics. I am with him all the way. As the sweltering heat mixes with the air, so do our voices. I echo his badums and budums. When he says, you can't take me down, I'm staring at the pawpaw leaves clinging onto the barbed fence outside the window. Brown and beaten, they refuse to fall to the ground in defiance of nature's dictates. "You can't take me down", I say, with all the verve I can muster. When the guitar solo starts, I'm holding mine—my guitar, though invisible—and plucking the hell out of its strings. This, I have missed. My soul is nourished. My ears are wet with excitement. I'm loud and alive. I need something, and Kiwanuka gives me something wonderful.
We often define new experiences as the trying of new things, but perhaps there's an unpopular alternative definition we could explore, which is the letting go of old things, even for a short period. We should all be fasters—from YouTube or TikTok; music or movies; cigarettes or bubble gum; soda or noodles; and anything at all we think we couldn't do without. Truthfully, we do this sometimes—we take breaks from Twitter when it becomes unhealthy and unbearable; we join our local church in marathon fasts at the turn of the new year. In fact, Ramadan fast approaches, and we might find ourselves on a food fast in that holy month. That is great but I wish we were more intentional and creative about the things we fast from. Yes, there is no superior wisdom to be gleaned or enlightenment to be achieved when we fast, but with a little stroke of luck, the fast might offer us a tiny fragment of knowledge about ourselves. We may discover that we aren’t such terrible singers after all and that with some modulation practice, mouth exercises, and generous perfume application, we’d be adequately prepared to serenade our crush at the next bonfire night. So, fast. Fast from anything—anything except my letters, of course. There's no one I'd rather write to than you, dear friend.
Fin.
P.S.
I’m sorry I was gone a while without notice.
Thanks for reading! I’m delighted you made it here. If you liked this issue of Dear Bolu, you could sign up here so that new letters get sent directly to your inbox.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy
Superb as usual.. You describe feelings in ways very few people can.
Apology accepted 😂. A fast from writing perhaps? This was interesting to read, as always.