Entry 7 -Quarter One: Thoughts That Simmered

Journaling Rest - Out of Office, Into Myself

At times, I struggle to know where to begin with my reflections. I live in my head a lot, and when it comes time to write, the difficulty is not a lack of thoughts but deciding which one to anchor on.

There’s also the discomfort of knowing that my reflections leave me vulnerable. They are not a polished press release, a spin narrative, or a carefully curated “keeping up” reel of my life. They are simply my raw account of what is happening in my world.

I still get puzzled whenever I’m talking with friends, and they ask about a situation, and I respond, “Oh, I told you about that, too?” Then they remind me, “You wrote about it on your Substack.” Moments like that make me wonder whether I have any privacy left of my own now that I’m sharing my world with everyone.

Writing truly makes you vulnerable.

I remember something a writer I look up to once said: to be a successful writer, you must be shameless.

Part of the reason I am writing these reflections at all is that I’m in a season I can’t quite describe. It could be a sabbatical, a break, a transition season, a recovery season, or even a small retirement of sorts. In many ways, these are some of my best days yet — even if they come with the anxiety of not knowing what tomorrow holds.

Another challenge lies in how the mind actually works. It is never a simple, organised tray where thoughts sit neatly waiting their turn.

At one point, I wanted to write about how delicious pilau ya matanga is — the spiced rice often served at funeral gatherings along the Coast — after unexpectedly enjoying it twice: once in Mombasa and again in Malindi.

At the same time, there were thoughts about new relationships I’ve been forming, a rather significant money transaction I recently made, and even the mentor–mentee relationship I find myself in, where the mentee seems to be pushing the process with surprising enthusiasm.

All these thoughts sat in my draft at once, each impatiently waiting to jump off the page.

As expected, I started the year with so much hope. I had a family visit and also spent some time back in Nairobi.

The short stint with my family and the time I spent at home reminded me why I made the decision to leave in the first place — and why I’m unbecoming.

In the meantime, I’ve been searching for a house I can call home for the foreseeable future. The search itself has been underwhelming. Developers seem to be getting away with murder in their thoughtless house designs, down to the bare minimum - things as fundamental as access to clean water.

Which is ironic, considering Kenyan tenancy law assumes that landlords should provide premises that are safe and habitable, with functioning basics like water and sanitation. In practice, however, the gap between what the law imagines and what tenants experience can be quite wide.

I blame it on the overheated property market, where making a quick buck often seems more important than making a habitable home. But that’s a story for another day.

I’ve also been doing some personal work on financial management and slowly shaping my own philosophies around money.

On the creative side, I’ve been exploring different ventures through which I can build on the gifts that have shaped my work over the past few years.

Truthfully, there isn’t that much to report.

This piece sat in my drafts for so long that by the time I returned to it, it had already clarified itself. What initially felt like many scattered thoughts eventually revealed the simple truth of what the beginning of my year has been about.

The brain has a remarkable ability to work on things in the background. This process is linked to the Default Mode Network, a brain system that activates when we daydream, reflect, or let our minds wander. It’s during these moments that the mind stitches together experiences and meaning while also facilitating creativity and the generation of new ideas.

Perhaps that’s the nature of reflection: you set down words that feel scattered or unclear, leave them in a draft, and only later return to find that they’ve simmered into meaning.

By the time you return to them, they are ready to be swallowed.
No chewing required.

If you read my last reflection on boredom and routine and the discipline of doing nothing, under the series Journaling Rest, you might be wondering whether I’ve achieved the boredom I was referring to. The truth is, not quite. I haven’t reached the boiling point of boredom yet. But the good news is that I’m no longer actively trying to escape it either.

For now, I’m letting things unfold at their own pace.

See you next time, and in the meantime, let your brain work on things behind the scenes. Eventually, it all finds its way into place.

(Image courtesy of Pinterest)