SIGMA RUN 2017

I use the Sagicor SIGMA Run to gage my aging process each year. My time, how I feel when I'm running, how many young whippersnappers breeze past me ... All of these are the non-scientific indicators I use to determine whether or not my body is still up to the fitness challenge.

This year, I saw a proliferation of tiny primary schoolers whizzing past me, my calves were on fire, my stomach was churning bile, my breathing was very halted, and I felt like a very tired 50. Meanwhile, some little upstarts were just blazing past me with all their hype and energy, and I realised that my not-yet-30-year-old body was threatening to jump into the nearest AmbuCare ambulance and just stay put.

A thought occurred to me this year, though, that had me chuckling and crafting a poem in my head while I walk-ran. It was after seeing a madman standing on the side of the road watching the passers by, and the women in particular. He inspired this poem:

SIGMA 2017

Mad man standing at half mast

Eyes bump-a-bumping

To rhythmic rotund rumps

Jouncing down the street

Drumming time

To the patter of running feet

Too young to dance ...

On Sunday, I was loaned a grandmother and grandfather for a day. They picked me up at the home I'm staying at and drove me to a beautiful seaside restaurant all the way in Chapala, Mexico. We walked along a seafront pavement overlooking a very murky lagoon; we saw many shops with artesanías selling some of the most exquisite pieces of hand-crafted work I've ever seen; we walked through the town and saw some truly ancient places. These pueblas have cobblestone roads - cobblestone roads!! And red brick houses. Like something out of a movie. And they have the cars to complement the era - Tatas, Volvos ...

I had a fish dinner, with fillet (pescado con mantequilla) and white rice and vegetable salad. Not too unusual. It was tranquil and all very kosher. Until the music began.

And I noticed the dais at the centre of the restaurant. And the couple moving in rhythm at the front of the room. Then another couple got up and went to the dais. Then another. And another. And pretty soon, that little space was crammed with dancing couplets, and a few singlets, stepping in time to the Spanish beat - some wielding their waists like weapons of warfare.

It was mainly elderly couples on the dance floor. You wanted to see those old men get down - dancing and prancing around their señoras with enthusiasm, if not youthfulness. I laughed so hard at some of the antics they carried on with: hunched shoulders, eyes wide, arms flailing. It was a blast from the past.

My personal favourite was la cumbia. Oh my word! It's a lively, uptempo jive that the musicians false-ended three times before finally completing the song with a trumpet and a flourish. So every time we thought the song was done and people started to leave the dance floor, they started again. And the fiesta would carry on ... . At some points, I could swear I saw people doing something very similar to the dinki mini.

I sat watching these people indulging their rhthymical senses on a spectrum that ranged from the very tranquil to the downright frenetic - and I had to just laugh. I declined my first invitation to join them, but the more I watched, the more I wanted to join in. So when the next uptempo song came around and my hosts extended their hands to me, they didn't have to ask twice. I got out there and stepped and shook and shimmied.

I swallowed pride, fear and all inhibitions and had me some fun. Know what? I really enjoyed it. Right up until my thighs started to feel like I had been treading water for more than an hour. I looked around me and saw jubilation and enthusiasm in faces that had forgotten more than I could remember and bodies that had seen age like I hadn't. I had to will my young legs to keep time, and keep up! After all, I was the young one there!

I wanted to take pictures, but my brand new Nikon CoolPics S2800 stopped charging after a whopping three hours of use. So I have to bring it back to the store and get that resolved. So I had no camera with me. Hence no pictures. But use your imagination. Think of old people - couples very much in love. The elderly gentlemen leading their ladies onto the dance floor, assuming the ready stance, then swaying to the music. Think of very young toddling granddaughters jumping with their prancing grandpas. Think of daughters and fathers dancing together at a respectable distance. Think of lovers throwing respectability out the window and getting as close as skin permitted. It was a wonderful mix of the old and the new, sharing in a moment of tranquil synchronicity. I really liked it. And, apparently, they do this every Sunday!

