Underneath the Baobab
There was nothing particularly spectacular about that day. No disturbing cloud cover. No rain. No terrible shine from a vicious sun. No mighty rushing winds. But all that changed in the minute I saw the set up. From then on, everything became spectacular. Except, of course, for the fact that it was not Christmas and there was no mistletoe or something else to kiss under.
Pulling up in front of the local school, I saw the gig venue. No awe-inspiring or flamboyantly decorated hotel and towers dance hall. All we had was the shade of a tree. The seats were not plush or ergonomic. All we had were a few hard chairs and some wooden benches. No multilevel amphitheatre ambience. Just a semi-circular sitting arrangement. No bar. All we had were a couple crates of warm soda. No Italian cuisine or German chocolate. All we had were two glass jars of roasted Igbo peanuts. No professional Disc Jockey. Just a couple of wannabes itching to blast insipid stuff through an old multilevel stereo sound system.
After a lot of fun (and I will leave that to your warped or not-so-warped imagination), I drank in the love ethos and soaked my heart in the minds of this generation when they began to discuss the four letter word. I guess you’re reading this with your mouth open. Yes, there is another four letter word. It is called love; and most of us find it difficult to spell because it’s longer than the three letter word sex but shorter than the eight letter word worship. Louvain is near Brussels, the Louvre is in France, and the Love Canal is an evacuated section of the city of Niagra Falls in New York, Loveland is in Colorado...but love is not first a place.
A lovebird is a greenish short-tailed African parrot. The geeks call it Agapornis. A love-in-a-mist is a white or pale blue flowering Mediterranean plant. Nigella damascena. A love-lies-bleeding is a tropical South Asian plant with small red flowers. Amaranthus candatus. A louvar is a large tropical deep-sea fish with a blunt head, a silvery pink body, and bright red fins. Luvaris imperialis. A love apple is a tomato. Lycopersicon. But love is not first a physical life form.
Sit with me on a hard bench in the shade of a baobab. It will have to do for a loveseat.
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