My lovely friends (and all strangers traversing through),
Christmas done but the beautiful spirit should live on, right?
So even though it is cold in this sunny part o’ Florider,
I got warm wishes for you.
And I got plenty things to tell you about this here new place. I must gather me notes. In the meantime, take care o’ you. Eat good food, play a li’l bit, and look for beautiful things to fill you’ heart with.
Plenty love, neena.
My dear Friends and Visitors traversing through these pages,
Yessss! I start walking again.
Lean close, I got a li'l secret to share, I ain't want to offend the Florider people.
Y'know, without hyperbole or exaggeration or me being dramatical, I am telling you, Everywhere in this new place look just like Everywhere.
Every single house, shopping centre or strip mall or whatever they call them in Florider, look like copies of one another. Like they wuz 3-D printed from one machine. Lawns, plants, trees, flowers, shrubs. Same.
If it wasn't for them house numbers, I would still be walking, looking for this here house. I mighta been in Miami now, which is about two hours' drive away from here.
Ira Levin and Ray Bradbury woulda love this weird sameness; they woulda write strange stories about it.
Even them plastic Santas and reindeer lying down on them lawns, with all the air gone outta them, they look like each other. Between you and me, I think they drunk. I think the Grinch do Something to them. All o' them Grinches on them lawns is the only ones that ain't deflated. Every single Grinch is standing tall, grinning.
Anyway, I am finally finding back me writing mojo. And I ain't letting no Grinch teef it. I gon jook he with me sewing needle and watch he go pffffffft.
S'all for now, pals. Until I gather me notes good and proper to tell you about life in these parts, enjoy you' week. Eat well, take care of you, plenty lurve, neena.
My dear friends, and any passers by...
My lovely friends and everyone travelling through…
We travelling too.
I been packing boxes for days but it feel like months. Mum going to a new home…she going to live with she second son, me Florida brother. I guess I could leave she there but she need help with so many things, and he and he wife got they business to run…I ain’t got it in me heart to say, “Awright, I gone.”
Me friends, I am egg-zausted. Like broke-egg leave out in the sun, I feel like I am burn-out. Aiy yai yai.
Hopefully, it is a place where I can meet plenty artists, writers, musicians. Weeee. I am excited.
See you soon.
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| Home? Where is is home? |
Take care of you, rest, eat good food. Plenty love, neena.
My lovely friends & dear visitors passing through,
I been thinking, I got a roof over me head, food in me belly, songs in me ears and me heart.
Ahhh yes, I line-up all me cliches to remind me that I gon push through and get to where I want to be creatively.
When life knock me with a glitch, I does hibernate into meself and fret. But after a day or two, I does uncurl outta meself and let the sunshine spread energy into me.
It was this habit that help me when I leave the gorgeous Island, that jewel of the Caribbean, to return home to me poor li'l native land (which they say was one o' the poorest countries for a long stretch o' time).
At home, I realise this: if poor people, the unfortunate ones, can rise above hard circumstances, who is me, with a much better life, to keep meself from rising above tough situations?
For quite a few years, I been thinking about this, scribbling me thoughts in a note pad. This Sunday gone, I share them on Substack.
This is what I write, with the title: It ain't paradise, but it can be damn nice.
How you do, nah? (As we would say in my lovely native land.)
I’m gearing up for the paper version of book one. Soon after that will come book two, also based on life in Guyana. You will meet more characters and, on occasion, you’ll come upon situations which, hmmm, let me say: some of it ain’t pretty.
I’m caught between those people who like to believe that we dwell in paradise and those who swear it’s a blazing little hell. After moving back home, I spent the first year fighting that heat, literally and figuratively - El Niño and plenty hot-up feelings…vexation and disappointment. As time passed, I experienced moments, days, of utter bliss, then the sufferings of those I’m close to would pull me back to a sad reality.
Returning home humbled me and taught me stuff (I gag at the word “lessons”) that I’d love to share with you.
Celebrate what you already have. If you're pushing mud out of the yard, when you pause to rest for a minute, listen to the wind; see the sparkles of light in the small pools of water at your feet.
