GRITTY

by ene ijato - October 29, 2018

You must wonder, when you touch your palms to the earth and feel the sand on the callused skin of your hands this rawness, this grit, this reality.

You must wonder, about the illusions and the realities that you are able to perceive. You must wonder about the blatant rawness and unembellished way life sometimes presents itself to us in the acclaimed realities of its choosing. You must wonder, when you touch your palms to the earth and feel the sand on the callused skin of your hands this rawness, this grit, this reality.

I am a farm girl in many ways, through and through. I remember seasons of years ago, in open fields breaking melons with blunt machetes. I remember open streams and the smell of dug up dirt vomiting into plain sight millipedes and families of kaleidoscopic bugs, fresh with life and scampering for cover. There is a way this kind of rawness touches you, it connects you to the core of your existence laid bare, reminding you that you are all grit and bones.

My childhood memories are coloured with images of myself as a child, feet covered with fresh post-rain earth, generously moulded over the form of my bare feet and smoothed over by fingernails heavy with dirt. How I would gently push out my feet and marvel at the cave-like structure standing firmly to the ground. How pieces of bougainvillea and hibiscus would be used to embellish the cave of dirt, and my undeniable sense of accomplishment.

The ability to create things, moments, decisions, that bring joy and a sense of accomplishment, out of our various realities. To me, this is what it means to be gritty.

For a while now, I have been trying to immerse myself into more independent projects that inspire me. Because I have learnt over the course of my life and through listening to the beautiful stories full of wisdom that surge from the mouths of strangers-friends I have had the pleasure of knowing, that making a conscious effort to discover the capabilities of our minds, harnessing our wells of creativity and getting involved in a plethora of exploits is the only way we can fully discover ourselves and what we have within us. For in as much as I am amused by the over-used heroine/hero finding their destiny in so many cliché constructs Hollywood has presented us with in the course of decades, perhaps our destiny might not be limited to a single job or quest, perhaps we do not have to define it as though it were a clean-cut path paved for us. Perhaps our destiny lies in our ability to dig through our grit, the realities we have been given, and finding those things that fuel us with passion.

Our unique perspectives, filled with layers and layers of humanity laid bare on the precipice of our core existence. Of creating and building and transforming. Of pushing boundaries and paving new roads to our diverse definitions of fulfilment.