Would I go back? You bet!

Did I buy crack today?

The 'biscuits' in question.

I'm not sure what I bought from the lady on the road today. I want to think it was biscuits. Or cookies, at the very least. But the more excitable parts of my brain want it to be something more ... exciting. Anyway. Let me explain.

It's La Semana Santa, or holy week. So pretty much everybody is on holiday or observing the religious season (Mexico is a heavily Roman Catholic country). When I have no set plans, I've taken to walking as far as my legs will carry me in one direction, finding a food place in the vicinity, having a good lunch, then walking back home. That way, I get to see the sights at a leisurely pace, take pictures if I want to, and also try completely new, unplanned foods.

This time my walk took me west, and I was on my way back from a rather uneventful stretch of residential streets when a woman with a covered basket approached me. She said something in Spanish and I understood enough to make out that she was selling galletas (biscuits or cookies) for eight pesos. I was feeling peckish, so I said why not, and took out my purse to pay her. I had no change. Just four pesos. She smiled, said OK, took the money, and gave me the biscuits.

"Para te aprobarles," she said. (Translated: For you to try them). There were two kinds in the basket: some dusted with a white powder, some without. I wanted the ones without, but she insisted that I try the ones with. "Son mejores," she told me. They're better. I smiled and nodded OK, took the biscuits, and carried on.

Well, I pulled the package and tried the first one. It was sweet. It tasted like ... well, like biscuit. So I had another. And that was when something went wrong. My head felt light. I was walking up the ascent toward an overhead bridge, and I honestly had to stop and just hold on to the railing for a minute. My head felt so very light. And everything felt so very very surreal.

As I continued to slowly make my way to the other side of the overhead bridge, a thought hit me: what if the biscuit induced the lightheadedness? What if the white powder wasn't sugar, as I had supposed? What if that was why she had the basket covered with a towel? And wait, my lovely brain started to tell me, wasn't she glancing around a little suspiciously when she was selling me the 'biscuits'? I had to stop and laugh at myself.

It was probably dehydration, my common sense told me. I had been walking in the sun from morning without ingesting any kind of liquids. I shook my head and continued walking. But I glanced behind me a couple of times, just to see if I could spot the woman ... just to see if anyone was following me ... just in case ... .
 

A Spanish fly?

There's a fly in my room. It's as big as a bee. I don't know how it got in, but I need it to leave.
Funny enough, not two days ago, I was telling someone here that I was impressed at the absence of flies and mosquitoes in Mexico. And now here comes this annoying critter to try to ruin it.

It sounds like an entire hive of bees. And I feel this mad urge to just toss things at it until it gets squashed. But I've watched the cartoons
. I know how those things work out. You toss one book, one shoe, a chair, and crash! There goes the people's expensive mirror. Or the light bulb. Or an antique vase. Or the million-dollar chandelier. And the fly would be no worse for wear. I'll spare myself that drama, thankyouverymuch.

In the meantime, there's this fly in my room. Making a most irritating sound; shooting hither and thither as if it owned the place. I know it can't stay here forever. Eventually, it will leave. Or get tired. Or fall asleep. Or something. So I type. Try to ignore it. And carry on with life.

I mean, big deal. This could have happened in Jamaica. But, I wonder, if I were to try to shoo it, would I have to speak in Spanish?

62 million GONE!

*Ghet-towz family living room*

Shenanae: Dis yah robbery yah CONNEK!

Mrs. Ghet-towz: What a body couldn't do with 62 million dollars ...

Mr. Ghet-towz: A body cudda mek a body wid dat ... cudda mek nuff body and mine dem!

Mrs. Ghet-towz: Eeh? Nuh badda wid dat. Try tek yuh mine offa making nuh more body and mine di one dem yuh have, awoi!