Sit with the people who clean, the maids, the janitors, the gardeners, eat with them, talk. Walk with the poor, look and learn from them. Observe how they deal with troubles, and how they laugh despite their sorrows. Dry their tears by helping them in any way you can. One smile from you can lift the downcast spirit of another.
Life is exactly what you're living right now. It can be horribly, achingly dull, but it can be exciting even in its dullness...or maybe it can’t be, eh? You may never go travelling across the seas to exotic destinations. But this here, what you have right now, is your opportunity to carve and groove, draw and colour and forge delicate art with the heat.
I going now to catch a li'l stroll in the afternoon light, me friends. Take care of you, keep sharing the beauty that you encounter, the humour, the play, the art you make. Plenty love, neena.
Dear Friends and Visitors passing by,
I wake up feeling happy with all me hopes and plans shining in me head like dew on the sunrise-grass.
I go for me walk and I chat with the older neighbour I meet out there, 93 years old he is. I come home and, before breakfast, some news drop into me lap like scalding tea.
To realise that you ain't of much consequence to the people (plural) you care about the most can cause a pain you can't describe.
Take me lesson, dear friends, learn from what I am going through. Never give everything to everyone. Money. Time. Care. Give whatever you can, but always, and remember this...always save something for yourself. Because, whatever you give, don't expect to receive it again.
That ain't being selfish. It is taking care of you.
I must find a way to soothe this burn, heal meself. And I must set out for this rocky path that lay ahead, this steep, winding trail with the sharp stones.
Take care of you, plenty lurve, neena.
My lovely Blogging Friends,
Instead o' writing today, I going an' visit you' blogs. Recent events had me in a li'l tizzy and writing is the last thing I want to do.
See you on de blog. xx neena.
My lovely friends, visitors passing through,
Me mother, the great book-gobbler (eating more books than bookworms) turn a new page on Thursday. She turn 86 years old, as we would say.
Me sister had a small party, seven o' we, which was just the right number o' people to make enough noise laughing and talking and eating a nice Guyanese-style lunch.
Y'know we got to have curry, right? And daal and rice. And chicken that me sister cook in a special Guyanese-style, and pumpkin and I don't remember what else. Me head feel fat with post-lunch syndrome today, pardon me if I don't remember the entire menu.
J., the neighbour across the road who love me mother plenty, visit too, and bring cupcakes.
Me mother receive mo' gifts than I ever get in years. Nightgowns and shoes and sandals and clothes. A tangerine scented candle. Chocolates (which I, the food-police, making sure she ain't lay she hands on every day).
I can't believe that she who was only 68 the year before I start that ol' Guyana blog is now 86.
She mouth useta be so hot. Like pepper...she had a wit that would burn like pepper...and now look!
Now, most days, in the mornings, in she new and foreign land, you gon find she strolling on the street outside she home, chatting with the friendly Mericans, or puttering about in the garden even while she fighting severe back pain. Or you gon find she in a corner of a room reading.
When she reading, she don't hold back. I does get a running commentary about the cruelty, the goodness of the characters. Or I would get a run-down of the plot. Lawd help me if I don't...do NOT...want the plot-reveal.
If the book is funny, she gon laugh out loud-loud-loud. I especially remember one night, when she been in she 70s, she reading and hollering with laughs.
"What tickle you so, man?" I ask.
This, she say,
Y'know, me friends, because me mother love books so much, I think it is most fitting that she-self should be in books too. And here she is, featuring in the very first book that I write:
Well, dear friends, it is 4:16 pm now. Or, as we say in my lovely native land, 16 hours, 16.
Day almost done. I gon go for me walk and make a small dinner for me mother.
I hope you keeping well, eating well, taking good care of you too.
Plenty lurve, neena.
My lovely friends, dear travellers and visitors,
For the last two weeks, me mind got constipation. It got bung-up because I so busy looking after medical appointments for me mother, following...accompanying...she to do tests, cleaning home, panicking about books to write. And last Saturday, we been to visit me li'l cha-cha...me father li'l brother...and me auntie.
It was three elders in all, them and me mother. The younger ones was Cousin Lis, me sister, me brother-in-law, and me.
The place where auntie and uncle live ain't as boondock-ish as where me mother live, it come close though. And y'know what, friends? It was the most peaceful day I ever find meself drifting into since dunno when. Nothing of consequence happen except for the discussion o' snakes. But that is a normal feature in the conversations of the people of my lovely native land.
