A Year of C.S. Lewising
Come rejoice with me!
It’s been 42 published posts in 365 days. 42 times where the cursor followed my lead in making words appear and then disappear, all in a bid to fill the blank sheet. At least 42 times that YouTube music was my friend as I wrote. Exactly 42 times that I read in silence, and then aloud, looking for errors in text and in flow. 42 times that I sighed before clicking on the ‘Send to Everyone Now’ button. In your Inbox now are 42 mails titled ‘Dolapo from Dolapo’s Attempts at C.S. Lewis-ing’. Precisely 42 times that I felt embarrassment and apprehension embrace me tightly because my thoughts, desires and feelings were now in the public domain for people to read. All those 42 times, and now, this 43rd, all those happened.
***
The house that I grew up in had two things that were manifold; books and music CDs. Some of the books were voluminous and were described as “boring” for my siblings and I to feign any interest in them. The other smaller books held no charm in our eyes either with their dull brown pages. Ugly, by our standards. In all that time, the books stayed on the floor and the shelves that they were kept. It was only a few years ago that I picked one of the smaller ones up and had my life, quite frankly, changed.1
As one would randomly find a long forgotten possession, 2 months ago I found one of the ‘boring’ books that I recognized from my childhood. That this treasure of a book had always been there and I was unaware of it, reminded me yet again, of how we do not fully know all that we are, possess or own, in as much as we think we do. It is funny really, now that I think about it. Somewhere in the corner of this house, a compendium of Lewis’ finest quotes2, a book that would make me so full of glee, just sat comfortably for years, watching me walk past it. I immediately delved into it, my finger running through the topics of the quotes in the book. I go past ‘Aging’, ‘Christian Living’, ‘Sixteenth-Century Literature’ and eventually come to ‘Writing’. In that category, I find this quote that I now know will forever be etched in my mind;
“It is impossible to write one’s best if nobody else ever has a look at the result.”
***
If I said that the rationale for this Substack’s continuance is just to prove to myself that I can be consistent at something, it would only be a half truth. More accurately, a quarter truth. The first quarter of the truth is the need to put the ideas in my head, in a place that I can come back to read them. Secondly, is to have a physical representation of something that I am proud of. The third one would be the continuance bit. The last one, and perhaps the most important, is to improve the way that I communicate and express myself. The ‘C.S. Lewis-ing’ in the name of this publication, is far from a mistake, you see. It could easily have been ‘C.N. Adichie-ing’, or ‘Huma Qureshi-ing’ or ‘Sidney Sheldon-ing’. But it had to be this title, because of how prolific that man was. A characteristic that he was clearly intentional about and contributed to the brilliance of his work.
Lewis had his impact and so did you, dear subscriber. Thank you, genuinely, for reading, liking, commenting and even sharing these posts. Sorry to your eyes for the typographical errors you had to read through, and thank you for not bringing it to my attention in politeness. It is because of you, that my hope remains. The hope that I can one day write my best, if I continue to let you look at the result. Thank you for consistently looking at those results for a whole year. Thank you!
It is often said that all good things come to an end. This one good thing that has not come to an end just yet, will be celebrated. And to celebrate one year of Dolapo’s Attempts at C.S. Lewis-ing, there will be a “competition” of sorts. To participate, please share in the comment section, your favorite post from this publication, and why. The answer with the most moving and well articulated answer, will win a gift from me. Please note that for now, this is only open to inhabitants of Abuja (I apologise profusely to those who will not be able to participate in this).
Looking forward to reading your entries!
I don’t want to bore you with this story again. Just incase you don’t, it is in the ‘About’ section of this publication.
Titled, “The Quotable Lewis”.
My favourite post from your publication is definitely; What it means when your plant dies. Here is my reason why.
I myself have suffered the calamity of loss recently, not of a plant but the loss of my cat Shakara, at this point I should clarify that he didn't die and pass on to cat heaven but I had to give him out for a number of reasons we shouldn't get into, but one major reason was that I just didn't care about him as much anymore, in a way like you were with Nkem, I like to believe that I took good care of Shakara maybe even better that you may have taken care of Nkem I could assume, I spoilt him, got all the high end feeds and let him sleep in my bed and changed his litter very often, gave him exquisite baths, I even got him some cute clothes. I must say he had the good life sadly I can't say much about his new home, he is going to have to do some adjusting.
Your essay made me think of Shakara and the good life he had and it made me feel good that even though he may not have a great life in his new home, I gave him the best of me and I hope he tells his other cat friends about how well I treated him. Maybe the honeymoon phase of your time with Nkem was short and the rest of your time with her is marked with neglect but I do hope that on the days you miss her you think of the excitement you felt getting her on your birthday, the times your rolled over in bed and looked at her and smiled, the times you couldn't wait for the next week just so you could water her again and of course all the content your sister made with her as a prop.
Your essay made me think of Shakara and on the days I miss him I think of Nkem and what would happen if they lived together, he would have drastically shortened her life.
Had to be introduced to your publication from this post. I will be glad to travel with you from here onwards. See you in your next piece, Dolapo. (I know this post is already old.)