*Whole family laughs, intersperesed with exclamations of 'Raaaae', 'Woooi' and Laaaawd'*

Mrs. Ghet-towz: Mi nuh tink dem ago fine dem tief deh. Di ting well sort out. It plan good bad.


Mr. Ghet-towz: All if a police catch dem now, weh him ago do more than beg a piece'a di action?


Mrs. Ghet-towz: A di security guard dem weh get rob ago inna hot wata, cause a dem haffi go explain how dem mek di tief dem get weh ... an it look fishy fi true.

Mr. Ghet-towz: Mi sorry fi dem. All lie detector dem ago use pon dem ... wuddn waan fi inna fidem shoes.

Mrs. Ghet-towz: Kinda sad, though. Di tief dem get weh, an di man dem weh did a do dem job, a dem  get eena trouble.


Mr. Ghet-towz: Nuh suh di system set. Honest people cyaan prosper. Look like mi haffi go find some tief an go rob a truck too ... an den start mek and mine some body! 

*He touches shoulders with his wife, who pushes him away and hisses her teeth loudly, in between exclamations of 'Raaaae', 'Woooi' and Laaaawd' from their children*

What A Difference ...

Some quote-on-quote 'celebs' stopped by my office the other day. They won the Digicel Rising Stars competition on 2006.

I didn't readiy recognise them. I knew they had to be some sort of popular personalities, but I couldn't figure out who they were.

"Who are they?" I asked a coworker.

"One-third." He replied. I couldn't believe it. They looked nothing like the guys I remembered from four year ago. In fact, I would never have guessed who they were if he hadn't told me. They looked very different, with edgy mohawk-type dos and the like ... very (for want of a better term) 'uptown'.

"What a difference a year makes," I said out loud.

"Well actually," another coworker interjected, "What a difference a hair makes."

:o)

Challange Day 31: Oui!!

My friend is convinced that Jamaicans have a problem with French.

For example, one day she took a taxi.

After the taximan asked her if she had arrived at her stop, she said, "oui."

He nodded and stopped.

As she alighted from the car, she asked, "you understand what 'oui' means then?"

He nodded, smiled, and said, "yes, we - you and me."

My friend was sorely disappointed.

I'm one of God's favourites!

[If you've read my blog post about my familiar face, or if you've known me for any decent period of time, you'll know that, yes, I have plenty of lookalikes, so, yeah, I kinda do have a 'common' face ... but who wants to say that?? Especially when it sounds so ... common]

Coworker: Rb, you know, I saw a guy the other day who looks exactly like you. I seriously thought he was your twin, except I've never heard you talk about a twin. Do you have a twin??

Rb: *sighs* Actually, I have many twins. I'm just not related to any of them. I've met and heard of too many people who look like me. It's the first I'm hearing about a male though.

Coworker: *smirks and laughs* Oh gosh, you mean it's common? You have a common face?

*Rb looks at cheeky coworker and smiles brightly*
Rb: Well this is God's favourite face ...

The Foot

Have you ever noticed that ATMs are always built in some areas that get very lonely after certain hours? Always some little corner out of the way, where people can easily get shot, robbed, mugged, killed... you notice these things when you're heading to one such secluded spot at 8:47 at night...

At the ATM:
A woman is inside doing her business.
A man is outside waiting.
I carefully look him up and down: no untoward bulges from his pants waist, no tattoos, piercings or weird shiny objects...
Man says good night.
At first I jump a little. Then sigh, smile and return the pleasantry.
I look around: no lone, suspicious characters nearby.
No police car either.
I wish that woman would hurry!.

The woman exits the machine.
The man enters.
I'm outside alone.
A prick of apprehension.

The man doesn't take long.
Soon, I'm safely bolted into the little cubicle
... or trapped, as the case may be ...

I hear a sound.
I quickly turn round to look outside.
Nothing.
I realise the ATM glass is not transparent from my end.
People outside can see me.
I can't see out.
I wonder which genius built this thing....