Auntie lay out a feast. Pumpkin with paneer in super-light coconut milk. Fry okro. Shrimps curry. Rice. Daal. A salad with feta.
As we munch and mmm and sigh and smile, li'l cha-cha make we go eeeek nooo with he stories from back home about snake and cures for snake bites. Them is stories for another day though, they loaded with fantastic details.
Yesterday, mopping and cleaning, I remember the visit. Was such a sweet and simple day.
We wasn't sitting on a high peak looking out on milky mist, smiling like we find nirvana. We didn't have no bling and exciting things to post on Instagram.
Was only the three elderlies and we, bonding near the boondocks.
It was me uncle smiling a pleased li'l smile the whole day. Cousin Lis fretting about she dear ole car park-up in she garage. She trying to convince she daddy, ex-mechanic, to visit she to have a look at the car, and he protesting passively, "It ain't call for all o' that." He give she a battery charger he did buy. I give them the joke about a former mechanic back home who couldn't repair me car so he announce that me car running on jumbie...ghost.
Yesterday, cleaning bathroom, I think of some people I see online who rush to make selfies on the edge of cliffs. I wish I could convince them that no matter how many exciting places they go to, the thrill does dry up. The road can get mo' rough than anybody can imagine.
I wish I could tell them, sitting in a' oasis near the boondocks mightn't get likes from strangers, but it does fill you' soul with love. I wish I could tell them that life is sometimes, most times, the damn dreary searching for peace in the middle of dirty laundry; it is trying to find we thoughts whilst mopping dust, and being still, contemplating sky outside the window.
If we understand this, and accept this, then we can start the real work, the hhharrible agony, the pleasure, of moving towards what we truly need.
Friends, I cookin' brown rice. I better don't burn it. Eat well, take care o' you. Plenty love, neena.
Most days, depending on where you live, you will hear:
cows
rooster
cars zooming by on the main road
truck horn
rain on the zinc roof
wheels swishing on wet road
rain pattering on the leaves of trees
neighbours squabbling in the distance
neighbour next door and his wife quarrelling
school children playing in the school yard
a mad dog barking
the ocean booming against the seawall
kiskadees chirping kisskakeeeee
chicken hawk squreeeeelling
parrots…don’t ever forget the parrots, soon o’ clock o’ morning…parrots
singing-engine kites that kite-flyers have tied to a tree or a post during kite flying season
the wind whistling tweeeeeeee February, March, April.
Best sound of all is the one we mostly never hear, the sound that streams through the grrrr and the raaah of daily living.
To hear, you must get outdoors, or sit on the platform outside your front door, or stretch out in your hammock.
Listen.
It is the sound of your little holiday. You don’t need to fly miles to a foreign land to experience it, unless you live in a desert, but I am sure that in the desert there is another sound that is just as wonderful. It is better than any food you could ever cook. In fact, it is food for your spirit. It’s a sound that’s not only for the wealthy. It’s for the poor, the humble, the aching, hungry soul too.
It’s the sound of the trees rustling in a light breeze.
My Friends,
A giant pee-can tree growing in front o' this house. The neighbours, sorry, neighbors, does say, "Pi-caawn." Same difference. Same set o' problems...when is the right time to pick the peecan before the fur-fiends?
Now look, I believe in equal opportunity, don't get me wrong. I believe everybody got to eat. In the tropics, parrots feast in we gardens like great war-hounds, but no parrot, no toucan, no kiskadee, does eat like them fur-fiends in this great Big Country. These fur-fiends don't believe nobody else must eat.
Maybe Big Corp send them to deplete trees in people gardens, to force we to buy from supermarkets. Yeah! The more I think about it, that is the truth.
Don't worry! Enterprising individuals in anonymous suburbs around this Glorious Land is learning to fight back.
The first battle I ever hear about some years ago was the one that me li'l cha-cha...me father li'l brother...wage with fury and persistence.
He tell me that he would lie in a chair in the sunroom, contemplating he moves. The first phase of the fight, if I remember the history right, was to keep the birdies from eating the juicy fruit growing on the trees. He fill up the birdfeeder and tah-dah, cha-cha get he guava to eat in peace instead o' one li'l piece.
