The First Time

What if we could experience something for the first time? Or give someone the ability to?
Imagine going through a moment, a day, or a lifetime, experiencing everything for the first time. The joy, pleasure and wonder of newness.
What would you think of experiencing?
The first time you hold your newborn baby.
Sunrise.
Ice cream.
First love.
That first kiss.
Waking up to the first day of holiday.
The look in your dog's eyes when you get home from a day out.
Driving through the gates of paradise into a place called Sewanee.
The taste of tea.
Meeting your friends.
Your parents' faces the first time you get home from a semester away.
Even the simpler stuff, all that we've learnt to take for granted.
I'm going to sit back and let this be my first time. All my first times.

Distance

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."
Aesop

Motion and Dance

A little known fact about me; usually I'm happiest when I'm in motion.
Walking around, pacing, driving, dancing.
I forgot how much dance meant to me until recently, and I couldn't be happier to rediscover it!
Growing up, I remember I would come home from school, and at some point in the evening, I would close myself in my room and dance for about an hour or more.
Nowadays, it's something I haven't had time for; or so I thought.
Sure, I go out with my friends and dance then, but it's not quite the same, and I'm so glad I realised this before it was too late.
I wish I could share how it feels, the catharsis, the emotion, the stillness of thought I find in dance.
Some other day maybe; right now, I'm going to dance.

Inspire

There's a lot of tragedy around us. More if we actively look for it. And it keeps piling up, and the world is sad, and women you don't know cry at airports because of it. Actions are being taken by those in charge, and we can back them with our support.
We ask ourselves though, what can we as ordinary citizens do about these tragedies? We can't change laws. We can't lead thousands.
We can choose how we react.
Let's choose to look to those who inspire, who lead, who are willing to sacrifice themselves to save lives. Those heroes who we lost and we now mourn. Let's believe in the innocence of children, and the inherent goodness that we as humans have. Let's remember those we lost and celebrate their lives and how they touched us.
Faith in ourselves and those around us will get us a long way.
As one of my friends said, "Spread some positivity today - let it ripple throughout our communities."

Home

Growing up, I always took the places around me and related them to home. I'd see reflections of the outside world in my home.
Coming to Sewanee I realised it was actually the other way around; I carry pieces of home wherever I go, because it's about the people and things that matter, and not where I physically am. As I travel to different places, I will be asked where home is, and I'll say Nairobi. But I'll be secure in the knowledge that I can be at home far away too, and I'm cool with that.