We all have that White Smoke

Writer’s block. Yes, that one! I had always thought only procrastination-manic writers and other lazy lot are the ones susceptible to this syndrome. I mean, of all the topics in the world, how can someone who invested millions of dime into learning to write from high school through colleges still have such an excuse as a writer’s block?Well, things happen. I have been checkmated and I feel like Raila Odinga now. We all knew he would win, until the tallying started. But unlike Raila, I have no Supreme Court to petition, so I shall settle for a rant instead. DiaryI rarely use my diary. The last one I had, 2012, hardly got jottings. But still, in the abyss of my idleness at the weekend, I decided to leaf through the pages. And one of the words I found was chimney. I normally fill my diary with codes. To decipher anything, you must decode the writings, which is hard. So, here I was, faced with the word “chimney” that I somehow could not remember why I had encrypted it as such.I failed it get it, but later realised it had some prophetic side to it. The Vatican chimney, had, for two days or so, been the centre of attraction. All eyes were on the St Peter’s Chapel chimney. Global media had cameras focusing on it. And for all the pain and expenses, they were waiting for smoke. I hear white smoke!Who really waits for smoke? Smoke is smoke, whether white or black. But St Peter’s Square was teeming with crowds that turned up to wait for the same. I realised from the frenzy that smoke is smoke until it billows from that aged chimney at St Peters—it signifies a new life.The ecstasy among the Catholic faithful at the Square was palpable, but not worth the wait at all. Look, within us all, there is a chimney and smoke. White Smoke, if you like. And this smoke is what we all desire in our relationship.You see, there are women who can spend years while sexually active, but never experience the Vatican smoke of their bodies or hormonal responses to sex. To them, the White Smoke is all but a myth, just like the Vatican one is hard to come by. We must wait for years when a certain John Paul II dies or when a feeble Benedict XVI resigns to that smoke. And after the long wait, we have chances of seeing Black Smoke!MarriageThis was the other word in my diary. It was too open to figure out what it was scribbled there for. I never attend weddings, I don’t believe in marriages and such stuff, yet the word stared back at me like a hostage stares at his captors in a Bruce Willis movie.So, what about this marriage thing? Well, for all I care, the man who benefited most from the White Smoke at St Peter’s last week is a product of two such smokes. First, his peasant father sends smoke signals back in Argentina to give forth Jorge Bergoglio. Then a Carmelengo burns some substance in the Sistine Chapel to emit White Smoke and Bergoglio quickly morphs into Francis I. Yet, unlike his father, the Pope will never know what it means to be married.So, if the most-high man on earth can’t marry, why should someone give me sleepless nights over her daughter? I am already living with her, isn’t that enough?Yes, marriage is within us. That outside public ceremony is meaningless. Even if you eat a bag of popcorn, you will still yawn as much as a starved refugee, so why go with the pomp when all that will matter after the ceremony is the white smoke you can emit and how the game plan pans?

Lifestyle

We all have that White Smoke