The Rebirth

The origin of my name, according to my beloved parents is quite the story. Not because it is a tale that is so out of the ordinary. It is not the makings of what a typical apocalyptic J Cole rap lyric would be made of;

On the night I was born, the rain was pourin’, God was cryin’
Lightnin’ struck, power outage, sparks was flyin’

It was not God that was crying on that night in March of 1991 when inspiration of my name struck. It was my bold as brass mother howling in the still darkness, according to my father anyway, because her first-born who had been days overdue, had finally decided to join the gruesome world.

I didn’t exactly slide into the world like a graceful gazelle. No, I made my entrance like a WWE wrestler – loud, dramatic, and covered in blood. Amidst high-pitched incoherent cries, tears, fervent prayers, and expletives in equal measure, I imagine, I made my entry; fashionably late dripping in blazing red, squealing and kicking. My mother’s screams were so intense, apparently, that my father had thought he was witnessing a live exorcism instead of a birth.

Because my devout African father had zealously cried out to God to show his wife mercy and compassion, while my mother had persevered like the strong black woman she was indoctrinated to be, it naturally made sense to them to name me Mercy Eni (the latter being a sappy stand-in for endurance). Cute, right? Sounds like I was destined to either be a saint or an acclaimed Kenyan long-distance runner.

Spoiler alert: I’m neither

Fast forward to some 3 decades later, I am deliberately trying to hit the reset button, be reborn, (without paining my parents through the horrendous PTSD of course). I want to explore words and worlds, to seek out magic. Even when that magic lies on the other end of conquering phobias

In my newly claimed reinvention, I will try anything at least once before I rule it out. My fear of heights did not stop me from getting on a hot air balloon at the Mara, gliding over hordes of wildebeests at 70,000 feet. I absolutely love that I did it, and my Instagram is proof that I am brave. My browser history (full of last-minute ‘how to survive a hot air balloon crash’ & ‘how to survive on an island’ searches) says otherwise. Now, would I do it again? Hell No!

My new motto in my reborn journey – If you aren’t reinventing, you are dying – has had me embracing and treasuring solo travelling. Having to learn and experience divergent places, cultures and people is just as sizzling, methinks, as that sound you hear when you introduce marinated chicken to hot oil in a frying pan. Simply divine.

It is getting a new chance to reintroduce yourself, however you feel like on that day. Adding a little razzle dazzle to my personality doesn’t make me fraudulent. Not really. It’s me tapping into my creative juices and extending my scope. Personally, I have been an array of things in my adventures; a Ugandan dancer that suffered a knee injury, a widowed Ghanaian that is a pianist, an Egyptian single mother vacationing with her lesbian lover. What I have never been though is a long-suffering wife.

Naturally, when I got the window of opportunity to expand my career in the UK, I nosedived into this once-in-a-lifetime chance that had fallen smack onto my ample lap. It felt so surreal that often times I had to check my visa to reaffirm I was not letting my wild fantasies get away with me. I had zero qualms about relocating. Okay, maybe some qualms started creeping in towards the end. Especially when I had to start selling everything in my house and bid pinching goodbyes. What were supposed to be butterflies evolved into monstrosities that lodged bitterly in my gut.

While I tried to reassure myself that I had solo-travelled many times before, a voice in my head would be quick to remind me that solo vacations were a far cry from a planned relocation. While the former offered grandiose pickings of bubbly drinks, delectable desserts, juicy steaks and a concierge at my beck and call, the latter offered no concierge, an acute awareness of my blackness, and my personal hell, flavoured water (who asked for this? Why don’t you just have juice or soda? It was the food I was asking to have some flavour). Nobody had prepared me that I would have to go out of my way to get still clean water

Either way, Mercy Eni is in Manchester, trying her hand at something novel yet again, scared shitless…

 

 

Tune in for Entry 2 next Saturday!