We must learn how to say the Irish goodbye

I have just sneaked out of a jazz meet (although it is technically over and folks are mingling) to come to a hotel cyber and key in this article. Not that there aren’t lots of razzmatazz folks over at the mingle. In fact the place is full of lovely ghosts from my past, all bona fide ‘Eve Women.’

There is Vanya Mesopir, with whom we went to Lamu over 10 years ago in a large literary group headed by her Russian professor brother-in-law. There is my friend Sue Kavoi whom we used to go rock and rolling with, at Psys’ Pub and ‘Voo’ (and possibly ‘Choi’) 20 years ago. There was this lady there called Madoka whom we used to share a school bus with 30 years ago as kids, and I had a puppy crush on her sister.

So perhaps today is the day to talk about ‘ghosting.’ Or the art of leaving large (or even smallish) gatherings without saying goodbye! Let’s face it – none of us really like saying ‘bye bye,’ and that is why even babies cry long and loud when their parents leave, even for work.

I personally dread that moment you have to go up to someone in a social gathering and tell them you are leaving. Why do we have to announce our departures, like airplanes, when all it does is make everyone a little blue? Why not just quietly blow out of there (unless you have a bill you haven’t settled, in which case it is in very poor taste, pun unintended, to pull a runner on your friends).

Otherwise if you owe no-one anything, then just go, because you do not owe anyone a goodbye. And this is the art of the Irish Goodbye – like when an Irishman leaves his people still drinking in the bar and ‘bounces’ without the depressing ritual of saying ‘sayonara’ (perhaps because the Irish sod suspects he’ll be told to ‘just chill, Paddy, and have one more’ and go home at dawn to a Nyeri-like harridan).

I knew this cool guy called Peter Ng’ang’a a long time ago who was a past-master at the art of the Irish Goodbye. We all knew when he arrived as he always made an enthused entrance, but when he left? Poof! Gone like a ghost. Like a smoky jazz note over misty water ... until one morning, very early, when I returned to my place (where I’d left folks having a house party) like at five to five am and flung open the door. And there was ‘Pete,’ sitting in the dark of pre-dawn, lacing a shoe and ready to slip out of the house like a vampire. We stared at each other in astonishment in the shadows. Then Pete slipped out of his shoes, went to the sitting room, crashed on the couch, and seemed to fall into a sleeping snore. In the morning, of course, Pete was gone – and nobody had seen him leave!

It is like this colleague of ours who is leaving for Stockholm in a couple of weeks, forever, and has told almost nobody. I like that. Most of us Africans do the opposite of ‘Irish goodbyes’ – we loudly say goodbye, a million times, then stay right in place as we threaten: ‘Niko karibu kuenda!’ How can we miss you if you never go away?

The ultimate ‘Irish goodbye’ is like the one mzee ole Ntimama pulled on everyone. To say ‘goodnight.’ Then never wake up. As a writer, there is only one way to say an ‘Irish goodbye’ this week and that is...

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