White Noise

I've never really had a problem with sleeping, until I had mice.
I've never really had a problem with mice, until they started living in my house...

After discovering mice not only in hung out in my flat, but navigated their way to my bedroom too, I developed a fear of sleeping. Literally paralysed with an irrational fear (it's not like they could kill me), I often cried, refused to sleep alone and one night I found myself hiding in the bath screaming at a mouse who had got trapped in my bin!!!! I stayed up all night and in the morning had to facetime a friend to coach me through getting back in to my room for clean clothes and an escape plan!
Whilst the infestation was being dealt with, I genuinely became more and more mentally fragile. In my head I silently overreacted to every crumb left in the kitchen by my flatmates, and engaged in OCD tendencies to try and find some control in the situation. At night, heart beating with extreme anxiety I struggled to switch off and every sound was a potential danger. Like a child afraid of the dark and afraid of the unknown, the fear of mice grew exponentially into a fear of being alone. The last moment in the day, when action has abated and waiting for sleep; I found myself trapped in a fuzzy gap in the middle. My coping mechanism was white noise. Loud, in my ears, white noise.


White noise is a strange sound to get acquainted to and though it often woke me up, I began to meditate into the sound as a bizarre comfort blanket. Somehow this abrasive sound became my friend and held my hand in a dark loneliness. I write this in the past tense, because since going away with my mum (I suppose she was my protector then) and coming back to London, I have slept alone and with no sounds. I have however started waking up at first light, but this seems to be aiding my productivity! I'm reading more, running again and trying to turn off the tv (more displacement sounds). Now I listen to the trains chug past me and the crows caw, and though I am still afraid of mice, and still alone, I have created my own white noise. Softer and more generous than the exterior sounds, I welcome this pause from the myriad of thoughts & fears in my head, and hope that eventually I will be able to enjoy the silence in life.

To Be (Black) or Not To Be (Black)

I'm on the penultimate day of my holiday so I've missed the initial explosion that was Rachel Dolezal, but I would have had to be on the moon to avoid the full fall out. My reaction has been of incredulity and confusion, but there also seems to be a lot of anger out there. The concept of changing race is a bizarre one, but are we most shocked because 'why would anyone WANT to be black?'. As this story bulldozes the heartless prejudice against a young black girl at a pool party, and we are becoming increasingly aware of racial disparity, again who would WANT to be black? I have spent the last 9 days in Zambia and though on the whole I have had a joyous time, occasionally I have witnessed a shocking level of disrespect & disdain towards the indigenous people. What I can only describe as 'ancient Rhodesians' incredible rudeness and ignorance, made me question again who would WANT to be black?

Let's be honest the trend has always been to westernise and white'ise' from black. Michael Jackson (debatable), skin lightening creams (frighteningly     available in Africa AND Peckham) and the type of adverts I've watched today that show few or no dark black faces and certainly not at educated levels, recognise a white supremacy in our daily lives. 

I have known people of dual heritage in UK, to in effect disown the more foreign part of them and see themselves only as English. There are cases of children adopted into a family of another race who don't recognise any difference, even in skin colour. What about Mowgli?! I jest but there have been a number of stories about children living with and as wild animals in the last decade. The point is: We are what we know. Of course Dolezal's transformation was a manipulated one, but is it so crazy to believe that growing up with her 4 black siblings she developed an identity aligned with them. Watching (I presume) a generic discrimination towards her brothers and sisters both at home in the U.S. and world wide, her political and personal ideology perhaps grew into something that transcended race. Is that even possible? I don't know! 

I am half Ghanian and half English. Half black and half white. To some dark and others light skinned, and I suppose sometimes I navigate around the semantics of my race dependent on where I am or who I am with. In Zambia the guys selling curio love calling me 'Sister from another mother' and I embrace the African side of me!

Whatever her reasonings, Dolezal has proactively done more (this furore aside) campaigning for civil right and equality in her role at the NAACP than I have ever done, and for that Rachel I thank you. 

It may not be physically possible, but is it so bad to want to be black? That is the question.