In this book, I have had the honour and privilege of exploring how the power of love has been expressed within a variety of cultures from around the world. I pay homage to the textures of each original tale while also adapting them to fit a new, modern age. In doing this, I hoped to draw out and excavate what these stories can teach us about ourselves and love itself. My personal mission was to highlight how love and affection is magnificently multi-dimensional, both universal and deeply personal, its expression as nuanced, diverse and complicated as humanity itself.
Love is tender, tentative, brutal and bold. It’s messy and magic! It can be the most frightening thing in the world, purely because it feels like safety, and that safety is reliant on total trust in another, with whom we share our hearts, expose ourselves and allow ourselves to be seen for exactly who we are. But when we allow ourselves to trust like this, there is a freedom that we can attain – a glory.
This book is about being seen in all your iterations, in every dynamic, brightly and in colour. It’s about the joy and hope that accompanies the celebration of that phenomenon. I hope that this book brings you joy.
Yours, lovingly,
Bolu Babalola
??un
??un was used to being looked at. In awe, lasciviously, curiously. Instinctively, she knew when eyes were drawing across her, trying to figure out what they could from her figure. Chin slightly raised, arms and legs lean and athletic, and wide hips that swayed and exuded a femininity so innate it refused to be contained; to some it was a call they felt they had to respond to, to others, a declarative statement of power, something to fear, revere. As a competitive swimmer at Ifá Academy, she had an intrinsic allure that followed her as she flew into the air before diving into the pool. Prize-winning, majestic, her limbs flew through chemicalised water as if it was the sea and she was the current itself. The energy itself. The gravity from the moon itself. She transformed the pool into a sun-dappled lake. Though she moved with incisive swiftness, she made her preternatural ability look breezy. It was casual magnificence. She pushed and pulled as if she was conjuring power from the water. Those who watched often mused that it seemed as if the water only existed to propel her.
??un was accustomed to being a spectacle, people observing her in wonder, trying to surmise what they could from what they saw. Which was why she hid as much as she could, and kept as much of herself to herself as she could. Swimming was her sanctuary, it was just a shame that it necessitated an audience. During swim-meets she paid no attention to the roar from the bleachers or the superfluous commands from her coach （the coach was decorative, a symbol that represented the school’s power over ??un’s triumphs, as if ??un hadn’t made a dry basin bloom into a lake by dancing in it at three years old）。 In those swim-meets, she focused on the sound of the water smacking against her skin like a hand against the taut hide of a talking drum. Her swimming became a dance to a rhythm she was creating with the water. With each hip switch a hand sliced through the water till she was no longer just a body among bodies within a false aquatic body – tiled and sterile. No, she was the body, the only body, vibrant and heavy breathing. By the time the music stopped, she was over the finish line, alone. All they saw was an excellent athlete; only she knew that she was a dancer.
??un was used to being looked at and ignoring it. Most people would say that, when they looked in the water, they saw themselves, but what they really saw was their reflection, light bounced back. A reflection was just the water rejecting an unwelcome intrusion. Water was generous, but mostly it wanted to be left alone. Come in if you want, drink if you want, but don’t peer in without engaging. However, when ??un’s gaze met the waves, she really saw herself. Her hair was soft, dark and roiling, with thick coils swelling around her face like a towering tide. Her face held deep, striking eyes that tilted inwards slightly, as if too heavy to stay steady. They carried too much, they carried the whole universe, and were fathomless like the ocean. Her skin was as deep and smooth as a vast lake, its sparkling surface harbouring an unfathomable depth beneath, a whole world, beneath. The water beckoned her in as kin. She was a high-born; unknowable, untouchable and unable to be contained. One could enjoy but never possess. Experience but not capture.
But ??un felt captured by the gaze on her now. It was all-consuming and sank through her skin. She detected the most tucked away parts of her stirring, being drawn to the surface. She didn’t know the source of it but she felt it. She was sitting on a large hide-skin mat at the academy’s celebration of the iteration of the Ojude Oba Festival with a loose smattering of people who liked to call themselves her friends, drinking palm wine from coconut cups, her lips glistening with fried sweetbread oil, observing the festivities. The air swelled with laughter, music, the scent of fried plantain, roasted meat and spiced rice. Ebony horses in colourful leather swayed, their manes entwined with red, yellow and green ribbons, and were led into the parade by the academy’s jockeys, who matched their steeds’ majesty with brightly dyed, flowing agbadas and fila. They directed their horses through elaborate routines with elegance and expertise, despite their heavy cumbersome outfits. Talking drums were having loud conversations, orchestrated by The Tellers, the elite drumming league of the academy, who learnt and recorded history through music. They spread news, provided entertainment and bantered through verse. Their chests were bare, gleaming, and their arms were tense as they slapped and tapped the hide-skin with both palm and stick, alternating in notes and somehow gleaning harmony from each strike. Students were dancing to the tale of their town’s origin, to love stories told through cadence, laughing, waists rotating and feet blowing up red dust as they pounded. They celebrated the gods and goddesses who comprised their alumni, those who had ascended to the highest of heights. All throughout the merriment, ??un felt that look searing across her skin, making her heartbeat quicken so it syncopated with the sound of the drums.