two things

1. For all your weaknesses, you also have strengths.
2. If it's really important to you, then you can never stop trying.

Fast car

First draft of a thing. Comments welcome.

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The jalopy, it broke down. Again. Then we tried to fix it. Well, we didn’t really try, we stood around the car twirling tools and talking. Oh, there’s a car, it has four wheels. Yes, I hear they often do. These cars, they whizz by, and we stand there and twirl. The spanner is a baton and I am his cheerleader.

So, after a while he notices I am standing with my handbag over my head. It will not balance without my hand, and I clutch at it, sweating as much from where the sun-heated leather presses itself to my forehead as from the natural heat that swirls around us.

Another car zips past, its windows tinted. It keeps the sun out, because it would be unfair for the passenger to tan in the heat just because she was trying to get a ride from point a to point b with a man. The windows are also wound up, and even though it’s 35 degrees you can see the fog the air conditioning has made on the windshield. I see all this in the two seconds it takes for the car to hum past us. To think, one Porsche tried to pick me up the other day and I said no.

He is still standing there, the toolbag is in his hand. He is looking at it and smiling at me. Damn it if I don’t smile back. My teeth spread themselves of their own accord, whore that they are, and even though there are sweat droplets on my face I feel a little thrill. I almost whoop for joy, I take a moment to lean toward his hand. Let me help him now, I know how to fix a punctured tyre.

Then he starts talking about the sky, that I should look at it. Isn’t it so blue?

Then he starts talking about how far we’ve come, that I should think about it. It’s not that far oh. Maybe we should walk back, he says, because this sun, it is very hot.

And I'd almost collected that toolbag from him.

The Lord in heaven is faithful. He delivers His own. I stare at the road I’ve driven on, and I look at the vehicle I was transported in. Big, a jeep. Black, powerful colour. Then when you step a little closer you see that the rear window is cracked. The side mirrors are broken, they hang off the sides of the car like disabled limbs.

I think of the beggars, the ones who flap their stumps on the road to beg for pieces of crumpled paper to be thrown their way. They don’t hang their arms like this car, they don’t sigh and stand by the side of the road with neatly lined spanners in a spiffy looking toolbag.

They don’t smile quite so … hmm. Maybe this his strolling back is not such a bad idea. Maybe he will hold my hand as we walk. Maybe he will talk to me again, about the sky, but I won’t look at it because the sun will blind my eyes, and then even when he smiles at me I wont be able to see it.

I start to put my bag down from shielding my face from the sun, I start to walk toward him, I start to smile back; maybe if I too, show my teeth, he will want to hold my hand.

But now, he is looking away. I think he bent over, to put the bag down. I walk to his side and I see he is bent over, but he bent over to examine the tyre! I can’t tell whether I’m excited or not. He wants to fix it; he’s really going to fix it! And then I’ll be the madam in the passenger seat that moves her chair back and puts her feet on the dashboard. Then I’ll use my hand to hold his hand – but my other hand will be holding the old newspaper because the air-conditioner is not working and someone will need to fan us both. I will be dedicated, I will fan us both so strongly that we will feel like it is ice cold.

I am smiling when he looks up and I have decided; I’m happy. This is all I wanted, for him to try. And anyway, if he cannot fix it I can help him; I know how to change a tyre. I know how to push a car, if it comes to that. But also, if he cannot fix it, there’s that walk he promised, and he will smile at me for being by his side. To think, one Porsche tried to pick me up the other day and I said no. I knew I was waiting for a big car, not that tiny cubicle that someone would have to fold over to crouch into. So the jeep needs a bit of patching, but it is comfortable, and I can sit down and look down at all the silly cars flashing their tinted windows at me and scoff in their faces.

He catches my eye and he smiles back and stands up, he dusts his hands, he has fixed it. He has fixed the car! He holds the door open and gives me his hand. He leads me to my seat. He asks me if it’s comfortable and I purr, he understands what I mean without my words and he moves the seat for me.

He walks round to his side and climbs in. He looks over at me and smiles. There’s nowhere I wouldn’t go in this car, I would change four tyres if I had to. He reaches over and squeezes my thigh with his strong, dusty hand, and the stain on my dress is a badge of honour: look how hard my man has been working.

He starts the car, he drives ten wonderful feet until it sputters to a stop. He climbs out, opens the bonnet and folds his arms. I don’t move, I know he will fix it too, my strong man. He walks over to my side and opens the door. I lean in for a kiss, to say sorry; to say, oh, how long until we’re on our way?

He reaches out his lovely hands and smiles his smile at me as he leads me down from the car. He walks with me to the bus stop and says, the sky…

What about the sky? I don’t understand. He tells me he can see the rain coming, he looks at me, he says, can’t you see it? As if there is something wrong with me, because I cannot see that the rain is coming from the corner of the Lord’s heavens. I look up into the sky, where he is pointing, and when I look back the sun has blinded me. I cannot see him.