There's a little clear-looking strip at the bottom of the machine.
I stoop down to peep out...
I see a foot!!

Just one foot parked menacingly at the at the edge of the glass cubicle.
The rest of the body is hidden from view.
My heart beats double time.
who's out there?
what do they want?
will they hurt me??

I grab the money from the machine.
Quickly grab and tear up my receipt.
Stuff the cash into my bag.
Zip it tightly, push open the door and .... run like the wind!!

At a safe distance
I turn around, panting, breathless...
No one. Absolute emptiness.
Thank goodness I'm not being followed.
The predator must have ran off too...

I sigh. Look down. Eyes get stuck on my shoes.
I chuckle, then giggle, then comes full-blown laughter.

That 'menacing' foot I had been seeing on the other side of the ATM?
My own--- my reflection.

Steups.

Finally!!

I did it!! I. DID. IIIIITTT!!!

Did what, you ask.

Well, for the first time in a very long while, with deliberate effort and concentration, and that exceptional mixture of brevity, wit and timing that is necessary... I told a joke!!

I can see people shaking their heads in disbelief, and a few of you chuckling to yourselves and thinking, "OK, the bird has left the nest ... she's cuckoo." But you don't understand.

I'm never funny!! At least, not intentionally.

Usually, my attenpts to give jokes in large groups are met with laughter at the unfunniness of the joke more than anything else... and my misplaced enthusiasm, and pitifullly hung head after I realise that everybody's laughing at me and not with me...

So, when I sat with a group of my coworkers and successfully related a joke at which they all laughed, (not because I did a poor job of it, but because they got the joke and thought it was funny) I flung my hands into the air and screamed with delight. Finally! Finally I got it right!! I told a joke that made people laugh... I'm so happy I could cry.

*sniffles* You don't know how many years of humiliation I've had to endure for my awkward timing, unnecessary drawing out of the subject matter, or just plain unfunniness. But now?? Now?? The world of humour is my oyster, and there's no joke I can't tell!! Who knows? From this point on... Maybe I can do stand-up comedy... Suddenly, it all feels possible...

**YEEEEEEES!!** I finally found my funny!

In the silence...

What is it about being in the silence of their own thoughts that makes people uncomfortable and uneasy??

Yesterday I was traveling on a bus. The driver had the radio on, and some loud dancehall music was playing...
*Enter annoyed Rb*
Rb: Driver, yuh can't find something else to listen to? Find some news or something nuh!
Driver keeps driving. Rb feels ignored.
Rb (raising voice): Hey driver!! You nah hear me?? Me say find some news or something fi wi listen to!!
Driver turns off radio. Enter annoyed 'other passengers'.
Other passenger 1: So wait, driver, a one person you a carry? Turn on back the radio man!
Other passenger 2: Driver, a more than one a we in here, enuh. You ago make one woman make the rest a we vex? Tun on back di radio. Me nah drive go St. Mary inna silence.
Other passenger 3: Yow driver, majority rule. Run di music.
Driver continues driving. The radio remains off. Other passenger 3 beside Rb turns on her cell-phone and starts to play some music.Rb sighs, starts to silently chant and petition heavenly intervention. Other passenger 3 puts phone close to Rb's ear. Rb starts to chant and request divine intervention under her breath. Other passenger 3 starts to flip aimlessly through her songs, then with a loud hiss-teeth, turns off her phone.
*Enter PERFECT SILENCE for the rest of the journey home, and a happy Rb.*

What is it about being in the silence of their own thoughts that makes people uncomfortable and uneasy??

Recession

I was walking along Silver Slipper Plaza in Cross Roads. Just looking. When I saw them. I stared. I drooled. I downright ogled. I got all panicky in the tummy in that sicknsweet way that gives delight wrapped up in anxiety. My belly went jelly and my knees grew ridiculously weak. I nearly passed out.

Wow! Gorgeous... goh-je-uss!

