Wanderlust...

Wanderlust : A strong innate desire to travel about
One of my top top favorite words! Right up there with happenstance.

Sometimes I'm scared I'll never find "home"...
The idea of home is a strange one. Is it where you've lived the longest; Lagos, or where you were born; New York, or where you first discovered who you were; San Francisco, or maybe where you realized you were enough; Florence,  or maybe It's where all the people you love are; Scattered all over the world. All I know is that I'm always longing for some place...

A couple of weeks ago I sent The partner a photo

Him :You look like the girl I fell in love with...

Me: O_o what does that mean? I'm no longer pretty ehn?

Him: No there's this radiance about you, you look happy, happier. Lagos took a lot from you and the stress got to you.

Me : Oh :(

 After the conversation I pondered over he said. I don't want to be happier here, I love the people in Lagos, my family and friends, and I love being in close proximity to them, but here I have easy access to the things that feed my creative energy and make me happy. The stress, the air and Lagos in general is too much for me and leaves me drained mostly.

Someone suggested I would Like Abuja, and I quite like Calabar . The partner says we should run away to Ghana. lol! Maybe I'll always be looking for home, at least I have someone who will wander with me...

Buon' Weekend!
Sabirah

31 day reset- Day 17

Today's task. 100 things that make me happy!!Whoop. fun fun fun. That was the whole purpose of this blog so here we go. In no particular order.

1. Family
2. Close Friends
3. Yoga
4. Exercising
5. Eating great food
6. Cooking great food for myself and others
7. The partner
8. Posting on this blog
9. travelling 
10. Exploring new things
11. Pretty stationery - Cards and note cards especially blank ones
12. crafting - Making things with my hands- Soap, headbands, earrings, cards
13. DMCs - Deep Meaningful conversations
14. Candles
15. Flowers that don't make me sneeze
16. Neo Soul music
17. Afrobeat
18. Karaoke
19. Hosting brunches
20. Playing Taboo
21. Playing "concentration"
22. Sweet cocktails
23. Dressing up
24. Natural hair
25. Afros!!
26. Watching movies based on old english novels- Pride and prejudice, Jane Eyre etc
27. Spending the day at the beach
28. Day trips
29. Photography
30. Going to museums
31. My Leather journal
32. Spending time with loved ones
33. Salads
34. Home
35. Giving gifts
36. Receiving gifts
37. Taking long baths
38. washing my hair
39. Drinking tea
40. Dancing
41. volunteering
42. Smell of pastry
43. Books- real books made with paper
44. The smell of old books
45. Music from Baba himself, Anikulapo!
46. My daddy's singing
47. My mom's laugh
48. My brother's jokes
49. Jewellery
50. Thrift stores
51. Pretty bras that fit
52. sexy undergarments
53. Lipstick
54. Farmer's markets
55. flea markets
56. Gummy worms
57. Good wine
58. Sunshine
59. Rain
60. Thunder
61. Live music
62. Cafes 
63. Road trips
64. Singing in the car
65. Massages
66. Doing my nails myself
67. Sun dresses
68. kisses
69. Chocolate
70. hugs
71. butterfly kisses
72. vanilla flavored and scented things
73. Strawberries
74. Mangoes
75. Agbalumo
76. Balsamic vinegar
77. Being in Love
78. Sunday mornings
79. Pancakes and Perfect scrambled eggs
80. Strong women
81. Pretty food
82. Reading
83. Fashion
84. Italy, Italian culture.
85. intimate Wedding decor, planning, attire.
86. Men's Fashion and stylish men
87. The color green
88. Pictures
89. The color coral
90. Interior Decor
91. Love quotes from old books and movies... and poetry
92. Soft serve ice-cream
93. Boy shorts
94. Lifting weights
95. Smiling
96. Saying "Thank you"
97. Jazz music
98. Fluffy comfy beds
99. Long train rides.
100. Leather satchels and briefcases
101. Classic shoes
102. My quiet time
103. 101. Luxurious bath items- soap, bath bombs, lotions
104. Bookstores
105. Tiramisu
106. Chocolate cake
107. The smell of coffee
108. Independent and foreign films
109. Book readings
110. Being on time
111. Warm nights on roof tops
112. Lights, sparkly lights, pretty light at night.
113. washing my hands
114. Glasses
115. Male feminists
116. Sade Adu
117. Nneka
118. Dialogue
119. Sunday brunch
120. Numbers divisible by 3.

