The Prolonged Anxiety

I’m not completely sure why I started writing on Medium again. I guess this platform is a healthy substitute for the poems I can’t seem to write anymore. Perhaps my life has “run out of poetry” — if that's even possible. And that’s to say that my life is no longer poetic, it's just… less poetic.

So nowadays, I use Medium to write anything, anything at all, as long as something comes out. There is no theme, no agenda, just my thoughts.

COVID 19 CREATIVITY

When I look back on the early days of Covid, I was writing quite often. Somehow, my creativity never dwindled. But I think as time wore on, anxiety set in. Bear in mind that ‘2019 me’ would not use words like ‘anxiety’. I credit that to my counselor.

Anyway, when Covid arrived in Nairobi, my business’ operations had to stop. But as the covid curve began to flatten, I found myself in a fix; caught between resuming our operations or waiting a little longer. We decided to restart slowly, trying to abide by our own self-imposed Covid protocols. And it worked. But it was highly unpredictable and every week we just didn’t know what was going to happen. We went from planning week-to-week to month-to-month… that's where the anxiety came in.

It wasn’t the crippling, breath-taking anxiety, it was subtle, prolonged anxiety that came with Covid. And personally, in that state, I find it very difficult to create. Until today I’m still constantly thinking about how to pay the expenses of our business, support our staff, launch new programs, adopt new ones… and in all that madness, how do you find space in your mind to write poetry. It’s tough.

Granted the other day I participated in the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Never in my life have I been paid so much in 10 minutes of performance. Actually 10 minutes of anything. But hey, the world is skewed, and if you get paid in Dollars but live in the “third-world”, a little “white” money can go a long way.

So maybe I’ll just keep writing here on medium until I feel more at ease…