Unfortunately, the bird seeds attract the fur-fiends.
Them fur-fiends gobble them bird seeds with the gluttony of gourmands, with the fervour of food-fanatics.
Ohhhh me Lawd-oh Gawd-ohhhh. Me po' uncle. What a calamity. I don't know what happen during the fight, but I gather that uncle retreat almost in defeat. 'Til one day, Cousin Lis, coming home from work, see she father lying down in froth and fury.
She say, as a joke, "Why you don't grease the birdfeeder pole?"
Afterwards, Cousin Lis tell me, "The next day, when I come home, I see all up and down the birdfeeder pole long claw marks, from top to bottom, like them creatures leap on to the pole then slide down. Hundreds o' claw marks."
Yesss. To li'l cha-cha was the glory of the battle.
That is what I did think.
A year or so later, I ask he if them fur-fiends all gone away.
"Them blasted things find a way to get back into the bird seeds," he grumble.
"How?" I ask, mighty puzzled. "You stop using the grease?"
"I lie down and I wait and I watch," he say. "You know what them scamps do? They so smart! They climb on to the house, run to the end o' the gutter and leap onto the birdfeeder."
And so, the battle done. The smoke clear, silence settle upon the land. Everywhere, in quiet corners o' this Great Big Country, citizens coming up with survival tactics.
The 'Merican man up the road tie-up he mangoes in mesh bags.
Cousin Lis plant veggies on a set o' shelves, and she throw a net, like tulle, over she precious plants. The fur-fiends can't stand it when they claws hook-up in the net.
At another cousin home, them fur-fiends would boldly go to she patio and drive she bananas. But the last time I been to she home, I ain't see hide nor hair of them flittering little food thiefs.
"What happen to them?" I ask.
"They don't like pepper," she say. "I put pepper in the bird seeds."
Me friends, like I say, everybody got to eat. I want to pick the peecans at the bottom branches and leave the top ones for all other bodies. Problem is, I ain't know when is the best time to pick. I don't want to pick too soon and too green. And I definitely don't want to pick too late and it shall be my cry.
I gon head outside in the briling hot heat to stare at the peecans. I hope them fluffy little flunks don't see me. They might get ideas.
Have a lovely week contemplating the fruit of your labour, my friends. Take care o' you. Eat good food, drink nourishing drinks, look for happy things to soothe you' soul. Plenty lurve, neena.
My lovely Friends and Visitors passing through,
Long before I come here where my mother now live, I useta think that this Big International Country got skyscrapers and concrete pavement everywhere, parks and lawn and, well, y'know how they show them fancy places in movies. All swank and swish and stylish like in the Devil Wears Prada. Or colonial-style houses, huge like ten families coulda get lost in them.
And on Hallmark Channel, small town is flowers hanging in baskets on front porches. Little shops with bells at the doors. Wide-open farms, green like the grass on the other side. Even them cows look ready for Vogue Magazine. Romance in the air. Handsome man about to meet gorgeous gal who got she own business baking biscuits or cakes, something sweet. Or flowery.
Yes, I would see films about small town with board-houses...houses make with wood only. But the truth is, and I bet plenty 3rd world people feel the same, I useta think down-trodden small town was a rare scene in big countries.
The way them big-shot writers from high-class foreign magazines would write about my lovely native land when they visit, down-talking it, you would believe that small town images in they countries ain't a true-true thing. Paint peeling, window frame need fixing. Men wearing singlet, ladies in wash-out old tee-shirt. Lobster-coloured men sitting on doorsteps, cigrit hanging from the corner o' they mouth; they growling home-truths about life and pain or they cussin' up a stink; the wimmen...I don't remember what wimmen do in them kinda movies, I think they indoors cooking bacon that spattering and sputtering hot oil on the wall.
This week gone, I pass through small town.
Sunny, blue sky, trees trimblin' in light wind, a bird call trillin' through. Plenty-plenty land with bush and trees with vine weaving everything together.
I woulda been happy if I wasn't going to do routine blood test. Or as they say in these parts, blood work.
I woulda see more details if I wasn't worrying that I gon faint from fear and horror.