They had to be the most beautiful pair of earrings I had ever seen. I had to get them. It was a compulsion. I could. not. leave. without. claiming those beauties.

Then I felt my pockets: Empty. Broke. I shrugged. And sighed. Oh well, they weren't all that fabulous. And with drooping shoulders in a dejected slump, I continued walking.

Recession? This too shall pass.

Only in Jamaica...

This is Part 1 of what I have dubbed my "Only in Jamaica" series... where I will highlight little bits and snippets from everyday Jamaican life, and argue why these things can only happen in Jamaica (or to Jamaicans). This first episode can be considered the pilot. Thus, it will be short. Feedback would be greatly appreciated (like, should I do this in a new blog entirely called 'only in Jamaica'?)

In the Taxi
Male 1: 18 years, 18 years, 18 years then he found out it wasn't his
Rb: But it was his. By naturalisation.

*all the dudes in the taxi give Rb the look of death*

Rb: No... come on, what I mean is, he fathered the child for 18 years... after all that time, that child is definitely his! He was the real father!

*all the dudes in the car shake their heads vigorously*

Male 2: Nope. That child wasn't carrying his genes!
Male 1: Alright, look at it this way... how would you like your husband to come home with a kid and tell you that it's yours... *he leans closer to Rb* by naturalisation??
Rb: But that is not the same thing!

*dudes in the car laugh and shake their heads even more vigourously*

Male 2: But that's what it's like!
Rb: Well, for women, it's easier... we definitely know when a kid isn't ours!
Male 2 (somewhat sadly): I'm convinced that all women are tailors.
Rb (puzzled): What?
Male 2 (repeats): All women are tailors... they know how to sew good jackets!

P.S. This one is from a Rasta: Swine flu ting? Them always say pig fly. Now them flu!!

Cough-ter that Reverberates

I sat beside a girl the other day with a big, dry, hacking cough. The sound of that cough was just awful, and the frequency was much more than most average personal comforts would tolerate. I felt sorry for her, and sympathised but I had to get up and move! Not because of the cough - she had a rag and was doing all the socially correct things to ensure that the air remained sterile (or as sterile as could be expected under the circumstances). My problem was the cough's disturbing effect on my insides.

You could hear the grating at the back of her throat, and the resultant shaking in the room, and my midriff, was horribly, horrendously wrong. That was the first time in my life I ever heard someone cough so strongly that it vibrated up and down a room and actually reverberated like an echo on my tummy. It feels as nasty as it sounds.

I wondered what kind of pain that poor girl must have been in, with that shaking actually coming from inside her... I wondered if the girl sitting directly beside her didn't feel like she was experiencing the tremors of a mini-earthquake... After looking around the room and seeing everyone else absorbed in their laptops and apparently undisturbed, I wondered if it was just me with a sensitive tummy (some people are weird like that- like women whose wombs 'glow' when they see pregnant women). Then I stopped wondering, packed up, and left.

I usually hear of laughter that reverberates, whether it be booming, powerful guffaws, or echoing peals that bounce around a room and envelope everyone. That day, it was a different experience: who knew 'cough-ter' reverberates? I wish I had been spared the discovery...

My Print Class's God-Sent Song

I think everybody has a God-sent song: that song that just captures exactly what you're feeling and thinking, that paints a portrait of you so perfectly, in such unbelievably, undeniably, meticulously correct words, music, tone, pace, pitch -and everything else!- that you swear this tune was written straight from your life!

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined...

My Print Class had one!! It was our anthem! We couldn't hear it anywhere without doing little jigs, bobbing our heads, humming along, smiling, and sometimes doing crazy group dances that made people look at us like we were weird. But who cared? We couldn't help it. The song just had that effect... it got us (as a group) anywhere, any day, everytime!

I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned...