I am an alaseju (doing the most) I couldn't stop at 100... and I could still go on, but yeah see what I did with that last one? ;)

I enjoyed this task! So much fun, even if you aren't doing the 31 day reset(which you should totally do) you can do this task! just for fun, if you do let me know/see!

Love,

Sabirah

Buon' weekend!

31 day reset- Day 12

Today's task was to craft our ideal life narrative. I really enjoyed writing this :)

I am living in a quiet surburb filled with the sounds of birds, wind and children playing. Our house is spacious and has a lot of light coming in through the large windows, I especially love my home office because of the giant inspiration board above my computer. It is organized and messy at the same time. This is where I create. We own a lot of art and It's everywhere. Mostly by me and the people I love but also some prints of famous pieces. Our Decor is very DIY- Quirky. I love to entertain and my huge kitchen has been the home to lots of laughter, tears of joy and reunions. My partner and I host dinner parties often to catch up with friends and I hold a monthly book club meeting.


I am not "famous" but I am well known and respected in my field. I am good at what I do. I am a teacher, a creator and inspiration, a mover and shaker(lol). I run a successful cosmetic line and own an all natural salon and spa. I am active with the youth in my community especially girls and I am a mentor to many. I am part of a successful NGO in this area. I also run a blog/website where I share random things like recipes, book reviews etc and remind myself to stay happy and not forget me.


I spend my summers with my family in Florence doing some work, relaxing and continuing to practice my Italian. Travel is important to me and I try to experience a new area often whether 100km or 10,000km away. I enjoy and cherish my time alone and try to find at least a little time to spend by myself often. I take long baths in my vintage cast iron tub with claw feet to relax and often dance/go dancing with my partner for fun.


My partner is a handsome loving caring man who supports my quest to be a better person as I support his. I am very close to my parents and see them at least every two weeks. My brother and I are very close and he often spends a lot of time at my house. I am in touch with extended family members and often call, send gifts and visit.


I exercise often and cook healthy meals for my family. I am healthy physically and mentally. I earn enough to live the life I want and enjoy a few luxuries once in a while. I portion at least 10% of my earnings to helping others have a better life.


I am consistent on my self development journey and I continue to find ways to learn more, read more, give more and create more. God is ever present in my life and I bring him into my consciousness all the time. I stay on track with meditation, quiet time daily and prayer.
I am living my truth, and you can see it in all the love that shines upon me.

31 day reset- Day 1

So I'm doing this personal growth challenge that a certain lovely lady proposed to me, @Nerdychique has been a blessing to me in so many ways and I'm thankful for her. I've been on this personal growth kick since April and I've been taking personality tests, asking myself some important questions etc. I even realized that for the first time in my life I can comfortably say I love all of me and I'm am comfortable and secure in the person I am. It's been a while in the works and not an easy journey.

It's time to take this journey a couple of steps further and this couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. The 31 day reset is a month of daily exercises designed to motivate your personal growth in terms of happiness, entrepreneurial spirit, pursuing your passion and much more. So I'm excited. Always looking for ways to become a better version of me.

I invite you to join me and some other ladies here. I might post everyday depending on how I feel about each exercise, If you do decide to do it please let me know! and use the tag #31dayreset if you wish :)

Day 1
Choose your Reset Notebook

Sorry, Shitty Webcam photo

I chose this book because 1) I submitted my for real journal to my psych class, I might actually end up using that one, still undecided.

But I chose this book cos my mom hand wrote a bunch of prayers and daily devotionals for me when I was coming here, It was such notice but she filled it almost halfway. I think it's the sweetest thing ever. Isn't her handwriting pretty?

