Musings by Claris

Image from AsianPolyGlotView Today, my morning can easily be summed up as when it rains, it pours; because pouring it did... both literally and figuratively. I should have known it would be an interesting day when it hit me why Will Smith and Chris Rock were trending.. (pun so intended haha) anyway, I digress. So let me start by summing up what transpired between 6 am and 8 am today.  My kids woke up too early and had the weirdest hyperactive energy I have ever seen for a rainy Monday morning. I had to get up and watch them lest they tore the house apart. My youngest, son #2 decided he would not put on a sweater or jacket to go to school despite today's rain. We struggled for about 10 minutes before I decided to leave him because these children sometimes forget who their mum is. I was not having it today. I got into yet another struggle with the older brother, son #1 who at this point was crying because his crazy mother decided to leave his younger brother home. So that took anoth

It's hard to be a woman I'm not sure when I realized this. I have been racking my brain since morning trying to find out which exact moment in my life made me realize this. Maybe, it was that fateful night 13 years ago when a matatu conductor harassed me that I had to run away for fear of being stripped naked or raped. It scared me so much that incidents of women being harassed like that still trigger me. It took years for me to stop fearing men.  Or maybe it was when I tried to explain to my male "friends" what happened that fateful night. They gaslighted the whole situation and made me believe I must have done something to warrant the harassment. Or maybe it's when I have to double-take on what I am wearing so that I do not give off the wrong idea when I know I'm going to be walking by myself on the road, regardless of the time of day or how busy the street is. Or maybe it is when as a new mother I would walk around, and the first thing people did when they