Natasha Bedingfield (and her co-writers) must have gotten special inspiration from God when she penned the words for 'Unwritten'. Either that, or she stole a chapter from our class, because that song was just sooo us!! Our class co-ordinator told us that we were the craziest group she had ever seen, and when I think about it, we did some very radical things (including getting a lecturer removed from office) while we were there.

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines...

What I remember most, though, is when we were in the Print Lab during our final semester. We would close the doors, max up the speakers on our computers, and go crazy belting out different songs together. 'Unwritten' became our class theme song. We sang it almost every day up till our last class together, because it just verbalised so very well, how we all felt going through our courses.

We've been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can't live that way...

It's fun screaming "release your inhibitions!!" at the top of your lungs with your friends... and then doing funky dances around the classroom, goading each other on; then the mad dash to sit in your seat and look dignified when your favourite Trini teacher comes in to ask, "what a pound??" (because, according to him, we sounded like market-people, lol), and the panting, sweating, and feeling absolutely exhilirated after getting a good work-up, eyeing each other and mimicking the funniest-looking dancers, and bursting out laughing (for no reason the teacher could think of... poor man, he had to put up with a lot, but we loved him to pieces... fun times!)We really believed in the exciting possibilities of the great unknown...

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you cannot find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions (!!!)

It's been a full year now. We recently had our first official 'class reunion'. Looking at everybody reminiscing and laughing, I couldn't help but wonder: now that some of us are still in school, others are working, and some unemployed, what will happen to us? Where will we end up 10/20 years from now, and will we still be 'releasing our inhibitions' with enthusiasm and excitement? I can't wait till our next reunion, to see where our lives go. Until then, I dedicate this post to my crazy print class, and to our favourite God-sent song:

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten....

Oh The Possibilities...

"Turn back!" men from the approaching crowd yelled. "Police down deh, turn back!" At first I thought they meant that the police were stopping and perhaps ticketing robot taxis, but as my brave (robot taxi) driver continued, I realised that this was not what they meant. The area was cordoned off with bright yellow tape: we were approaching a crime scene.

The taxi driver (having lost all aforementioned bravery) stopped his car and ordered us out. I looked toward the yellow tape and swallowed. Did he mean we had to walk past this crime scene to get to campus? He turned his car around and drove away, leaving exhaust fumes and dust to provide me with an answer.

It felt surreal: inspectors with white-gloved hands placing measuring tapes on the ground, soldiers patrolling in their army greens with huge magazine guns, policemen directing traffic away from the scene, and crowds of people behind the yellow tape at both ends of the road.

The only time in my life I've ever been close to anything like that was once in Ocho Rios when a police officer shot a taxi driver close to where I was... He did it because his pride was offended and he felt like he had to assert his authority somehow. So out popped the gun, and when the taxi driver seemed unmoved by this scrap of metal waving in his face, the officer stepped things up a notch, and with a whole crowd of women, children and men looking on... he shot the taxi driver for 'mouthing' him.

I remember it in slow motion. There was such a quandary afterward... the shot still ringing in my ears (I was that close), terrified screams, heavy boots hitting asphalt as people ran helter-skelter, my mother grabbing my hand, and looking and calling for my siblings at the same time, the sirens wailing as the police car sped away with the wounded man, the shouting mass of people stampeding their way from and to the scene, the cries of 'him nevah do nutting' already rising. I thought mob justice was about to be delivered. But the police villain got into his car and his colleagues sped him away too.

I think I lost my sensibilities for a good five minutes or so. My sense of direction disappeared, and had my mother not been nearby, I might have run in the wrong direction or stood there petrified, watching everyone else run for cover. But mommy was there, and by the time she and my father rounded us up and got us on a bus to go home, I had recovered and was jabbering excitedly with my siblings about it.

My mother was most traumatised. Her maternal reflexes snapped into full action when the incident was occurring, but by the time we reached home, she was a frail, weak and semi-senseless being. Her nerves were shot. She went promptly to bed, and for the remainder of the week, that was where she stayed, distressed at the thought and memory of what had transpired (she saw it).

