Penguins of Madagascar 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏾

I was randomly thinking about this article in February. I hadn’t started writing it, but I knew the direction I wanted to take, and this title came to me. One thing I’ll never not be is fascinated by my mind because my blogpost titles explain the topic of the day in such a perfectly veiled manner. They ensure you have to read the posts to truly get the context, and I love it. This is how the gospel was veiled in the Old Testament, but in Christ we see its fullness. Gloryyyyy!!!!!!!

As a person, I am deeply fascinated by myself. Not in a narcissistic “I think I hung the moon” kind of way, but in the quiet, curious way one studies a place they know they will inhabit forever. I get one life, one body, one mind to house me through this existence of mine. While God forbid there is a next one, I would still like to leave this world being able to say confidently: I knew myself well.

So I investigate her.

I write to myself. I document my emotions like they are field notes. I have full-blown speaking conversations with myself. I celebrate my wins, validate my feelings, and have sat in therapy a couple of times trying to untangle the knots of being human. I treat knowing myself like a lifelong project because, to me, there is no one more important to understand than the person I spend every waking second with.

I have this running segment with my sister called “Today on Things I…” where I report fresh findings about myself. Most times, it is new irritations, absurd dislikes, or strange thoughts that crossed my mind at 2:14pm on an otherwise innocent Tuesday. She is exhausted by me, I am sure. Unfortunately for her, we are stuck together like white on rice.

I often think of myself as an onion; a very dramatic vegetable, but extremely accurate. There are layers upon layers, and getting to the deeper ones is no easy feat. Some layers are surprising, some embarrassing, some tender. However, peeling them back has never felt burdensome to me. It feels joyful.

A few years ago, I discovered that one of my favourite love languages is pebbling. Pebbling is the act of offering small, thoughtful gifts or gestures as a way of expressing affection and maintaining bonds. Gentoo penguins do it with pebbles for potential mates. Humans do it with memes, random snacks, “this reminded me of you” gifts, and oddly specific voice notes. I genuinely adore it.

I love thoughtful little offerings, but more than that, I love being invited into the ordinary details of my loved ones’ lives. I want the seemingly insignificant stories. Tell me about how a goat chased you at 7:08am while you were going to buy oil for fried rice. Tell me about the ridiculous thought you had in traffic that would get you publicly cancelled if it accidentally got out. Send me updates from your day. Let me sit front row at your TED Talk about everything and absolutely nothing. I want to know the people I love in detail and not just in montages.

My friend Shuga wrote something once that lodged itself firmly in my spirit because it sounded exactly like the inside of my brain. She said, “How do you like someone and you’re not curious about them? I just don’t understand how you’d claim interest without curiosity. It doesn’t tally.” Truly, it doesn’t. To me, curiosity is one of the clearest indicators of affection. How can I say I care about you and not want to know what shaped you, what delights you, what annoys you, what your mind sounds like in the wee hours of Sunday when the world has quietened in preparation for the bustle of the week?

A pointer to my affection is communication. I call it the currency of my life. This might sound funny coming from someone who posts endlessly on WhatsApp and disperses Snapchat streaks like evangelical flyers on a busy road. Yet very few people actually know me. I tend to shy away from deep connections because, if we are being honest, deep things often come with expiration dates. Temporary friendships. Temporary loves. Temporary versions of people. Permanent hurt.

Opening up has never been an instant process with me. Love, friendship, and life with me are like wilting hydrangeas submerged in cold water. It takes time and requires patience, but when the blossoming happens, it is always worth it.

I am not open to the general public, but I have my people. The ones my heart sings for. The ones who can interrupt my sacred solitude and be met with delight instead of irritation. The ones whose names appearing on my phone will make me pause whatever I am doing. The ones whose calls I will answer from the depths of my precious sleep. The chosen few who are exempt from my long-standing policy that says, “While I will most likely respond to your messages late, please do not call me unless somebody is dying.”

Everyone knows that one of my greatest pet peeves is an unsolicited voice note. Random voice notes? Without warning? Without consent? Not about hot gist? If I were in a cartoon, steam would shoot from my ears. And yet, I have people who can send me ten voice notes, seven minutes each, and I will listen attentively, absorb every detail, and respond like I am being examined for comprehension. I have people who can call me at 3 am because sleep escaped them, and I will stay awake with them because their unrest immediately becomes our unrest.

When my heart settles into someone, I become insatiable with communication. I want more. I always want more. I want their earliest conscious memory. I want to know what makes them angry, what makes them laugh without restraint, what makes them do a celebratory dance when nobody is watching. I want enough information to deliver a fully referenced seminar presentation on the people I love.

One thing I appreciate about my affection is that it is balanced. I do not put people on pedestals. A few months ago, I told my streak mates that I actually like how fallible people are; very suspicious statement, but stay with me. You know that stage when you meet someone new and you begin to suspect they personally arranged the stars in the sky? When they seem impossibly perfect and your rose-coloured glasses are practically welded to your face? That ”where have you been all my life” phase? Well, I look forward to the day that illusion breaks. I look forward to the day they annoy me. The day their humanity arrives fully dressed in beaded lace with gele and unapologetically loud. The day I see the impatience, the annoying habits, the contradictions, and their bad behaviour because I think that is where love truly begins.

To love someone is to see the entirety of their character… the wonderful, the difficult, the irritating, and still desire proximity, still choose connection and still want them in your life.

To love will always be to know. I want to get to a point with my people where I know their rough edges by heart and my affection remains unmoved. Above all, I want to love fully and be loved in equal fullness. I genuinely cannot imagine a life built on anything less.

So if you know I love you, pebble me.

I am your Gentoo mate for life.