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June 9, 2026

Na Mi Sef I Get: The Hermit, and Self-Trust in Krio

Track 4 on The Year of the Horse is The Hermit card. I wrote it in Krio because self-trust lands truer in the language you think in, and solitude you choose is not the same as being alone.

I wrote this one in Krio. Not for the sound of it. It is the language that came up when I needed to talk to myself instead of to a room.

Na Mi Sef I Get is Track 4, and the card is The Hermit. People read The Hermit as lonely. He is not lonely. He walked away from the noise on purpose, and he took a lantern with him. That is the whole difference. Solitude you chose is not the same as solitude that happened to you.

The song opens by looking back at the one before it. Because I choose me. Track 3 was the decision. This is the morning after the decision, when the room is quiet and you find out whether you meant it.

Self-trust in the language closest to me

The spine of the song is three lines. I sabi who I am. I sabi wetin I need. I sabi wetin I want. Sabi means to know, but it sits heavier than that. It is knowing in the body. I could have written “I know myself” in English and it would have come out thinner. The Krio holds the certainty better.

I no dey move by wetin people dey talk. There is a word in the verse, kongosa. Gossip. The kind that follows you once you stop performing for people. The Hermit hears it and keeps walking up the hill.

The part that is not clean

I lost people, I gained sight. I keep coming back to that trade in these songs because it keeps being true and it keeps not being comfortable. Self-trust sounds like strength from the outside. A lot of the time it just feels like being alone with a decision nobody clapped for.

This no ego, this growth. This no pride, this truth. I put that in because I needed to hear it on the days the line between confidence and arrogance got blurry. Some days I still cannot tell which side I am standing on. I left the line in the song so I would have to keep answering for it.

Why this card needed its own song

I Choose Me made the choice loud. Na Mi Sef I Get makes it quiet. The Hermit is not the part of the story where you announce anything. It is the part where you sit with yourself long enough to learn you are good company.

I done find my peace, and I go keep am. That is a promise more than a fact. The keeping is the work.

Where this leaves you

If you have ever gotten quiet and worried the quiet meant something was wrong with you, this song is for that. Sometimes the quiet is just the lantern. You picked it up on purpose. Now you can see.