Choose your personal Mantra

"Live in truth, not in Fear. Love is you"

I chose this as my mantra because well the first part has always been my mantra, actually planned to tattoo it on the insides of my wrists last summer and I still might. It means A LOT to me. The second part is to remind myself to be an example of Love in all I do.

Choose a theme Song

Beautiful flower - India Arie. I simply like the message. Beautiful, brilliant, resilient, powerful. All that I am and want to be :)

Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield. Listen to it. you'll understand :) siiiigh. 

So that's it. 

Will you be joining in?

Love, 

Sabirah

Dream Jobs, contests and more dreams

Hi!

Wow! Overwhelming response on my last post, I was pleasantly surprised and had no idea it would touch so many people. I'm truly grateful for everyone who read it, thought it was good enough to share and passed it on. Thank you, It means a lot.

So today's business! I saw this amazing contest on Modcloth and I just had to enter, I'm not really big on contests but this one looked like so much fun, and I already have and love Pinterest so I thought why not?

So I set about creating a board that reflected my dream job... Only problem was, I don't really have one, I was only stuck for a few moments and while thinking about it I tweeted this- "Still don't know what my dream job is or if it exists, but I know the random mish mash of things that make me happy and that's OK :)” This comforted me while I tried to figure out what to put up.

I know that I'm highly creative, I know that I'm a helper, I love to learn and I love the study of the human mind. I know that I'd like to make a difference where it matters. Under these broad descriptions I could do a variety of things and I'm sure I have so much more to explore. I also know that it's important you do something you enjoy and are good at. While the idea of not having a box to place myself in scares me a bit, it also greatly excites me.

For the competition I narrowed it down to teaching and being the creative director for my brand Natural Saturdays. It was so much fun creating the board just as I expected. What I didn't expect was all the reflection it made me do. I'm glad. I keep getting inspired by the oddest things!

Here's a snapshot of my entry

If you'd like to see the pictures in higher quality and read my reflections (blurbs) on my "dream job" you can view the full entry here

So do you have a job/career suggestion for me?

How about you? Do you have a dream job?

Tell me in the comments even if it's "silly"

Love,

Sabirah.

On Intimacy

What does it mean to be intimate with someone?
What does it feel like? How do you know and how do you get there?
People often describe intimacy in terms of the physical which I believe is so limited. For me intimacy is defined way beyond the physical. It represents a true private, personal, close connection that comes about from sharing a unique bond, a deep sort of friendship. I'm still learning about what it entails but I feel like I have struck gold.

A while back my partner and I were having a conversation about what makes relationships special- I think it's what first made us both start talking about what intimacy meant to us both. There were a lot of things that had to happen before we were that comfortable. The most important thing I think was opening ourselves up to vulnerability.

Being vulnerable is a scary thing. It's opening yourself up to the possibility of being hurt and most people would rather not go through that, but there's also so much power in vulnerability, if you shield yourself from the the probability of hurt you also shield yourself from experiencing a powerful bond with another human being. We had both experienced hurt in different dimensions so making a decision to be honest and transparent toward each other wasn't easy and we had a lot of rocky moments where our trust for one another was shaky. As we continued to slowly build our trust in each other we were able to be more vulnerable.

I can't say the moment in which it changed but I can tell you that the first time I felt truly intimate with my partner was one day when I had a huge problem. I was at my wits end and completely lost as to what to do. As I had the courage to tell him what had happened, he quietly said "let's pray". At that point I was already in tears and even if I wanted to protest I couldn't. He began to pray and I was truly moved, because every word that came out of his mouth sounded like it was coming out of my heart. It's a moment i'll never forget for the rest of my life.

The second time was walking into church one Sunday, we were walking in front of my mum, hands linked. I'm not sure if I've talked about my spirituality here before (post for another day maybe) but mostly I've had a rather shaky journey and to me it was such a big deal for someone not only to allow me to grow in my own pace but also be concerned and offer help along the way. I guess it was all symbolic.

I've watched my parents find intimacy again and it's just beautiful. I saw them watching television on mute one day, sitting on the couch holding hands, I knew in that moment they were connected to each other, I quietly left the room and I'm sure they didn't notice. Their relationship has been a difficult one, but somehow they are finding what they once lost.