But I manage to set up a collage o' cliches in me headspace. Paint peeling, oh wait, what paint, the po' shack need paint. Planks on building slipping down. No business happening. Shops lock up, board up. A shell of a house so ole, the jumbies haunting the jumbies.
Then suddenly, there, apartments on a hilly slope, just like in Jamaica in the touristy areas, across from the water. You could feel the wealth and happiness like it was you' own. And in the middle of all this wealth, a dark blue bulk of a building with Van Gogh starry nights. For some reason, maybe cos I been going for blood test, it look a li'l gloomy.
I didn't see a single soul on the way to the clinic. Not one single singlet or bacon.
Another day, I gon tell you about the gyaff...conversation...with the taxi driver.
Watch this space.
Have a lovely week, me friends. Wherever you go, no matter how simple, even if is just outside you' home, enjoy the view. Stare on the tall grass, check out the sky.
Plenty lurve, neena.
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My dear lovely friends and all visitors,
Today,
This letter to you here today is blank.
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.
.
Want to know why?
The Mer'can health insurance system got me flummoxed. I don't cuss, but I feel the thoughts in me head creating ruckus like Jonathan Pie.
I want to know who in the name o' Sam and Miss Mary-Ann down by the riverside (doing bad things) come up with this idea of insurance and terminology to caffuffle the citizens.
It is like paying to join a' exclusive club. If you in the right club, and doctors accept you, welcome, sweetie, please be seated, we will attend to you with all the love of money that we can muster. Unfortunately, me friends, if you in de boondocks, you can spend days, weeks, grow corn on you' tail-end searching for a doctor to accept you' type o' insurance. In the meantime, you can't get care til you find a physician to remove the corn that you grow on the said tail-end. If you lucky to stumble upon one o' these sacred healers, they gon embrace you like a lover 'cause they see dollars when they lay they eyes on you.
But honey-chile, if you ain't got no insurance, you's a piece o' cheese wash-up on the shores o' Katahar. In the language o' me lovely native land, even though katahar is a vegetable, it can also mean you ain't got nothing.
I's in the catogery o' them who got a nice li'l insurance, but in de boondocks I can't find a doctah who would accept me into they club and lavish me with love.
When I do find one, I hope he or she is well worth the wait and is good-lookin' like Hugh You-Know-Who from Down Unda or Miss Nicole. And it is okay, they ain't got to hug me up, they can just give me medical care, I's a' easy-going gyal, I gon settle for small mercies.
To be honest, I ain't care if the doctah is Shrek self, as long as he can do he medical work.
So yeah, today, me email is blank.
Nothing to say.
Y'all take good care o' you, eat you' veggies and fruits and drink water, dance and sleep and read a nice book. Plenty love, neena maiya.
My lovely Friends and visitors passing through,
Y'know whaz more dramatical than a' offspring who don't believe the Parent? (Yes, thaz me, I admit without shame, thaz me, the offspring of all Offsprings.)
You know whaz more hyperbolly than that?
The Parent who wuz born in Bollywood.
No, wait, y'all don't call me Bad Daughter and cancel me and leave me in the woods, please *bear* with me. Whoa...this bear-pun fall nice-nice into place, you gon see later on.
Now, I don't know if y'all know this or not...my Parent can take a tale and stretch it mo' tall than Jack beanstalk. When she done with the tale, you ain't gon recognise one bean of truth.
Like the time a streak o' breeze back home blow with the power of Category Half. According to the Parent, the wind lift a man up by he ankles, good thing he been holding on to a light post on the street corner.
Soon after, I hear she telling people that the wind hoist the man up from he knees.
Later, the wind raise he from he waist.
No, actually, the man been flying from he shoulders, hanging on to the post, flapping like a flag.
Y'see now, Friends?
Y'all see why I does tell the Parent that she wuz born in Bollywood, home of hyper-drama and emotions?
See now why I does doubt the truth of observations she bring home?
Time and distance ain't change nothing.
Here me is with the Parent in this foreign land of Florider and...
...last Tuesday, the Parent return home from a gentle morning amble.
"Something wrong with Grey," she announce. "Grey on the lawn, cloak-up into heself, he look like he ain't want to talk to a soul. He hardly glance at me when I call he. He look one second and turn away so, quick-quick."
