Home Sickness
Hi peeps, it has been a short while I wrote here, I have been a little stuck and a little “head-busy” to write but I’m back!! Yaaayyyy 💃🏽💃🏽. I want to discuss something I find interesting today…homesickness. One part of marriage every woman has tons of story to tell about.
My journey through this is still very very fresh and ongoing so I might be discussing some of my finer points in continuous tense. Bear with me.
My own homesickness came in the form of me missing things around the house that had to do with my mum. I am very close with my dad so we talk at least twice a week or every other day sometimes. Even when we do not have something tangible to discuss we say hello and hi-s and move on. So other than his face there isn’t much that I miss. However, since my mum is deceased there is obviously so much that can’t be captured again. Right?
Wrong, at home there are so many things that reminds me of her. The plates, the spoons, the furniture and most of all, her picture in the room I used to share with my sister. About that picture…when she passed in 2009, my dad superstitiously thought that for her to watch over us we needed to have a picture of her wherever we were sleeping. So he made big picture frames which is always in our room. As long as you’ll be sleeping in the house, mum was always there to watch over you.
But having moved out of the house at the start of NYSC, I haven’t had that picture “watching over me” and I really missed it. I would get so homesick and all I would want is something of my mum to be around me, somewhere; somehow. In order to remedy this, I brought back one of her wrappers the last time I visited home. It was nice to know it is in my house somewhere; something of my mum’s.
Funny thing with this wrapper is that it can’t keep me warm. The cloth is from the late nineties and is not exactly a cotton fabric. Which means it has zero insulating properties. Nonetheless, I am glad to have it. It is a piece of my mother in my home; a piece of her I cherish and treasure. Having the clothe in the house gives me a sense of security and warmth.
Another thing I have done to alleviate this homesickness is to purchase a piece of cookware. Growing up, most Yoruba household have a pot called “ikoko irin” which roughly translates to “pot of steel”. It is a traditional version of a cast iron cookware and is super nice for infusing authentic flavours into food. Well, I bought that.
//Right now, the pot is housing egusi deliciousness (Ijebu that i am, I rep a sane meal of egusi any day 🥴🤗).
If there is one thing we always had, growing up, it was this pot. Mom used for jollof rice (best you’ll ever taste), yam porridge (yummylicious), egusi soup( oh my days 🤤) and how will I ever forget her ikokore ( I have been trying for years and I’m not even close to replicating her flavour; mind you she’s Ekiti but she makes it better that even Ijebu people🤗). Food asides, the pot was a representation of a huge part of what I associate with my mum which is cooking.
Having these almost insignificant but very visual representation of my mum in the house kind of settled me. It alleviated a contact ache for my family and things that reminds me of them.
