Young Boys and the Rain.
Nostalgia and embracing the child within.
From my Notion archives, I stumbled upon a draft from last year titled: Young Boys and the Rain. As I read through the bullet points I drafted for the article, the words began to speak to me again.
It’s 12:13 AM and I’m typing away.
Let me take you back to John Tallach High School in Ntabazinduna for context. That is where I spent six years of my high school education behind boarding school walls. At the time of jotting down those bullet points, I recall it was raining outside. The trickling sounds of American rain, in the basement of my first-ever residence in America, carried with it a memory of home. For a moment I was back to my first year of high school.
During the fall of the first rains, a number of us, first formers, would dash outside fully naked to the toe and expose our jolly dangling pencils to the heavenly waters. Crazy? Oh, yes, it was crazy. But, beyond crazy, it was fun. Picture a young group of early teenagers, jumping up and down in a disorderly but also choreographed manner, chanting made-on-the-spot choruses and allowing the miracle of rain to wash away their sins of ignorance and oblivion. What ignorance, you ask? That of the cruelties of the larger world. Simply put; it was freedom.
At the village when I visited my grandparents for the school holidays, the routine was almost similar: follow the water rushing out of the highland neighborhood, eroding the sand from the untarred rural roads and yards. All that water joined the large streams in the forest opposite the settlements, following them to where they ended. We never got to where they ended, but we did manage to get to where most of the small tributaries converged, pouring into one larger body. (Some geography terminology there to signal my high school Geography teacher didn’t waste his time). All these water bodies had names. We knew the deeper ones from the shallow ones mainly because during the dry summers these bodies were empty playgrounds as well. Tyrene was the name of the popular one where we went to swim after the rain. If you happened to find us there, basking in the sun that shined immediately after or with the rain, you’d think we were forsaken children without parents or guardians. But no. We were only free-spirited and hungry-for-fun-by-any-means teenagers. Forget the older guys who would come to the shores of Tyrene, grab our clothes and tell us to run back home naked. If it rained the next day, and the swimming pools were not flooded, you’d find us back there.
My favorite line from The Office is surprisingly from the character Andy Bernard. I never cared for him at all throughout the whole TV show. In fact, he aggravated me to the core. In the last episode, however, he says, “I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.” To this day, that quote is the greatest line that hit me from the whole series. To say cut deep is an understatement.
When I look back to those younger years, when I thought we were free and yearning only for fun, I wonder if there’s a way to regain that youthfulness. In these times, where the world is at war with herself, the capitalist is turning evil, attention is commoditised, individuality is rare or shunned, cancel culture is at an all-time high and growing stronger every minute, a world where social media likes are the new happiness barometer, where lives are lived more online than in real experiences, where robots are listening and controlling our lives and, living ‘freely’ like young boys in the rain is hard attempt at life, it is now more than ever that one must take up the heart of child.
I say all this because, seeing the festive season has approached and we’re geared to party and partake in various festivities, I feel the need to bring back that heart of being young. In a broader point of view: I wish to paint a picture of how crazy and alive we were in our youth, daring to dream, daring to venture into uncharted territory and not scared by the winds of change. We have lost that. We lose it with age. I have lost that sixth sense. True; the pragmatics of being young when we’re now adulting and paying bills may be a luxury to pursue. Notice how being youthful at heart does not call for hedonistic pleasure over pursuing that which is meaningful. Because the principle remains: youth is happy because it sees beauty unfiltered.
So, fellow young boys, when the rains of the festive season are upon you, try to dance in them, forget your sorrows if you have that opportunity and live freely. Pray and wish well those who are in difficult times all over the world. The purpose of God is not known to humans but to us humans, we see that pain as undeserved and brutal beyond whatever purpose. May all suffering be counted for prosperity in this life or the next.
It has been a great year for me trying-to-adult in America. Thank you to my 30 Substack subscribers. All I can say is that bigger things are coming. And together we’ll build a community to foster positive growth for others.
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Until next Monday:
Peace✌🏾 and love 💓.
Aluta Continua✊🏾.
What I’m reading:
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Favourite song/album of the week:
Cornerstone album by Nutty O. Ps: He is my favourite artist.