A few months ago, at the end of a long phone call, my brother asked me if I liked my job. At the time I was looking for full-time work, so I know he didn’t mean my 9-5. I took it that he meant my vocation. You know, being a journalist and all of that. I smiled and thought for a quick second about how to answer the question. I felt a rush of excitement because I was so happy that he asked. Truly, I’m happy when anybody asks.
A few months before, someone asked me in a job interview what I liked about being a journalist, what excited me most about the work I did. It was the first time another journalist had asked me that question. So I paused and said to him, “thank you, I’m so happy you asked me that.” And then, I told him that I loved finding things. That I shined as a journalist when I dug through obscure things, the things most people would leave on the cutting room floor. The context, the history, the colour.
When my brother asked me, I tried to make one of those awkward “sex is great, but have you ever” jokes. He looked at me like I had a mouth full of rocks. So I tried again. I said something about how I loved reporting, finding things, asking questions, talking to people, telling stories, “building worlds” (real, not fictional.) Now, this is all very true. But I’ve had a little more time to think about my answer (I’ve also been feeling inspired by essays from the anthology The Writer on Her Work, edited by Janet Sternburg.)
So, to my brother, here’s a better answer.
Journalism is storytelling. Not storytelling like fairytales full of embellishments or exaggerations, but journalism tells stories that make it quite obvious how a single truth is a result of many different ones. It’s different chapters from different books or conflicting memories from the same individual, in which you find something irrefutable. It’s asking the question, “what did you mean by that?” A question we would all be better for if we asked it in our personal lives too. I love it because it is “work” in a way that I can understand. It is fretting and fact-checking. It’s picking up the phone and calling instead of sending the email. It’s allowing yourself to be captivated by one person’s life story for over a year or following the lives of millions of people for a decade. It is a responsibility, it’s a gut check, every day. It’s an opportunity to hold yourself accountable, earn trust and know what to do with it. It makes me feel good, but most importantly, it makes me want to be good.
P.S. I was going somewhere with my “sex is great” joke. Susan Sontag obviously gets it.
other women (w)rote.
I’ve gone through two seasons of #GirlfriendsonNetflix and I want to personally thank Jasmyn Lawson and the entire Strong Black Lead team for making this possible. And this profile of Tracee Ellis Ross by The Atlantic’s Shirley Li is a worthwhile read.
Ellen Barry is a phenomenal journalist. This story about Kamala Harris’s parents and the chosen family that raised the Harris sisters is quite good.
Earlier this year, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie announced that her father had passed. In this New Yorker essay, she writes (beautifully) about her loss.
Prove to me that I am not the last person in the world to read this essay by Emily Ratajkowski and read it too.
The Blessing and Burden of Forever by Rosalind Bentley is the kind of essay that you want to make time in your day/week to savour.
Roxane Gay writes about The Legacy of Audre Lorde for The Paris Review
This TED talk by Heather McGhee about the pervasive and poisonous effects of racism is not new but is worth listening to.
I loved this essay by Fiza Pirani about facing her fears and learning how to swim during the pandemic. Fiza is also behind one of my favourite newsletters, Foreign Bodies. Check it out!
Classic Brain Pickings: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life
Four years ago today, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave us all some pretty great advice for living.
Today is Nigeria’s Independence Day. Earlier this week, my 17-year-old sister wrote this about being Nigerian.
“Being Nigerian to me is more than a nationality, it’s my identity. It’s strength, resilience, and hope. My pride in my country is one of the biggest aspects of who I am.”
(w)rite back.
I have to ask, do you like your job/vocation/calling? If so, why? Of Nigeria’s 60 years of independence from British rule, how many of them have you been alive? And what moments have brought you the most joy, anger, embarrassment, laughter? Leave a comment below or write back via email.