Creating a Personal Grey Space

A grey space is a free space where a person finds the freedom of the soul and the liberty of the mind and in return, they are able to reflect their life. The grey space should give a person ultimate independence and the power of self-composure. It should be able to weigh desolate and loneliness so that the person achieves self-reflection-like a mirror, enabling the individual to rewrite the story.

This time I decided that I am going to leave work earlier than the normal hours, that is usually an engraved 4:00 pm and an extra illiberal hour for balancing the books. On normal days, I would leave the office at four thirty; take another extra hour in slowly retracing my way back home through the traffic in Nairobi’s maddest hours. By the time I get home far right in the suburbs of the city in the sun, I am tired and ready to face the other side of reality- responsibilities.

I am ever tired of this poor lifestyle with no meditation and no inner peace and calmness since I got employed. My grandfather used to joke about being employed, that a salary is a monthly bribe that keeps you away from shooting at your stars and also achieving self-priorities. I did not believe that man but after getting a job, his words became crystal clear. I have to wake up early along with my neighbor’s noisy garden wobbler, do the necessary then leave for work. The only time I get to chat with my colleagues is during the tea and lunch breaks, and for not so long I am back on my office seat running my fingers through some old crappy keyboard trying to hit my monthly targets.

This day I decided to tell my boss about leaving early, he shrinks and asks why. ‘To the airport, and specifically to watch airplanes land and take off through the nights!’ Dissatisfied, he allows me to check out and off I am to the airport road to meet my best friend who will ensure I get allowed to hang around the airport for the night. Just like my boss, he does not understand why I would watch planes; I mean that is a grade-one kid’s goal-watching airplanes.

I am sited somewhere in terminal 1B of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where I can get clear views of the airplanes. The first arrival is an Emirates airplane; I could guess it was a 737-300er. I am not an expert in identifying planes, except for today, it was a right guess. I have seen this plane before as a screensaver on my monitor. As dusk approached, another airplane approached the landing ways. I realized just like cars, airplanes have headlights-I honestly did not know this. It was a Kenya Airways Boeing Dreamliner, probably the one that had its first direct nonstop voyage to the United States- this is a milestone for the Kenya Airways.

A man who sat right next to me, I guessed he too was after watching planes spoke to me on his knowledge about planes. I learn that airplanes fly because of the engine design. He says the engines push the airplanes forward tearing through the invisible air to create a force that lifts the airplane up as the air pushes above and below the wings. I did not get satisfied with his explanations. Don’t drunkards speed their sports cars on Thika super highway thinking they are flying cars only to crash to death? He further went on to explain the science of thrust, drag and lift, a concept that only Boeing and Airbus engineers would convince me. I later learned the guy was an attaché, studying aeronautical engineering at a prestigious University Of Nairobi.

As the hours passed, I realized that Jomo Kenyatta International Airport was a really busy airport, from the number of planes that I had counted that evening. It is a real air hub and an eye of aviation on the East of Africa. I have been to Entebbe, Kilimanjaro and the home of Ethiopian airlines, Addis Ababa, and trust me those airports cannot beat the JKIA in terms of being busy. I got bored waiting for clearance at the Julius Nyerere International airport when I last visited there on a job mission

Kenya Airways ceased procuring planes from the French Airbus since a crash in early 2000. The petty reason being, Airbus refused to take the blame for the crash and thereby forcing KQ to compensate the victims. Today Kenya Airways flies the Boeings, the latest being the Dreamliner. I have also seen the Fokker and the Embraer in their fleets that serve the local flights. All the Airbus that had been procured before the year 2000 has been retired.

I also learned that despite being a huge corporation in Kenya, Kenya Airways is still running on an improved loss in billions of Kenyan shillings. I really do not know what went wrong till the pride of Africa started running on losses. I remember talking to a friend about Kenya Airways services; they are in fact ranked the best in Africa. For your information, Air Zimbabwe is the worst airline provider with poor services.

Having spotted a beautiful elegant tiger painted Boeing, probably from the Russians, I decided to go home. I finally managed to run away from the reality of life for a short great time. Breaking monotony once in a while gave me peace from the inside. I realized made a sound decision while at the airport. A decision that I certainly could have missed if I ran on my normal routine.

Every human being needs something that can steal them from their normal life and environment so that they can be able to reread their lives in solicitude. At the airport I found myself thinking about the important things in my life. At some point, I even forgot watching the airplanes and got into the criticals of my personal issues. I ended up coming with solutions that changed everything, solutions that were as a result of solicitude at the busiest airport in East Africa-There is no debate about this by the way.

My friend, among those in my extraction team-the team that will always give you a shoulder to cry on and who will always listen to my problems and help me solve them, goes on picnics at the Ngong hills, and more often Has a nature walk at Karura forests alone, not even with his family members. He says breathing the cold clean air rich with oxygen helped him relax and even sit down and write a poem. Also on the book, he would write his issues and think about the solutions. The most important thing he does is to pray for the heavens to intercede for him. Luckily, this technique has worked for him over the years.

I have seen many people get stressed in their daily lives, and some have hit their breaking point with no reverse. When a problem manifests it in the mind, and the being lacks the time and power to address them, the mind gives up and falls into the pressure trap. Many of the victims are people who have time for their job and family but lack time for themselves. The solution to this is to create time for one and reread the scripts.