How I am both black and gay at the same time – (Gay Star News)
Being Black and Gay at the same time!
21 Oct 2013 2 Comments
in Reflections Tags: Gay, LGBT, Nigeria, Race
Between Two Worlds
10 Aug 2013 2 Comments
in Reflections Tags: Africa, Gay, Inspiration, Reflections
I have always journeyed between two worlds,
for that is all I know.
And even though I often long
to simply be in one place and call it home,
that experience feels so alien to me.
And so I continue to travel
– from here to there,
from now to then. More
Reflections on being Freshly Pressed
10 Jul 2013 9 Comments
in Reflections Tags: Brene Brown, Freshly Pressed, Gay, LGBT, Storytelling
Three weeks ago, I had no idea what being ‘Freshly Pressed’ meant. I’m rather glad I did not, because such knowledge was bound to have triggered my old chestnut of ‘I am not good enough’, which in turn might have led to me striving and striving to get something Freshly Pressed; all with a view to becoming the illusory and momentary ‘good enough’. Yes I know, what does ‘good enough’ mean anyway? And does being Freshly Pressed really matter? But hey, it’s an old wound I carry and much as I’d like to pretend that I no longer hear its silent whisper, deep down I know that it still rears its stubborn head from time to time, to let me know that I can run but cannot hide.
A couple of days after the Freshly Pressed post, I noticed that my email inbox was filled with tons of notifications of either people following my blog or posting a comment. My immediate thought was that my spam filter was compromised and I decided to ignore them. Later that evening I noticed that @freshly_pressed had tweeted my post. Aww, that’s nice I thought, as I looked though the other blogs that had also been tweeted. I mentioned the tweet on Facebook and got a few ‘Congratulations’, for which I felt embarrassed; ‘its only a tweet I thought, no big deal’. More
When I take off my vulnerability armor and allow myself to be seen…..
20 Jun 2013 49 Comments
in Gay, Reflections Tags: Ade Adeniji, Authenticity, Coming Out, Family, Gay, OutTales, Vulnerability
One of the many things I love about storytelling is that each time a story is told, something is always discovered or rediscovered by the storyteller. No matter how many times I tell a tale, I am always finding another insight or revelation, which always leaves me feeling like I have never told the story before.
One such tale is an encounter that I recently had with a taxi driver in London. In fact, a few minutes after the encounter, I found myself telling the story in a business meeting, and in the days that followed, I must have told it at least once a day. As I reflected on the story earlier this week, I found that I was still uncovering newer depths to the story; very much like Alice, lost in Wonderland and getting more curious and curious!
I have wanted to write about the story for the past couple of weeks, but I had become so enchanted by the oral telling of the tale and somehow felt that putting it to paper might mean that the story no longer unraveled. But as I found myself going through the OutTales archive over the past few days, I noticed that so many of the stories here all have further levels to what has been written, and if I was to write many of them again now, there will be a different pair of eyes and hand bringing new life to the already told tales… More
Yearning for the deep
08 May 2013 Leave a comment
in Reflections Tags: Authenticity, Courage, Gay
We know each other on the surface,
for this is where we have danced
and waded into the shallows.
But now I yearn for the deep,
for I have glimpsed the treasure
that eluded me for many years. More
OutTales around the Fire 