"Nothing ain't wrong with he," I scold. "You watch too much Bollywood. I swear you born there."
"I telling you, something wrong with Grey."
I dismiss the Parent concern for the Friendly Cat across the road and continue me Important Daughterly act of fixing breakfast.
But that wasn't the end of that.
The next day, J, the owner of Grey the Friendly Cat, catch up on my Bollywood P. as she was strolling slow and merrily, tra-la-ee.
First thing that pop out from the Parent is: "J, what's wrong with Grey?"
J. say, "For days, he went missing. I couldn't find him anywhere, then I thought, he'll come home, he always does. But when he came home, he was behaving very strange. He'd just sit there, huddled, not eating. He looks as though something had scared him really badly."
"I wonder what happened," me mother say.
"I've been asking around," J. say. "I found out that there's a black bear in the area, and Grey had a tussle with it."
Oh dear.
Thaz all I got to say, dear Friends.
Have a wonderful week, look out for daughters with sheepish grins, plenty lurve, neena.
Me lovely Friends and all o' you passing through,
In times o' disaster, you can learn something good. Tell me if I wrong.
Last Sunday, as I go to write on me blog, me ole Back Up Laptop In Case The One I Writing On Die (also known as BULICTOIWOD), it die.
Before that, the First One That I Been Writing On, it go phuuuut in 2020.
Good thing I had the BULICTOIWOD, flash drives. I immediately go into action and continue smooth-smooth like them chaps in Mission Impossible.
But, like I say, the BULICTOIWOD go to black screen.
And I ain't had a BULICTOIWOD 2 to work on.
That, dear Friends, is how the something good happen.
Me nephew, 22 years old, accompany me to the computer store and help me to choose a new one that fit me budget; he help me to find a' external hard drive too.
Last Sunday gon stay in me folder o' Happy Memories.
On the way to the store and back home, me and he gyaff. He tell me about he studies, he plans, and he convince me to look at Anime shows; he tell me how he feel it can benefit me creatively.
As he talk, I listen.
In the silent spaces, as I watch the sun light on them trees, me mind open files, click-click, look...
...li'l baby, huge, dark eyes in sweet brown face and a smile that make me want to pick he up whole day...
...me and he watching the Indian film Lagaan, playing hide and seek. Me reading Good Night Moon to he 'til I get hoarse. I talk Creolese to he sometimes, and he understand...
...he high pitch voice, he pronounce 'r' like 'w': "We'we going to see Bwotha Beaw."
Click.
This file is blank.
He grow up and move way.
I let it be, I let he go, but I miss the link.
'Til last Sunday.
I store last Sunday in me folder.
I got 4 more nephews and one niece with siblings, and plenty more thanks to cousins. I would love, one day, to full up me Happy Memories with the ones who want to connect.
One day.
Have a happy week making connections, dear Friends, open the door to you, make space in you' heart. I read this thing about love somewhere...that no matter how many people you love, you heart never run outta space.
Take care, stay well, plenty lurve, neena xx.
Dear Friends, tell me the honest-truth...
...what you think about railway tracks in a sunny, rural place where nobody seem to be?
In me mind, I see songs like Ramble Tamble by Creedence. I see men and women stowing away to freedom, hiding in cabins full o' cargo.
(We useta have trains in my lovely native land, but they disappear...that is a story for another day).
In this foreign land, when the afternoon sun shine hot and hazy, that time o' day back home when school is out and school children tumble out into the streets, I head down to the railway track not far from here.
Cars zip past, sometimes a driver smile and wave, then is only me, the sun and them things I stop to see.
To the bored eye, it ain't have nothing.
But for me, the road is a full-on nature ramble where me mind fly free.
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| In The Island, they call this Poor Man's Orchid. |
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| Back home, this is jumbie beads. (Jumbie...ghost). Craft people make jewellery with them. |
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| Garland of leaves. |
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| Road to the railway track. |
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| A wall of flowers. |
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| Wild flowers. Why do we want to kill them? |
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| A side track. |
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| Near the neglected orange grove. |
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| The oranges in the grove, neglected, harden. |
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| Well, hello there! |
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| I cross the road and come across this bouquet. Why do we want to kill wild flowers? |
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| Heading back home. |