It's one of my favorite things about relationships (everything I've said and I'm saying can be applied to non-romantic relationships, just using mine as an example). Intimacy seems to be lost in a lot of relationships these days, since I've only recently discovered it I can't really give many pointers, but its so powerful, it's the thing that still makes me feel so close when I'm over 10,000km away. I'll say this though; be honest, be honest about what you want and who you are, don't be afraid to let it all show, be honest about your fears, your dreams, even the silly ones. Be true to the person you are.



Love always,
Sabirah

Creative License

On Christmas day last year I was out in the evening with a couple of people. I was dancing on my own to Fela (I couldn't resist), I got into conversation with a guy about my obvious love for Fela and Art in general, as we talked on and on about different art forms he finally asked "So since you like the arts so much, how do you express your self creatively?" I froze for a second because I didn't have a definite answer, "erm I like to dance, I write some poetry but I don't show anyone, I make jewellery sometimes too, I cook very well, and DIY a lot errr" I rambled on. I was glad when we changed subjects.

At the time my thought was how can I call myself a creative person when I don't have a definite creative outlet? What does it mean to even be creative? I began to ask myself these questions and realized that little everyday things matter. Even more than the big stuff. In conjunction with gathering inspiration from many different sources, I find myself expressing myself in things like the way I dress, my mum always jokes that "Why won't people ask if you're Nigerian?" , the way I style my hair, the way I cook, This blog, how I wear make up, how I paint my nails. Little drops make an ocean yes?

It's one of the reasons I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, main reason I wanted to do something fulfilling in which I was actively positively impacting young minds.  I wanted to be i an environment that was constantly changing and creatively charged. Unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to be really creative, when a school has a set way they do things nobody wants change, especially from a 22 year old who knows "nothing" sigh. slowly but surely I hope.

Anyways that's my rant about giving yourself creative license.

So tell me, how do you express yourself creatively?

Love and creativity,
Sab.

21st century Homemaker

When I came back to Nigeria, my mom encouraged me to join Toastmasters, a leadership and public speaking club she was an active part of. I mostly joined because I was curious and didn't have much to do anyways. Can I just say it's been wonderful! There are not many spaces in Nigeria where young adults can mix with much older people freely and be spoken to as equals (sort of). The environment is so welcoming and positive, I immediately felt comfortable. I've been attending since then and I've won "best table topics" (a 2minute impromptu speech session) twice :D I have already started improving. I'm really thankful for this space.

Anyways, last thursday we had another meeting, our meetings are great because anyone can come so we usually have new people visiting each time. After the speeches and general activities for the day are done, the guests are made to introduce themselves to the members (name, profession etc) and what they liked or disliked about the meeting. So this gorgeous woman, who was really well spoken (her table topic had been funny, cos she was so nervous and cute)- i had basically been wondering about her since- Got up to speak.

She introduced herself; "My name is Mrs. XXX and I'm a homemaker" with a dazzling smile. All of a sudden I wanted to know everything, who is this woman? What does it mean to be a homemaker? What does it entail? So I went to speak to her afterwards and asked her. She gladly answered me; She was a mother of five and she had dedicated her life to raising her children and taking care of her home. The idea was so profound to me- it wasn't that I had never met a housewife before, it was that I hadn't met one like her. I always imagined dreary, overworked women. Or something. Defintely not her. Two years ago I would have scoffed at the idea of a housewife, and even now that I was open to it, it was nice to encounter something that broke that stereotype I had created. And she got paid! very well! I won't lie I was already dreaming could I? Would I?

It was a pleasure to talk to her and I hope she comes to the meeting next week so I can pick her brain some more and make her my friend! I love being in the company of older people. Speaking of which, there is an older couple who I also love at our meetings! The man is a neurosurgeon, has his own practice and his wife works with him as the clinic manager. They are so cute, always dressed up, his pocket squares are just too dapper.  Everytime she gets up from her seat, he does so as well out of respect,- basically the perfect gentleman.Sigh I'll stop gushing.

