BECOMING

In primary school, we were encouraged that there wasn’t much difference between us and the girls and boys whose schools perpetually decorated the local dailies when national exam results were announced. It didn’t matter that no student from our school was ever ranked top in the country, “inside each one of us lay potential to change that story…” our teachers encouraged us. Every year, the top student in our school missed a spot in the top 100 by a few marks. If the last ranked student scored 418 marks, our crème de la crème would be at 415 marks. Like many students our age, it was a big deal to see our school’s name printed in the local dailies. It offered some validation to the greatness we hoped to grow into – make it to a national secondary school, score high grades, pursue degrees in science and clinch the best jobs. In our minds, it was a simple series of events, that when you got the first step right, the rest would fall seamlessly into place. After benchmarking trips, we embarked with our teachers’ assistance on a mission to do things that proved (to us and any audience) that even a school with a name too hard to pronounce, tucked away in Embu was just as great. 

 

One of the fruits of the inspiration was a school Journalism club. We became writers, editors and reporters. There were no ranks, just young storytellers on a simple mission, to collect stories around the school, pen them and read them at the school assembly every Friday morning. For those of us who public speaking brought out the insecurities from our closets, our shyness was about to be hung out in the glare of hundreds of students and wrung off the grip it had on us: But we would also find out it wasn’t planning on leaving without a fight. It would make sure some of us lost the power of articulation even when the words were crisply spelt out on a piece of paper, it would play hide and seek with the articulacy we had achieved from rehearsing. But amid these storms, fires would be sparked in us that would continue burning for years.  

 

It was my turn to bring the weekly round of news by ‘Wango Times’ Club… 13 years old, with short hair, a long dress, and a little oversized black leather shoes I walked, leaving the garden-variety line where we were all mere students and trudged towards greatness, a foolscap that carried the news tightly clasped in my right hand. The act was simple but it felt like an elevation to a higher status that was impenetrable to my insecurities. It was quiet, every ear baying for news about the achievements of the school volleyball team, a report on some nasty incident that went down in the school dining hall, or an update on what popular students were up to. 

 

I should have been drenched in nerves. My mind should have been a stage for chaos, trying to wrap itself around the idea of staying calm in front of the crowd. My mouth should have been dry, my heart should have pounded till it hurt and my cheeks should have been red hot. History had taught me that I wasn’t much of a speaker, public or otherwise. That I was better off tending to stories, poetry and tranquil conversations in my mind. My craving and determination to have a seamless social experience untethered by fear and a sense of deficiency always never bore any fruits. But there I was that day, dripping in confidence. This moment had brought excitement, a thrill, a thing that insulated me from the fears that had camped in my mind for years. It was like the moment had given birth to a new me! So I stood and projected my voice. The whole assembly was quiet for the few minutes I read. I didn’t stammer, I wasn’t afraid to peer into the eyes of my audience; teacher or student. I was firm, my breathing was steady and there was no lump in my throat that jealously choked my words. Guess I had finally lost myself or found a part of myself. “That was the news brought to you by the Wango Times”, I concluded. The assembly roared with applause. It felt like I had walked out of a shadow, like I had left the background where I was invisible and metamorphosed to an important starring. “I must get a seat at the coveted cool students’ table now…” I thought to myself. But when the applause fizzled and the assembly came to a close and we went back to our classes I was back to jumping the same social minefields. “How come there were still thorns around the cool cliques? How come the hot boys I crushed on still chased after the same girls? Hadn’t they noticed my earth-shattering moment?” 

 

My social position remained stubbornly the same. The social eloquence I believed I had finally grasped was still out of reach. But despite the disappointments that followed, that experience began to teach me about myself: I had a relationship with words. I was socially awkward but all you had to do was put me in a place with words ‘reading, writing’ and like a miracle a different part of me buoyed to life.

In high school, I became that annoying classmate who read the newspapers crammed in the library and took over a corner of the blackboard with a bulletin of old and new news. I couldn’t pass an opportunity to write a story even when the subject threatened to land me in trouble. At that point in life, my relationship with words seemed to point me to a career in journalism and every moment felt like preparation for the day I would stand before cameras and say ‘reporting for NTV, I’m Elizabeth Muthama‘. 

 

Then came cluster points, then a regret note from JAB (Joint Admission Board) that I had not qualified for a degree in Mass Communication. Even so, one would have been excused for thinking I was a Mass Communication student. Most of my free time in campus I spent in that department. I peered into their books, I made friends to ensure I learned as much as possible. Along the way, I met people who loved words like I did and together we started the ‘Bloggers Association of Maseno University’. We told stories. I landed a radio show at the University’s station and boy, it looked like I had just begun to unwrap the gift that was my big break.

