Then we have two options. We sit with it, allow it, and move on… Or we combust. But in fact, there is a third option no one speaks of because, perhaps its frowned upon.

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Upon pondering the predicament of how to start this Substack or rather, where to begin, whilst also thinking;

If stories are not told in the height of them arising in one’s mind, the magic should surely vanish among the moments past - amongst the stress of how to write them down so as not to lose their essence, or at speed, to not forget them altogether. I’ve come to realise, however, if they are forgettable, perhaps they should not be shared at all. Also, all good stories begin with an ending. An abrupt stop, rejection, or death of sorts... real or metaphorical.

But then, all those other stories weren’t the beginning or an end - but a middle, like being dragged through a sea urchin farm at low tide in Zanzibar…

Or, a sudden flat tyre in the Moroccan desert whilst being followed by police and swiftly deserted as the sun set.

Or attempting to pass my motorbike test whilst consisting of 82% alcohol on 2 hours sleep, having crashed a lime-bike at 4 am the previous night in an exclamation of rage, and adorning already colourful burn scars across my thighs from crashing another motorbike 1 week prior.

Or travelling halfway around the world only to meet my next-door neighbour before skydiving out of a baked-bean-can-sized plane with no shoes on to celebrate the matter….

This list goes on, yet the stories have no real context.

In what context, for instance, would I tell of the time we were stranded in the Omo Valley desert for 3 nights? With my 85-year-old grandma and ill mother, digging out our remaining 4x4 from knee-deep mud with our bare hands through the night (we’d lost the other vehicle 5km back)...Rebuilding the road with gravel and resting under a tent we’d wearily reconstructed to the side of the car to shelter from the midday heat. The mud now drying and cracking on our skin, I found myself internally praying for help as I observed my mum deteriorate - just 2 weeks after she asked me to sneak her out the back of a hospital in a ‘borrowed’ wheelchair before being ‘safely’ discharged... like a scene from Captain Fantastic. - And now watching a band of Ethiopian men - AK-47s strapped to their backs, run towards us through the dazzling mirage of thorn bushes and yellow grass…? This story, I suppose, is just one of many that happened, and ones I hope to share.

I digress massively, and consider that perhaps I should start an ‘East African story collection’, or a ‘I’m a liability’ blog adjacent to my current posts…

Upon even writing these down, however, I realise, with your support as my readers, that perhaps it is to be my challenge to ‘circle back’ to these stories; Practise writing and interweaving these memories into the present, to know I can rewire magic into words of the past, like those epic tales of my parents and grandparents to come…

And so, with an ending in mind as a fitting place to start, let us begin in 2021.

It is, no doubt, a more hilarious, yet somehow still dramatic story.

In this case, it was jail. And with it, the end of a dream I had of a relationship just 3 weeks old that felt like the next chapter of my entire life.

Due to lack of any foresight whatsoever, there were just a few factors we’d overlooked in the form of laws and regulations, ironically coinciding the same time I’d decided to walk, barefoot off an 11 hour flight from Dar es Salaam - hand in hand with a semi-sober Dutchman and his entourage, who’d been living on an island for the last 3 months during the height of an international lockdown. We (myself included) looked like a bunch of washed-up pirates who hadn’t showered or worn shoes in weeks. And, quite frankly, we hadn’t.

Apart from the absolute lack of planning… to think I would fit into this man’s life, 13 years older than me

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Beginnings are hard. Yet, here we are.

I thought sharing a video of me talking to the camera on social media was scary until I tried to share real life, in words, and publish them, online.

After a year of writing consistently however, I realise I can’t gate-keep all the things I’ve written and experienced any longer without going clinically insane. Life …

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