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Lagos!
As far as flying goes, Kigali to Lagos was unconventional.
The journey begins at 38,000 feet, a place neither here nor there. As the plane tilts downward, its gradual descent drawn by an invisible hand, a tension gathers among us. A woman in the next row presses her damp hands together, her head dipped slightly, eyelids sealed in a gesture that could be prayer, or something adjacent to it. Elsewhere, fingers dig into armrests, as if seeking purchase against the inevitable. The air feels dense, held hostage by the hum of jet engines, their metallic whine carving through the silence.
I glance to my left, at my mother and grandmother, seated in quiet solidarity. They seem untouched by the nervous choreography around them. My mother’s head rests on her shoulder, her breaths soft and even. My grandmother’s hands, folded in her lap, appear carved from stone, timeless. Together, they inhabit a realm apart, an unshakable bubble of calm, as if tethered to a universe where gravity, anxiety, and time itself have no claim. Looking at them, I wonder at this inheritance of stillness, this capacity to fold oneself into the vastness of the sky and emerge weightless. Perhaps it is born of something I have yet to grasp, a wisdom passed down in the quiet spaces between words, in the steady cadence of lives lived through turbulence and calm alike.