I felt it for her, but, as you can imagine, when the immediate danger was past, I was soo excited at having actually been there (and my schoolmates only magnified my feeling of greatness by having me recount again and again what I saw)... I felt thrilled at having witnessed a potential murder: I even wanted to be able to claim that I saw the taxi man go down, but my spotless Christian upbringing got the better of me.

It was something else.

And that was what came to mind when I saw all the yellow tape and heard that a man had been shot. My alertness quadrupled I even had a CSI/NCIS moment (*saw a short fella in a spiffy suit walking briskly from the crime scene, talking on his cell phone with this air of self-importance and just knew he was the head detective: Grissom/Gibbs*).

As I walked past the crime scene, I unconsciously drew closer, wondering who shot this man and why... But the girl who got booted out of the taxi with me was adamant that I should not be stupid and waste time endangering my life for foolishness. Silly me pointed out that the immediate danger was past and it didn't hurt to look and listen. In response this, my fellow strandee replied, "anything is possible."

That woke me up, and I hurried to class. Because, hey, you know what?? Anything is possible.

Beholden-ness

I was in the bathroom washing my hands when the woman stormed in, rushed into a stall, did her business, and came back out (yes, it takes me that long to wash my hands). The whole time, she was talking on the phone in her lilting Trini accent... something about a 'he' who was taking advantage of a situation, asking for some annoying curse-word-curse-word favours. When she came to wash her hands, or rather, to let the water run full force on them for two seconds, I could hear more clearly what she was saying:

"is a damn shame when you don't have your own things to be able to do things for yourself without having to depend on anybody for anything and put up with people foolishness..."

Then she whooshed out, leaving a slowly dying breeze and a flopping curtain above the window (I lie. No flying curtains. If it was a movie, though, that would have been the mood). For all I know, she could have been a divine messenger from above with that statement. Oh how well I can relate!

Beholden-ness. That wicked noose that traps and slowly suffocates; draining the last vestiges of life from an already tired body. Beholden-ness. It sucks! Too many people in this world already think I owe them this magnanimous debt of gratitude and whatever-the-hell-else. Don't get me wrong. I'm not ungrateful. I'm just tired of compulsory gratefulness (mind you, I could be ungrateful now, but that would hurt me a whole lot more than it would hurt my not-always-so-pleasant benefactors). And alas! I know that bills and rent and providing for yourself isn't all it's cracked up to be, but neither is this wretched state of 'beholden-ness'...

So when that woman stepped into the bathroom breathing fire and brimstone for this stupid man, I could feel the defiance and indignation boiling...

Hasten the day when I achieve the honourable degree and acquire or create (whichever comes first) the ideal, prestigious, well-paying job. Then I can go live however and wherever my heart desires (or can afford to desire, lol) and assert autonomy from all undesirable external entities. And what's more? I can even become a benefactor to my benefactors for a change...

Independence calleth... *sigh* ...I hear it so clearly!

Sometimes It's the Little Things

One of my friends gave me a story. That's what she called the pretty colourful bracelet, and the cute pair of pearl earrings she brought me back from her trip to England (she went to a workshop in business journalism hosted by Reuters -can you believe that- the Reuters!! She was the only black person there among journalists from all over the world!) She also brought me back a real live authentic Reuters pen! I was beside myself with ecstasy! A real live Reuters pen is just a really big deal to a young li'l Jamaican journalist-in-training. I'll tell you this much: it means something!

So, when she handed me these things, she said, "this is the beginning of a story." When I heard that, I sat up straight because I knew something good was coming. And here it is:

My friend, (we shall dub her Destiny), visited her grandmother in England on her birthday (during the workshop). Her grandmother gave her a gift of a beautiful crockery set, and told her, "this is the beginning of a story." What she meant was that she didn't know if or when she would ever see Destiny again, so she was giving her the gift as what she expected to be the beginning of a legacy in Destiny's life. Basically, she was saying, if I never see you again, let this gift be in memory of me. Tell the story of your trip to England and your visit to your grandmother to your children and your children's children whenever you use these dishes.

