Land of the silver birch….Rediscovering parts of me that I have buried

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Land of the Silver Birch: link

Well a few hours ago I was casually minding my own business. I can’t remember how the song above dropped into my mind, but once it was there, it refused to go. And that is always how it is with this particular song. It is an Indigenous Native American song (actually Canadian) about love for one’s ancestral land – or at least I thought it was, until I Googled it an hour or so ago. I had assumed that it was an old folk song from that part of the world, but it turns out that it originates only from around 1920.  The minor scale that it is written in and the lyrics just speak to me of nostalgia, or memory, of love for a place, of the natural rhythms of life.  Because I assumed it was an old song, it also triggered in me thoughts of a pure nature, unspoiled by the ravages of modern capitalism. This song has a powerful effect on me even though I am not from that part of the world at all. Another reason why this song strikes such a deep note of resonance within me is this: I always conflate it with the book called “Island of the Blue Dolphins” which is based on the true story of a woman who was left behind on an island after the rest of her island community was carried off to California. In the novel, not necessarily the true story, she was initially left on the island with her brother, but then he was killed by wild dogs, if I remember correctly, and she had to remain alone. Coming across that story at a young age I spent such a long time thinking of the sadness of having to lose her brother and bury him despite being so young herself, the sadness of having to live by herself for so many years. (And just now I have discovered that, after surviving for 18 years by herself, the real woman actually died within seven weeks of eventually being rescued onto the Californian mainland, so that is yet another layer of sadness, and the worst yet.) So the song triggers nostalgia for me in two senses: The song itself speaks of nostalgia. However, remembering it triggers nostalgia for the younger version of myself who read the story, and that phase of my life that I was in, early secondary school, perhaps late primary school. I also remember the profound feelings that that story triggered in me. I only realised a few years ago (perhaps 15 years?!) that the song and the story are two completely different and unrelated things, so they just remain linked, and I suspect they always will.

I’ve previously written a post about a Ladysmith Black Mambazo song that triggers in me the exact same feelings, even more strongly, so that I cannot listen to that second song without crying. Here’s the thing:  I have personally never lived that kind of life, living simply with the rhythms of nature. My grandparents did not live that kind of life, perhaps the last generation to live that kind of life would have been the grandparents of my grandparents. But even though this is not my own immediate experience, or the experience of the generations immediately preceding me, these songs still trigger a sense of nostalgia within me, as if speaking to something that is buried within me, like a memory inherited from long-gone generations, or something so fundamental and undeniable that it almost counts as instinct.

And all this reminded me, shockingly, that I have buried a huge part of my own nature. And reflecting on it has helped me understand a little bit more about love.
Buried:
So this is the part of my nature that I have buried. The fact is that both of these songs are written in a minor scale (I’m guessing). So they naturally trigger thoughts of memory, and sadness, and time and reflection. Unlike happy, bouncy (or angry) songs written in major scales. (Is that the correct musical terminology? Apologies if not!) (I am going to pause here to note that I just heard the distinct and unmistakable sound of a mouse/other rodent scratching at the floorboards. We did have a problem with mice which was dealt with internally within the flat, but I have not been able to think of a way of stopping them from approaching the flat altogether…)

Well this then is what I have buried: I have been living my life in a major scale over the last few years. But naturally, my soul is written in a minor scale.
This might be another way of defining the difference between an introvert and an extrovert. So left to myself I will always, always naturally revert to thinking of light and shadows and time and memory and nostalgia. I’ve said it before on this blog, I’ve phrased it in other ways. This is the native language of my soul. This naturally lends itself to poetry and other profound expressions like art and music. It is not forced because it is naturally expressing what my mind naturally focuses on. A younger version of myself assumed that I was going to write poetic fiction as my calling. How surprising it is that in the event my main writing has been non-fiction, and on relationships!

I’ve learned to live in the “major scale”, and speak that fluently.
I’ve often reflected and pondered on knowing what my real, essential self is, if all the conditioning and upbringing was stripped away. I often ask myself: If I was brought up in  different times or places in history, what would be the same, what essential qualities would show up time and time again in every possible version or iteration of myself?  Even if for instance the difference was only that I was brought up in my ancestral land of Nigeria rather than the UK.  How would I be different, and what would be the same? So I think that this is it, this is what is essentially me.

This is what I mean when I say that I’ve been living in a major scale: It was partly a deliberate decision on my part, but on reflection I have realised that this is how modern life corrals us: living a bouncy, jumpy, always on life. Not taking time to sit, reflect on the general world around us, or the nature of existence, not taking time to sit and watch sun beams or dust motes,  just being focused on the next item on the to do list, dashing desperately from one urgent matter to another, within ever tighter time constraints.  Now when I say it was a deliberate decision of my part, what I mean is that I noticed many years ago (perhaps 12-15 years ago) that I had not been focusing on these things.  But then I decided to deliberately put them to the side because all these profound considerations live too close to depression and the state of being depressed and with the day to day stresses of my life I could not emotionally afford to spend time thinking about them because of the risk of falling into depression. But on reflection, this has occurred to me: the real issue is that my life has not had stability. Part of this whole “minor scale” business is about the rhythms of life. So ideally, in a stable life there would be time to reflect on these things and deal with them without letting them overwhelm me. But these days economic survival seems increasingly precarious so we simply cannot afford to take time off from rushing around from one money-making endeavour to another or spending hours and hours at work. We don’t have time to meditate on profound things. So we have to live always on, with the light brightly shining to illuminate the latest must-do task. There is never any time to sit in darkness and watch shadows. It’s a bit like how I still have not been able to consistently allot some time to write these articles in my week. I always have to steal time from prescribed activities.  It is just that these issues weigh so heavily on my heart that I somehow make time to write these articles.