When it was a wrap for my undergrad, one of the first things I did was burn my best radio show recordings on CDs. I wrote down as many radio and TV stations in a notebook and began sending unsolicited applications for internship opportunities. Then I began to make random visits to their offices. There are offices I wasn’t let past the gate. You can imagine the mistrust that clung to me when a guard obviously under tight instructions not to let people without appointments in, promised he’d deliver my application to the HR. I would walk away, a feeling of loss trailing behind me dragging her feet so loudly that it was impossible to ignore. It is said determination makes something of passion, it takes away the abstractness and gives it some shape, an element of true existence. But there were no rejection letters, no interview invitations, just silence that wafted to me and stuck around like a vindictive ghost. I’ll never really know how quickly those applications were shredded, whether at least they were accorded the dignity of sitting on the HR’s desk before they were tossed in the bin. Or whether they found their way to a worker’s kitchen and served to light a jiko. Or whether they were used as emergency towels when someone spilled coffee on their desk. I’ll never know!

But you know what they say about opportunities…when one door closes, a few miles down the road another one opens. And that is how I found myself in a studio in Kakamega, smiling at the camera so it would get me the best physical version of me to use in my auditions for The Presenter Season 2. This had to be what the rejections were leading me to. Surely this must have been the proverbial defining moment, the time, the month, the year to become one with the version of me I believed lay waiting for me; a household name journalist, telling stories and most likely writing op-eds on ‘how to make it to the top’ (don’t judge me, at that time I couldn’t think of any higher place.)

On the night before the audition, I went to bed early. It’s said that one of the keys to unlocking success in the next day is enough sleep. But I didn’t get much. I tossed and turned in bed as I played out possible scenes of my audition. I fantasized about the judges being so impressed and giving me a solid yes. Once in a while, defeatist thoughts popped up but I muscled them away with positivity. Then the D-day came and I met thousands of dreamers. Some had studied journalism overseas and spoke in accents that could only allow them to say wora, when they meant water. There were dreadlocks, wigs, short hair, longhair… People who talked about preparation, the right attitude, prayers, faith, lucky bracelets and game plans. (It would be unfair if I didn’t admit that as I waited for my turn, so many times I was lost in thoughts that convinced me all those people looked like they stood a better chance to get picked than me…I wasn’t rooting for me anymore)

The moment I walked into the audition room and set my eyes on the two judges, my breathing became rapid and shallow. On their cue, I began to report the story from a crime scene and a few seconds into the story, I was dropping lines. My mind didn’t have the tape to hold together the broken sentences it created and I was suddenly a stranger to eloquence. Something in my body couldn’t stop shaking; could have been the hands, jaws or just the whole body. I kept apologizing as I tripped over piles of words I had created. At the end I was saying so many things and nothing in particular. All the articulate things I could say had disappeared into a crypted corner in my mind that I couldn’t access. I was one of those contestants who gave editors a field day in creating comics.

I can’t say these disappointments made me stronger, but getting out of them with my love for words still intact taught me valuable lessons. Writing is that thing I can do at any state of mind. I thought it would lead me to journalism, it didn’t or hasn’t, yet. But it has led me to places I don’t regret being at.
I don’t feel exhausted when writing. My mind knows no impossibilities when all it has to do is stitch words together. When I lost my sister, I was broken and for the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do with the pieces that scattered on the floor of my heart. I had hit the proverbial rock bottom. But slowly I found words, and I wrote those words down. And then a light began to shine through the cracks. My heart has never healed and it probably never will, but the light allows for something else to grow beside the hurt, something pacifying.

In December 2018 when I thought of things I wanted to achieve in the new year, only one came up: I needed to be in touch with that person who read the news in primary school. I needed that self to come out when I was in conversations with the world. I needed that person because she knows how to lose the ‘me’ that is often a naysayer.

See, I may never read the news for the world news leader as I had hoped, but I have and can still use the power writing gives me to be the best at what I have at hand. This is my saving grace, the thing that stirs up the life in me. The thing that makes me feel so good about myself and is not contingent on anyone else. So I recently dug through the rust that is time to look for the keys to my little blog. I found them, the room is officially open and you are welcome to come in. When you have words you think I can house feel free to drop me an email at itsinmywords@gmail.com Welcome to Liz Muthama, where stories with resonance are served.