Some time ago, my bookclub – Rebel Women Lit - read Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Lapido Manyika. I was completely taken in with the title. My first thoughts were of the highest degree of obstinacy in undertaking a useless activity, though the imagery was most delightful - a jackass toting boxes of rum and raisin melting upward to the sun.
The book centers on Dr. Morayo Da Silva, a Nigerian by birth cum global citizen mainly through her ex-husband’s diplomatic postings, now settled at 500 Belgrave, San Francisco. The opening lines “The place where I live is ancient. ‘Old but sturdy’” in reference to her place of abode carries the dual note of a key theme in this work – ageing and how to manage life as an older person which most view as the final chapters of their life.
In this way, Morayo is a bit of a contradictory figure in that the years pass her by, with little fanfare and many memories; she drives a killer sports car aptly named Buttercup; she is determined to live as she feels and not on the counting of years, yet she laments that she wouldn’t turn heads at her age or feels self-conscious flirting with a man half her age.
These contradictions appear natural and are supported by society’s views echoed in Dawud’s mental comment that at Morayo’s age, features that would have been endearing in her youth now made her look odd or Toussaint’s internal amusement that someone her age would wear a hot pink bra with a slim strap and toe rings or the US Government’s reminder that at a certain age, the presumption is on the ageing to prove their capability in various ways. Even I the reader, a woman who delights in her sexual being, was slightly albeit pleasantly jolted at her self-pleasure on the couch inspired by her neighbours’ lovemaking.
Is this the mule bringing ice cream to the sun? Are Morayo and other elderly persons stubborn in their adjustments and acceptance of this journey of ageing. Or is society stubbornly holding fast to its view of older persons and the appropriateness of how they dress, act and think?
I, like Morayo, wonder “why when one gets to a ‘certain age’ must every reminder of a birthday carry a tinge of gloom”. Are our wider societal preoccupations on this inevitable journey baseless? The thing I find rather interesting is the way ageing and older persons are viewed by the young among us, as if they forget that they too will walk this path, if not overtaken by the other inevitable – and of course, I don’t mean taxes.
Notwithstanding my focus in this semi-review, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun is more than a story about an ageing protagonist. It is a story about those all too familiar themes of relationships played out through infatuations, longing, failing and failed marriages, sibling differences; mental wellness; serendipity; discrimination; immigration and new beginnings.
We all connect with literary works for different reasons – I saw myself through Morayo’s eyes especially having recently celebrated a birthday, being a self-styled global citizen, driving a stick shift and driven by this gleeful exercise of finding a connection with most people I meet. This and other uncanny coincidences projected me into the future. Am I Morayo past? The verdict is still out but there is such joy from reading the closing lines in this book. Morayo is self-aware and living with abandon, not resigned to the change in lifestyle but whipping that mule with wild excitement towards the sun and her destiny. “I rev the engine, sit up tall, and roaring, we go.”
Musing on this principal theme, my mind churns through how I have handled changes and new chapters in my life. Those endings transformed into new beginnings – employed worker bee to freelance passion-seeker; single resident to coupled commitment; child-free adult to purposeful parent-guide and the list goes on. As long as we continue to greet the rising sun, changes will come. Are we sitting tall, roaring to go, revving our engines or are we swinging lower than the sweetest of chariots, dragging our feet like stubborn mules to the line?
Solare is fluttering and floating on this Christmas Breeze with gratitude for a space to share her musings