This is probably a major reason why I just have not felt like myself. The compulsive viewing of YouTube videos I’ve been speaking about, has essentially been a form of self-medication. I’ve just said  that I was worried about the possibility of depression.  Well I suspect that denying such a major part of myself also causes depression. I was literally thinking to myself over the last 24-48 hours that I have very deep emotional needs which seem to require more than 24 hours a day to satisfy them. I was thinking of having to explain that to my future husband. I was worried about the possibility of mentally exhausting him by expecting him to fulfil my endless emotional needs. I was asking myself whether there might be something wrong with me, something that I simply do not understand about myself that maybe everyone else understands about their own life. I’m thinking that this might be it!  Perhaps if I learned to embrace this part of my self back into my life, then perhaps my mind could naturally process things without needing to make endless emotional requests of my husband. I was also reflecting that I used to know how to deal with loneliness, but somewhere over time I had forgotten. Perhaps what I have been identifying as “loneliness” has actually been a failure to connect with my true self.

Compatibility:
There are so many things that I want to express in this particular post that I am falling over myself to type them out so I don’t forget them before I can express them!
All of the above made me think of the following:
I have been compulsively watching YouTube videos generally for about 2.5 years. However, over the last month or two, I have been focusing on the specific niche of AI-generated Afro-Korean romances starring beautiful Black or African women and spectacularly handsome Korean men!

Representation matters:
Let’s be candid: part of the attraction with these stories is that they put Black women front and centre as romantic heroines which has been scarce to me in the world of romance. I mean, romances starring Black women are certainly there, but you have to go a little out of your way and pay good money and they tend to follow certain tropes and – yeah!  And then I tend to be self-conscious about reading a “Black” romance.  It is almost as if they have to go out of their way to emphasise the Blackness of their characters, so it often almost feels like a political manifesto, where I just wanted something lighthearted and fun. So I actually avoid “African-American” romances because they tend to wear their Blackness so self-consciously. Well these Afro-Korean romances seem to manage to accomplish the necessary job. Because it is all done by AI they basically rewrite the same romances as others just with Black heroines and Korean heroes without being overly fixated on Blackness or Black pride, making for a much lighter read. There was one story where they appeared to literally just take an existing Korean x Korean Kdrama and just prompt the AI visual imagery to feature an African woman rather than a Korean woman. They did not even bother to change her name, meaning that this African woman had a Korean-sounding name!  I must confess it has been quite healing to read these stories where these men are helplessly enraptured or enthralled or helplessly captivated by these Black women (even though I preach that as women we should not centre our lives around whatever men may or may not feel for us. This is fiction, this is fantasy, we can afford to indulge things which would not “fly” in real life!) What I am about to say might sound really strange but I also noticed the following: after viewing thumbnail after thumbnail and video and video, it occurred to me that “Oh my goodness, Black women ARE beautiful!” Strikingly so! Not just in a subjective sense that I consider myself beautiful in a kind of self-empowerment way, but objectively. Black women are beautiful not just to one another, or to other Black people but in an objective way that is available for anyone and everyone to see.  Just like I can easily notice the beauty in other ethnicities. Furthermore, our hair is amazing, actually! The huge variety of styles, the braids the locs, natural hair or artificial – it looks great, and similarly, everyone can see how attractive it is!

Because this is AI, the visual images can be prompted to be absolutely stunning, so you usually get stupendously attractive Black or African women being paired with equally attractive Korean men. But you know, there is a sizable minority of stories where the characters look attractive, but normal. Like the kind of unremarkable people that you see on a daily basis that would not necessarily turn anyone’s head. And those stories are even more compelling for representation, suggesting that you do not need to be a supermodel to win this desperate devotion from this desperately rich and handsome man who wants to claim you and bring you “under his protection”, and protect you right up to his dying breath.
You know, I thought I was already quite empowered about knowing that Black women are beautiful. But I have sometimes watched and rewatched these stories, to catch that point and establish it in my mind: yes, Black women are more than capable of romantically catching the attention of any ethnicities, and more than worthy of lifelong romantic commitment from any ethnicities – like everyone else!

All that said, I am actually pulling away from these AfroKorean dramas because
1. They can be very sexually explicit, and it is just not prudent to saturate my heart with these ideas, and saturate my heart is exactly what I’ve been doing of late, to the point where
2. I’m starting to get addicted.

