I find that when I'm quite busy I ditch process. Typically, every blog starts in one of my many notepads. I have a fetish for pen and paper that may or may not be sexual. If the pen scratches against the sheet wrong then all is askew. And if for any reason I do not enjoy the scribble then I'm all fiddly and fidgety and the magic is lost. Don't be mistaken, blogging, or writing is magic.

At the moment, I'm a little bit busy because it's Lagos Fashion and Design week. Designers are showing collections that need my help. Some of them are alright and some of them are down-right errors, and they need to be told. I once had a dream that I would review everyone and I mean that everyone that made the effort to create something. I like to think of it as the reward of their work. If anyone's made the effort to create something then he or she or it deserves an honest opinion.

I started my work with The Sauvage (Les Sauvages) two years ago with varying degrees of commitment. The publisher's remarkably clever. He routinely comes up with ways to enslave me for little or no pay. This year, he's taken advantage of the fact that I no longer live in Nigeria to get me to fulfill my rather ambitious dream of reviewing everyone that shows at Lagos Fashion and Design Week.

He said, "Afam, you're always complaining about having far too much to do at LFDW. I know you haul your beat up DSLR about like some sort of dervish, and prattle endlessly at people until they deign to pose for a picture or two. Now that you don't have that to do, do you think you could actually get to writing?"

It's all terribly upsetting, but I've decided to have a crack at it. That means that I'll probably be buried until Sunday at the earliest. If you do develop some sort of craving for my words and I, you'll find them on The Sauvage

So go now! Don't tarry or dally or dawdle. I do not write to not be read.

My blackness is an inevitable truth. It is present in everything. I won’t declare my pride in it, because there’s nothing to be proud of. It is my skin. I can’t remove it. It is my lips, it won’t do for them to be shrunk. It is the self that I see in my mind’s eye, I cannot unlearn it. It is the product of my experiences. I can’t unlive them.

It may look to you that there’s some shame in my black but there isn’t. In it, I see my parents, and their parents before them. In it, I see my cousins and my siblings: our squinty eyes when we smile, our not quite flat noses, and our diversity of our skin from terracotta to coffee. There is love there and as long as there is love there is beauty. The beauty there isn’t in the symmetry of our faces or the whiteness of our teeth. It is in the common representations of our ancestry. They are mine in a way that no one else is: God gifted.

My black is not yours, and you are unqualified to think otherwise. You cannot label me an immigrant because of it. You cannot say that I am like my kind. My kind is your kind, you cannot fixate on a pattern that may or may not exist. You cannot tell me that it is a privilege for me to be in England because life here is better. You’re unqualified to prophesy into my life. You do not know where I come from. You do not know where I am going. You do not know what is best or better for me.

I do not care that you mind this. I expect you to, and that too is because I am black in a way that you are not. You may attack me on the tube, or insult me without realising that you are, but those things don’t matter to me. My definition is beyond you. In this too you are unqualified. You are free to think me ugly, or angry, or poor, or lazy because of it but do not expect me to agree with you. Your mind is yours, just as mine is mine. If you do not take the time to learn that I am not a colour, a country or a continent, then there is nothing I can do about what you think of me. I do not know why it is my responsibility to change your mind. I also do not know why it is my responsibility to be the bigger man. I owe you nothing.

If you disrespect me, expect me to return it in whatever fashion I deem suitable. And know that when I do it has nothing to do with my black. It won’t be my blackness that gets angry, reports you to the police or slaps you. My black is only a colour, it has no mind of its own. In all dealings with me, there is only me.

If my melanin offends I make no apology. It has every right to be here, sing here, laugh here, dance here. I’m the head honcho of my blackness table and you can’t sit with me.

Papa Afam: Afam, you're really not young anymore.

Afam: I know. I feel the difference between 20 and 25 with every new hangover.

Papa Afam: I don't understand why you insist on whining about your hangovers when you're the one that chooses to consume the stuff like it never occurred to you that you may in fact live to see the days that follow. You may be decent looking, but God knows that you're not good looking enough to be drugged.

Afam: I'm a man of the present. I find all thoughts about the future frighteningly sickening. The fact that I may be hungover doesn't usually occur to me until I am hungover.

