When I Most Feel My Name
Jazz makes me feel my whole body. Every curve and dip, every roll and pinch and tingle. The teasing roughness of every scar discovered. The sensuality in my favorite run of caramel. How can you live without jazz? As I write this, I’m enjoying a strong cup of black coffee at work, (not working) and listening to Chet Baker’s “Polka Dots and Moonbeams”. There’s a strong taste of hazelnut and bitter chocolate that lives in the rooms of my mouth. This moment is like a public holiday, expansive, thick with repose, like the night we met
It’s the early hours of the morning, undisturbed by the careless honking and shouting that is the soundtrack to Apapa. Every breath is stretched and soaked in the bittersweet gin of opportunity. “Polka Dots”, sounds like meeting someone for the first time, there’s a shyness in the way the trumpet dances, but at the same time a confidence that can only come from a heart that is quite certain of what it wants, even if only for a night.
If you want to create a fanatic, give them solitude as marinade for their passion. For as long as I’ve lived, I’ve always felt like an old soul. Like I should’ve been born in a different time or place. So few of my friends enjoy jazz. Consequently, I’ve had the pleasure of going to concerts alone. My fanaticism is all daydreams and butter. In my head I have on this silky 1920s inspired dress, and I’m enjoying a Cohiba and Cuban rum duo that came well recommended. There’s no one else there, just me, my light and a whimsical contentment.
I can’t understand why my friends don’t enjoy jazz. They can’t have heard Miles Davis’ “My Funny Valentine”. Miles takes this classic American ballad and tells you something about beauty. His rendition offers a suggestion of how I might rest my own struggles for perfection. In front of people, I often feel like I need to put on a performance for them to love me. But thanks to Miles and time and growth and surprising connection, I’ve found so much beauty in being a little bit off-kilter, in taking a deep breath and leaning back into myself. A while ago, I wrote “How do you convince someone you’re being yourself”. Lately, I’ve been thinking of a more important question and that is, how do I know when I’m being myself? What does self-ness even mean? The answer is peace. I feel the same peace when I’m dancing like a headless chicken at a Brymo concert (God I hope I’m more coordinated than that) as I do when I’m shooting the breeze on a couch, legs carefully inclined toward an almost-lover. It’s overwhelming.
Speaking of Brymo, he might not consider himself a jazz artist. But let me tell you something, his voice sounds like velvet and charcoal, an imperfect blend of the fires and rivers of life. I feel all the jazz all the time. Yesterday at his concert, I felt that peace, moving my sweat-glazed body underneath the unexpected shower. Apparently everyone knows it always rains on October 1st, everyone except me. When ‘Femi’ came on, the crowd stood shouting the lyrics at Brymo but I simply wanted to dance, to feel my hips stretch the way time stretches on public holidays. To run my fingers across my exposed chest and down my midriff. It felt like there was a spotlight on me, no not a spotlight, some inner light pushing out of me, responding to life in me. It turns out, peace and light are the same thing.
Listening to Brymo is resurrection. In primary school I used to place magnets underneath my desk and drag around metal shavings. I’d move the magnet fast, then faster, and then slow it right down. All the while admiring at how the shavings moved in sync. My body is in constant surrender to his voice. I feel my name in his music, beautiful home, Uloma. Full-bodiness, full self-ness.
In the middle of that resurrection, and a bout of nostalgia, I wanted to write you to me. You (Obinna) and I also met on a public holiday, with that jazzy, infinite stretch of time. It was one of those impossibly cool, October nights in Lagos that expands with opportunity. The full moon was a pearly adornment on an already beautiful night. Well actually we had met before then, but on that October night I opened my eyes, because all of a sudden there was something to see. You were fleeting but also warm and real.
I wish someone had told me to let my fingers fully intertwine with yours, instead of treating that event like a mistake and recoiling my fingers. But in that moment there was too much at stake to play my hand without proper encouragement. I wish someone had told me to hold your gaze, to let you keep my face between your warm palms and eventually press your lips softly on mine. It’s just that in that moment, to reveal that I too wanted nothing more than to kiss you was too much nakedness to bare, so I laughed it off and pulled back.
Obinna, do you remember how we talked for hours, and walked around in parts of Lagos I’ve never explored with my glorious legs? It was the coolness of the night and the emptiness of the streets at that hour. We ended it with coffee and Coltrane on a couch at yours. Your range, and vulnerability, gave me the space to dig deep and spread wide. We could talk about Hilary Clinton and Kim Kardashian and about how Hans and Rene is probably the best ice cream in the world, all in the same breath.
Your refreshing self awareness, probing questions, and patient stares and smiles, were all I needed to lean back into myself. After eight hours in much the same position, perhaps sunken a little deeper into your arms, it still felt like there was more to say, but not nearly enough coffee. Early morning coffee, That’s where this ramble started, isn’t it? With cool mornings and things that make me feel everything including my name. You make me feel the wholesome roundness of all the letters of my beautiful home, U-L-O-M-A. And I think I wrote all of this simply to say I miss you.