The drops fall on my hands on the road home. To think, one Porsche tried to pick me up the other day and I said no.

What I would have said

I met a guy about a month and a half ago. We've chatted a bunch of times since. Our conversations mostly go something like this:

"Hey, what did you get up to today?"
"Hello, not much, just anxious for my friend's wedding."

There's a variation, where he goes:

"I've had such a hectic day, so much work to do. How has your day been?"
"Oh, you poor thing. I'm so excited about my friend's wedding! It's so close now!!"

Now that the wedding is over, I don't think i'll have anything to say to him anymore.

My friend and I met when I was eleven and she was thirteen. She was this beautiful, popular girl, who everyone wanted to be friends with, and I was the quiet noise captain. So of course, I hated her and wanted to be friends with her and I put her name down on the noisemakers list with 'x2' written next to it - for every time I caught her lips moving. Ah, the simple days of childhood.

Fast forward, as we must, to the present day. Maybe rewind a bit, to times before she was taken away from me. Our friendship was not perfect, we had a lot of fights, didn't speak for stretches of time, and hurt each other deeply over the years. We took each other for granted in the most comforting way, and we never doubted that we loved each other very much.
So when she asked me to give a speech at her wedding I was elated. Finally, I would be able to tell her openly exactly how I felt, and send her off graciously into the arms of the man that stole her heart when she was eighteen. I wrote countless versions, rewrote drafts, edited jokes, cried over paragraphs, contemplated singing.
And then the wedding came, and there were no speeches.
There I was, working myself up to an emotional depth of teary-eyed mushness, and there was no announcement. No best man speech, no bridesmaid speech, nothing.
How awkward, the conversation with my guy friend later?

"Hello, how did your highly anticipated, only-topic-of-conversation wedding go? Did she like your speech?"
"Uhm."

Well, here's what I would have said if she'd asked:
My name is Omotayo, I'm Moradeke's friend.

I've known the beautiful bride since she was ... slightly less beautiful, a gangly teenager in oversize pinafores.

Our friendship has since evolved, and I like to think of us as being like an old married couple: the flame of early best-friend-ship has simmered down, and we now take each other for granted, kind of like the walls around us, the roofs over

our heads, or even, the sky.

You never pause to think, oh, here's a wall! But try having a roof without one. You never think, oh, I'm so thankful for the sky! But there's no sunshine without it.

I guess you could say then, that Moradeke is my sky. She's always there, she always cares, and I love her very much.

When I started writing this speech I wanted it to be very emotional. I wanted everyone that heard it to burst into uncontrollable tears, and I wanted to make Moradeke hate me for messing up her wedding makeup with runny mascara.

Then I wrote the first draft, read it to a friend, and… let’s just say the tears were mine.

Four drafts later I gave up and made a list. What do I want people to know after listening to this speech?

1. I want them to know how special our bond is.

2. I want them to know how happy I am that her and Dele have found happiness together, after so many years!

3. And I want everyone to share my warm wishes for the couple. That’s it.

It should be so simple, but it was hard, because everything I came up with sounded shallow and incomplete. How do you sum up a fifteen year old friendship in less than five minutes, and still have time left over to talk about the groom? It would be impossible, so I wont even try.

To be honest, I’d always been a little wary of Dele. As my friends and I say, he used to be so strict! But in the past few years, I started to see more of Dele and Moradeke together, and I’ve been blown away. Both of them, smiling at each

other, sharing private looks and inside jokes, the special way only couples know how to. Together, they are a true picture of love; a testament to a great relationship that has lasted for almost a decade. Moradeke likes to pretend that it hasn’t been that long, but I like to say that they’ve been together from the moment they laid eyes on each other in our first year of university.

I remember saying to Moradeke's mum at her graduation this year, "eh ehn, so, Moradeke too is getting married!" And indeed, here we are; Moradeke is married to the love of her life. I couldn't be happier; I couldn't be more excited. My friend found love in the arms of a truly great guy, found a partner to love and support her, to be with her, unconditionally, forever.

We should all be so lucky.

And so, Moradeke, as you go off on your new adventure, one I can't share with you, I pray for you both: that even though you will fight, you will always make up. I pray that you always trust each other, and never let the seed of doubt take root in your lives, I pray that you are always honest with each other, and that you help each other grow and become better people, together. I pray that you always remain the closest of friends, even as you grow in love, together.

Before I go, I’ll share one of my favourite bible verses; I pray that you and Dele will both will look to it as a guide, to remind you what it means to love when you smell Dele’s morning breath for the first time, or when he sees your unshaved armpits; and later, when you get so used to seeing each other’s faces that you begin to take each other for granted, remember, that

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, and it is not easily angered, Love keeps no

record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It

always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

God bless you, my darling friend, and congratulations to you both.

To the beautiful bride and the very lucky groom!

Choc-full of cliches, AL Kennedy's dreaded numbers would be all over this. It's probably best that I never had to give it.

Here's a link to pictures of the wedding!