Anyway, all of this about AfroKorean dramas has been an aside.  But actually, while I am on the topic let me give you a final twist on this subject: you know, I actually applied to teach English in South Korea many years ago. Perhaps 17 years ago?  I even went as far as ordering my University transcripts to prove that I was a graduate. However, I eventually decided against it because it would mean leaving my family to go and live in South Korea. It was not Seoul but rather another city called Busan (and honestly, back then as a non-capital city Busan was not as developed as it is now so apparently the teachers’ flats were quite rudimentary, but I’m sure Seoul itself would have been fine.)  Isn’t it funny that in all the talk about Afro-Korean romances I completely forgot that my own life almost featured a significant South-Korean chapter?  Who knows, I may actually have had the chance to star in my very own, real-life Afro-Korean romance!

Anyway, to go back to the main point I was planning to make, I have written at length on this blog about the fact that I do not understand the concept of love. Part of the reason I have been compulsively watching these dramas has been for the sake of understanding this concept. Part of me feels that this should be something I understand implicitly. I am so sure that one day it will finally strike me and it will seem so obvious, and I will wonder how I ever failed to grasp it…
Well, with what occurred to me about my nature, this following also occurred to me: when romantic authors talk about or write about love, they often write about it as if there is something written in the stars, as if the interaction between these two people is utterly inevitable, unavoidable, that they could not avoid it even if they tried. It occurred to me (lots of things are occurring to me!) that this could be an expression of compatibility, and what I’ve previously written in this particular post could be relevant in this way: this deep compatibility could be an expression of my real, essential self meeting his real, essential self and instantly recognising one another, and speaking the same native language, behind all the conditioning and the layers and the various acts or masks that we have to put on to function productively in society.  So, feeling as if we naturally get on, as if our deepest selves effortlessly understand one another. Which is not to say that we would not argue, or disagree about things, ever, but perhaps, underlying it all, we understand or easily see through one another.  Perhaps the reason why romance authors write about this is because they too will tend to be introverts, and they will naturally speak this language, or similar variants!

I’ve been fixated on character on this blog, so I’ve been looking at love primarily as an expression of character. One big reason I’ve not understood this issue of deep inherent compatibility is because it has nothing to do with character.  Perhaps another reason I’ve not understood it is because I myself have buried my own innate nature just for the sake of surviving, to the point where I have all but forgotten altogether that innate nature is a thing. This must be frustrating in the real world when you see someone, and you sense that you would naturally get on with them, but you see that they are denying their true nature and no matter how you try they refuse to speak in that language that you would both understand.

So you know what, thank God for character, but deep compatibility of innate nature is also real, and is also a big consideration. Perhaps we introverts are the ones who genuinely need this deep connection most because we need to focus on these things for the sake of our psyche, because all of this amounts to an essential expression of who we are, in a way that does not seem to be true of non-introverts. Perhaps non-introverts do not need a deep soul connection because they do not live deep in their souls to start with?

I was also asking myself some dangerous questions:
Could it be that the interaction between two people is so potent that it is actually a spiritual entity in its own right? Does that actually make any sense?  Could this be what it means for a relationship to be the “will of God” – for two people to be so aligned in terms of innate compatibility, character, and love for one another that it would seem that God planned it from the outset for them to meet, that this thing was planted into the spiritual realm, and was waiting for manifestation in the physical realm… Well why are those two people so special?!  Well here’s the thing: perhaps they are not! Perhaps something comparable was always waiting and available for each one of us, perhaps we miss out on what we could have had, what we could have been, because we fail to press into God sufficiently, and thereby miss out on what we could have enjoyed. I’ve previously written on this blog that I don’t believe in the idea that there is one person prescribed for you by God, but this essentially amounts to the same idea.  I also did say, which remains true, that  if indeed there is a particular person ordained for you by God, I imagine that the surest way to access it or a relationship with that person is truly by doing your utmost to live for God to listen to Him, to obey Him.

A second, even more dangerous question:  – and this truly is a dangerous question, but asked sincerely: could it ever be legitimate that the interaction between two people could be so close that they supernaturally understand what the other is thinking?  This is the kind of thing that as a Christian I would normally steer clear of because it veers too close to psychic thinking or telepathy or other practices which are spiritually dangerous  but yeah, essentially, could it be that God could grant those powers to people as an expression of the strength of their relationship? So essentially achieving the same things but through the power of God rather than the power of the devil? This is not without Biblical precedent. In the Bible, a passage describes how Jesus knew what the Pharisees around Him were thinking. What I am very wary of is thinking that this might be from God, going ahead to trust it, only to later realise that it was actually from the devil all along…

Anyway, what remains now is for me to ask a potential Mr Huggie-Wuggie reading this: Does all of this strike a note of resonance within you?  Is your own life also written in a minor scale, perhaps buried out of sight for the sake of surviving the demands of modern life?  I actually speak the language of the major scale so fluently that sometimes people are surprised to discover that I am an introvert. Is that you, too?  Have you become so accustomed to doing what it takes to survive that you have genuinely forgotten that this is your true, native language? Or perhaps you have known all along, and you have been waiting patiently, or impatiently, for me to catch up, or for God to bring you the woman who lives on that level?! I’ve never forgotten that I am an introvert, I could never forget that. What I forgot was my natural need, inclination and desire to sit and reflect on profound aspects of life.