A Day In The Life II

I don't really wake up until I am out of the house, though. That languid semi-awareness of morning doesn't fully disperse until I am out of the house and walking up the narrow meters round the corner to the shop where I get my daily airtime and then to the taxi stage. 

If it is a bright morning, wakefulness will come in a blast of green: bush and grass and weeds and shambas. There will be some naked or half-naked kids whose only English is the word "ba-bye". Their mothers or guardians will grin at the glee with which the kids wave and will
greet me, too.

Morning will come with a pleasant surprise, with the sudden realisation of how vigorously life proceeds outside my dark, airless home.

And then the taxi. If we pass the good route, with the good road, at one point, roughly eight minutes of smooth cruising from home, we will pass under a hill that over a couple of years has transformed from wilderness and is now built up with new mansions. They are bright
white, gleaming and seducing you with the hope of how much is possible in Uganda.

Or if there is a traffic jam, we'll cut through the murrram, the rough, crooked, difficult murram path, over crumbpling, tightly-huddled hovels of mud, tin and plastic. On this route the taxi
is closer to the homes and you can even see sigiri steam emerging from behind the sheets of cotton that serve as doors in the daytime.

There are more naked kids. They say byebye as we roll past.

A Day In The Life

It's hard to get out of bed. I snooze the alarm one and a half dozen times each morning. I cling to my last dreams like a suicide to the wall.
When I finally open my eyes I can't find the energy to move. I just lie there, prone and silent, weak and helpless, tangled and pinned down. When it rains my brain whispers to me, to urge those five more minutes, the words: "You are not going to feel better than this again." And I surrender to that sweet warm moment.

Of course when I do rise, brush my teeth and start the coffee, once the day is underway, I forgot completely how ensnared I was. All it took to break free, I'll think, as I sip strong and black, was the mere decision. Just say the word and you will be free.

But tomorrow I'll hit the snooze button 15 times again. I'll languish in that spiderweb of half dreams again. Every morning is a lesson I don't learn.