The Udu was my favourite instrument to use, and during every devotion, you would find me sitting on the chair and hitting the paddle over the mouth of the Udu with as much passion as my twiggy arms could muster. It was hard getting the Udu to give you the right sound. We had devotion twice a day—to start and to end each day—and those days, devotions were amazing.
Everyone would gather in that parlour large enough to hold all of us four times over and just as comfortably, and we would play the instruments as our mother sang off-key, taking pride in our ability to keep up with her swinging keys.
When I did not grab the Udu fast enough, my father would play and I would dance like David danced. That song was one of our favourites and the perfect opportunity to twist and shimmy like monkeys. The praise sessions were always the best.
The instruments belonged to the Anioma group in Adamawa State who met monthly in our house until our father decided he no longer wanted to be Chairman. By then, we had grown a bit, but still hadn’t outgrown our love for play and all things jumping. So, when the instruments finally left our house, we graduated to using the couches as Udus, as drums with such low bass, you had to hit them with all the passion you could muster.
One Saturday last month, here in my sister’s house, cities away from where it all started, we had our usual evening devotion, but this time we did something different. We sang the songs we used to sing when we were younger, intuitively knowing what song came next, and as if these songs brought with them memories, our bodies contorted and our feet pounded the floor.
I hit the couches until they responded with a familiar bass, I sang off-beat and brought myself to order with the drumming, I clapped and stomped my feet to create a rhythm, we chuckled when everyone paused in the middle of a song because we forgot what line came next, and we danced like we were drunk, even though we forgot to sing ‘I will dance like David danced’.
That Saturday we made music with our bodies and that simple act pulled me back into the years when I had no worries.
The familiarity of music and of family joining in to praise God took me back to the nights I would carry the Udu from the store, blow on it to get rid of the harmattan dust, and play until my arms hurt. There was something soothing about the sound it made.
It wasn’t as harsh as the Ichaka my sister would bash on her palms until our mother took a liking to it and collected it. It wasn’t as sharp as the double Ogene we would hit with splintered wood. It was a calm in all the jubilation—something deep and sure within the cacophony. Because, although we’d like to think we made melody, we were painfully unskilled.
Of course, I did not know then why I was so drawn to the Udu—all I knew was that I took my job seriously and kept my ears open for the bass—but knowing what I know about myself now, I was searching for an anchor. Something stable, an assurance.
I search for it even now, with friendships, with jobs, with decisions. I search for an assurance that I am doing the right thing, that I will have no regrets. And this constant search for assurance has kept me stuck, like someone said, waiting until I see the end of the staircase before taking a step.
I’ve welcomed perfectionism with open arms because she feels familiar: something that will not let me act until I have thought everything through and done my ‘due diligence’.
I’ve welcomed fear with open arms because she feels familiar: something that will not let me act because ‘what if’? What if it fails? What if there is nothing to fall back on? What if you’re making a big mistake?
And in the cacophony of life, of questions I don’t have answers to, of desires and duty and the human lack of omniscience, I fall to the bass of fear and perfectionism as anchors.
Now, I know there is no assurance that the future will go the way I want it to, and for a person who plans out her life so meticulously, that is a scary thing to admit. But I also know that God is omniscient when I am short-sighted, stable when I am volatile, and has such good plans for me, I cannot even fathom them.
So, while I am taken up with anxiety and worry when I cannot see the future as clearly as I want to, random Saturdays when our devotions are not prim and proper remind me of the consistency of the Udu, the bass within the noise, grounding me beat by beat.
They remind me of the time when I wasn’t so anxious and could dance like David danced because somehow I knew everything would fall into place and I would be alright.