So, after Destiny bought me the little keepsakes, she decided to call them the beginning of a story too. Because, according to her, as soon as she finishes her program at UWI, she is getting out of Jamaica as fast as she can and there is no guarantee that she will evah see me again after that.

"So," she said in her saucy, matter-of-fact way, "let this be the beginning of a story." I laughed my ass off. But it warmed my heart too. See, sometimes it's the little things...

Insecure and Afraid??

How do you explain a perpetually optimistic friend who seems to live by the belief that, regardless of how horrible things may seem, everything will be ok?

Who never seems perturbed by anything, and never complains to you about problems (does she have any?) and never seems to undergo the poverbial identity crisis?

How do you explain a friend who broke up with her boyfriend and shows almost no sign of pain or remorse about it?

Who rarely even talks about it and rarely ever goes through distress about anything?

Who seems constantly confident and behaves like she knows what's she wants and where she's headed?

How do you explain a friend like that?? Especially when you're in the middle of a mess and feeling woefully inadequate yourself?

The discussion revolved around relationships, and how hers was going up-the-mountain-down-the-mountain so often that her emotions were swimming in a nasty roller-coaster that seemed to me more like a manipulative web weaved by the (I must admit) very handsome and charming love of her life.

There I was telling this friend about my epiphany:
- how I discovered that latching on to people for dear life was a destructive habit, especially when the 'latcher' is an ambitious, somewhat clingy young woman, and the 'latchee' is a young gentleman with top-of-the-line executive responsibilities hailing from the one and only clannishly repulsive all-male's hall in our most prestigious university;
- that sometimes it's best to just stop trying to be validated by things and people and groups, and step apart from all that and find validation in your mere existence;
- that the type of confusion she was experiencing comes in large part from trying so hard to shape yourself into what everyone else wants you to be instead of just being what your merry heart desires and then allowing other people fall in place around that.

There I was thinking I was being a supportive friend, explaining that while I did not have the answer, and could not, like my grandmother recommend bay rum as a universal panacea for her aching heart, I could offer the encouragement that the storm would not last always and that at the end of this very turbulent season, she would have grown and developed into an even more beautiful and self-assured individual.

This wonderful friend of mine looked at me and explained that she thought I was insecure and afraid, and that that was the real reason why I was not in a relationship right now, and that that was why I broke up with last mister, and that that was why I was trying to explain everything away with this mumbo-jumbo love-yourself, independence speech...

She said that the real reason why I was going around vomitting all this sunshine nad spouting all this optimism and assurance was that I was insecure and afraid.

I sat back in stunned silence. Wow. Look'a that. Insecure and afraid. Hmph...

Primary School Flashback

Grade Five: This was the same grade of the pixie accident. But that doesn't even stand out in memory like this other thing: I was a part of a group of about eight chosen to do devotions with the entire school in General Assembly. I was given a pre-scripted prayer to go home and memorise. I left the paper with the prayer at home on the morning of said devotion, and had to do an impromptu prayer (I'm a pastor's kid so to this day I think I aced that). When devotion was done, we all filed to our classrooms in lines (remember when you had to file in lines to do everything?? Even lines to go the danged bathroom!)

When Teach came in, she congratulated everybody else who did devotion, then turned to me, took the stack of test papers in her hand, and proceeded to hit me on my head with them... something about me spoiling her devotion cause I didn't read her prayer... I was a tender 9 *sniff-sniff, dabs eyes with hanky*

Now that I'm NOT nine anymore, I'm thinking of a million things I coulda done to get back at her, lol.

Chupse.

Too bad I was the silent good kid! If I could go back in time... maaaaan!! Justice would be seeeeerved... ;)