When It Rains…

When It Rains, Let It Rain.
but you don’t have to get wet…

Yesterday, I was at a friend’s 50th in 1004. I had gone with another friend on our way home from work, and I was regaling her of the things we used to get up to growing up in G4. I took her to my old block, Block B, and showed her my flat. For whatever reason, the current occupant would not let me enter.

Anyway, on my way home, I thought of G4, and growing up in Surulere before that. And the oh so blissful times I had as a kid. I grew up in Games Village, Off Bode Thomas.
Block 9, Flat 11.

It was a community of 20 blocks of 20 flats each. The kids went to the same school(s). The parents all worked with the civil service. And you were literally running through each other’s houses all the time. Everyone knew everyone.

When I say everyone knew everyone, everyone knew everyone. You knew the kids your age because you were in the same class. You knew their siblings cause you all were in the same school and played on the field together. You knew all the parents. And all the parents knew you.
It was so bad that if you were out at 4pm when they came home from work, and didn’t time your retreat properly, you could spend the next hour genuflecting and greeting people. And discipline was a community effort. Chai!

Tough as it was on us lads, it was also the golden age of freedom. If your mother was busy at work (or her food was not sweet) you could always eat in a neighbour’s house.

Most flats were never locked. And if you were shy, you could walk in, pass through the corridor, enter the kitchen, have your mate dish you a plate, and exit into the balcony to eat peacefully without running into any parents. Infact, a couple of times, I have stumbled on some rascals in our balcony eating plates of food they dished themselves!
This was the golden era when Lagos State had a water board and you paid for water to come out the taps. This was a period when there were no bands - and once power was out, there was no solar, or battery, or generator, everyone from all the flats just congregated downstairs.

The parents drank and smoked and gisted. The younger adults hung around. We the kids just slept on mats. There were also some parents we were fond off. Those ones who took the time to seat with us by the mats and tell stories. Good Guys.
If you were in middle income neighbourhoods like this in Lagos back in the days, and spent time with elders in the field, in the garden, or on balconies and porches, you might notice something that happens…

Like the conversation will die down and the oldest person on the porch, they're just going to get up and go inside. They don't say a word. They don't say bye. They just get up and go inside.
And then a few minutes later, you'll hear the person who's maybe middle-aged and they're like “my knee is hurting, I think it's going to rain”, and then you'll have like the educated younger adults by the mats sniggering and saying “your knee doesn't have anything to do with the rain. It’s science. And your biology has no link to the atmosphere”… and there will be some back and forth with the older guy swearing, and the younger university guys laughing.

And then it actually starts raining!

What you don't know about that story is that all of those people are the same person at different levels of understanding.

That old person who got up and just went inside, it's because they could smell the rain in the atmosphere. From years of experiencing the rain, they have imbibed a system that automatically identifies all the precursors of rain, subconsciously, without even knowing so. In that time too, they have often tried to prove to people around them about these ‘feeling’ and what was to come, and been ignored or laughed off, and so, now, they just chose to go ahead and go inside.

And I think what you learn as you get older is that when you know things that are coming and you feel them in your spirit, you just move. Because when you get caught up arguing with people about it, you get caught in the rain. You don't have to wait for the rain, you can just go.

What are the habits and feelings and senses that you are subconsciously imbibing? Are you letting them seep into you? Or you are relying on logic and denying that the earth and its surroundings can speak to you, can teach you, can warn you, can keep you from harm or causing others harm.
In relationships, some of you want to commit murder (and be featured on C+I). At work, some of you have thought of beating your bosses. In traffic when jousting with Keke and bikes and vagabond Uber drivers. At home in front of your tv watching another politician be bombastic. Over time, you would have realized that you too, you now have triggers…

Do not give in, there is always another way.

You don’t have to wait for the rain.
You don’t have to convince anyone.
You don’t have to argue.
You can just go.