Papa Afam: You're lucky that you're not an orphan. If you were, you'd be dead, and if you weren't your poverty would put you at risk of death. Now don't interrupt me again. It's rude and I'm far too busy for your brand of humour as I attempt to tell you something important.

Afam: What if I paid you for your time?

Papa Afam: It is my greatest disappointment that you may never be able to afford me.

Afam: That was cruel, even for you. One of the greatest lures of death is that I'll finally be free from your lashing tongue.

Papa Afam: You're mistaken if you believe that death will free you from me. If my lectures don't reach you in the grave, I'll join you there in no more than 5 decades.

Afam: I can't endure you. You're bad for my health.

Papa Afam: As are you. If I do not sort you out, you'll be the death of me, but I'll kill you before I let you kill me. I call it my pride as a father. Now I'll get on with my speech. We have disagreed with varying degrees of enthusiasm about what it is you should be doing with your life for the better part of two years and we have achieved nothing. You say you want to be a writer, and I support you but I won't let you turn my dining table into a work space. If you want to be a writing journalist then you must go and find them somewhere that isn't here. Go and get yourself a Masters somewhere. I don't particularly care where, just go.

Afam: How about London?

Papa Afam: Not there. Theresa May is literally a walking headache. Why not New York?

Afam: I can go there for my second Masters can't I? I want to live in London properly.

Papa Afam: Do you think I'm a sultan? You're mad! I won't support you unless you apply to at least one American School.

Afam: What happened to your unwavering support?

Papa Afam: This has nothing to do with support and everything to do with life. There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you smile when I have a hand full of money, you must also smile when I kiss you with my fist. Do you have any universities in mind?

Afam: Yes. City University London and Emerson in Boston.

Papa Afam: Neither of those are in New York.

Afam: If you'd given your infinitely wavering support in September last year, then we could have spoken about New York. It is May and the admissions offices are closed.

Papa Afam: As long as you get out of my house and visit at intervals of three months, staying for periods of no longer than ten consecutive days, I'll be happy.

Afam: I think you'll find that I'll be happier than you. You may not have noticed this but you are more than a little bit troublesome. Be grateful that I've been your verbal punching bag for two years. I really don't know who you'd vent at if you didn't have me.

Papa Afam: I'm appalled at the thought that I may actually miss you.

Afam: You'll ruin my impression of you if you're sentimental in front of me. Pull yourself together.

Sub Part 1- There are blackbirds outside my window don't you know?

There are blackbirds outside my window. There have been blackbirds outside my window for the past week. Sometimes there is one, sometimes there are two, and sometimes there are three.

Those sentences should tell you two things.

1. That, I, Afam, the determinedly happy, believe that the truths of the Universe can be found in the lives of Blackbirds.
2. That, I, Afam, the incredibly Nigerian, am no longer in Nigeria. 

Dear Flushy,

I'll start this one with an apology because I cannot remember the last time that I called you Flushy. It was probably when we were 14 and I was low key in love with you. I know that I shouldn't say things like that ever, but my name is Afam and I've got a penchant for embarrassing myself and everyone I know. Are you embarrassed yet? No? I would try harder but I've got nothing but the memories of misguided affection and friendship.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be at your wedding. I wanted to go so terribly but life intervened. There was an opportunity to leave Lagos and get on with life so I took it. Unfortunately my getting out didn't come at a time when I could reasonably return. It is also unfortunate that I have zero money because if I did, I'd have flown back and sewn a white agbada, and I'd have bought you an awesome gift that wasn't on your John Lewis list because the best presents are surprises. I'm not dead yet, so the present thing might still happen.

The point of this public letter is to tell you publicly how incredibly happy I am for you. You were a beautiful bride. I know every one says that but I mean it differently. It wasn't that you were pretty- we've discussed your good looks before and you know my opinion. It was that you looked like the happiest you I'd ever seen.

If there's any justice in the world, I'll see you soon and I'll tell you all of this in person. If you ever want to see me, all you have to do is cook a pot of fried rice without green beans and carrots and peas, rub the pot as you would my ab-ful belly and say Afam three times. Do that and I will appear. I have never been one to turn down a free meal.

Happy Days,
Afam