Love, old age, and good choices,
Sabirah

Nice is as Nice does...

On Sunday, in church, which by the way creates a pretty decent backdrop for deep thoughts, I started thinking about college and all the things I used to do to occupy my time, and a lot of consisted of doing nice things for my friends and strangers, it was a big part of my life, no holiday/birthday/valentines passed by without everyone receiving a gift, I called people often just to check up on them etc

Now, I always proudly define myself as a nice person, likable, personable and people have often taken advantage of it as I discussed in this post, but i can't let that change me, maybe be more cautious but still. Nice is as nice does and I can't claim to be a nice person if I don't act that way.

Basically I've slacked, and I value this part of my personality too much to let it fade away. Being in Lagos makes it so much harder because there's so much to be mad about, to despair but that even makes it more important to be nice, and kind.

This is an inward reflection on my personality but if it in the least bit inspires you to be kinder, I'll be really happy!

Oh happy holidays!

P.s did i mention that I teach english at a secondary school, well my friend Leke took this Photo of me check it out -> http://imperialmedia.shutterchance.com/image/2011/12/19/abraham-lincolns-letter-to-his-sons-teacher/


Love and Kindness
Sabirah

Paper Chasing.

I've been thinking a lot about the reasons that i behave the way I do, for a long time now, but now more than ever i'm beginning to think about the way other's behave and the driving force behind these actions.

The revelations have been scary.

It seems that all of my peers are chasing money. Yes money, everyone is in a rush to get it however they can. It makes sense after all, money buys pretty things but it also pays for the basics like food and shelter, so it makes sense to follow the money no?

Yes and no for me, because i'm noticing more and more that its not just about the basics anymore, there's this raging desire to in their (my peer's) eyes to live a certain lifestyle and most times not one that they have grown up with. To be honest its OK to want to be more successful (how do we even measure success?) than our parents were, to provide for our children (if we have any) more than our parents did for us. I think of myself and my love for travel sure does cost some, and I like pretty things. 

But after all is said, Money is not the motive for EVERYTHING I do, and that's what scares me about these peers I'm talking about. I understand that some people don't have many options, they have to chase the money to survive, those are not the people I'm talking about. Everyday we're being sold a luxury lifestyle, through glitzy magazines and commercials on TV. No one ever talks about what is behind that life, and to be honest I have no interest in finding out. When I discuss my goals with people I can hear the scoff that barely escapes their lips, their thoughts "nobody makes any money like that".

How do I explain that although I understand what money can get it will never be the driving force behind my most important decisions (and I hope it will never have to be) i'm content with living a fulfilling life by changing the lives of others, having all the things I need and some wants now and then. I appreciate the privilege of having the opportunity to focus on dreams with the support of my parents, but I also know that there are many luxuries I have given up, and the Paper chasing route was an option and still seems appealing once in a while.

I guess at the end of it all it depends on your definition of happiness and where that comes from. Just make sure that whatever path you choose... whatever decisions you make its full of meaningful things.

I read this quote can't remember where but I was nine years old, actually I think it was the title of a book "Follow your dreams, the money will come after" something along those lines. It stuck I guess. 

Take a risk that brings you joy soon,

Sabirah.

Fight the "good' fight

The quote above is so apt for me. In an effort to be an activist, to implement change I have somewhat got caught up in the things that don't even matter.

While its important to look at change from every angle and area in our lives, it is important not to lose track of what is really important. I find myself doing this sometimes, when someone says something slightly problematic i bring out my claws ready to draw blood. I have to remember that not everyone understands the reasons or history behind their actions and or speech and therefore it is not the individual I should be attacking but the systems that create such an individual. So I retract my claws and retreat... no blood today.

I find myself doing this in my personal relationships too. Sometimes in an effort to correct a loved one I end up hurting them, something are just not worth that. Its hard to retreat but its lesson in discipline and I'm happy I have recognized this. My hope is that as I continue to focus on the areas that matter the most, I will start to see improvement in other areas as well.

I'm learning to pick my battles wisely, good things take time and focus :)