Holding on to my brain.

Me dear, dear friends and all strangers passing through,

I ain’t forget about you!!

I just been seeing some ning-ning…troubles so dreadful…

…the kind that only a certain type of person could produce…a person without conscience, shame, the type o’ person who take from you, owe you, and walk away without explanation, and leave you wondering how you gon pay you’ bills…

…that it is the kinda ning-ning I been seeing. 

It been building up for some time, then recently, it reach a crAscendo, I write about it here this Sunday gone:

Catastrophe.

I refuse to get defeated though. I beatin’ me drum, dancin’ to me music.

Hear me here on Caribbean Book of the Day.

Have a wonderful day. I gon try me best to visit you all this Sunday. See you on you’ blog. Take care of you, and I hope you find some good things to gladden you’ heart. Plenty luuuve, neena maiya.

Fangs & Furbellows in the Suburb.

Hello my lovely friends and visitors all,

It is me, the world famous explorer, diving into the life of Suburbia in Florider. 

The world famous explorer, on she walks, smile at strangers. They see a happy li’l creature, a bit on the pale-brown side, wagging and yapping, ready to jump into conversation with them. Even though I have on soft cotton pants or, sometimes, jeans, I know strangers see pretty dan-dan with frou-frou…pretty dress with frills. They see the inner-me.

Lemme introduce you to some o’ these nice strangers. 

Fran and Jeff, young couple from New York. They stop to chat. Fran got skin like cream, and she afro fluff-out, soft-looking, jet-black. She hubby tall, dark-brown, lean, and he smile wide. 

The Mexican man walking he dawg in the morning shade; the pale Jamaican lady with the Montego Bay drawl that make me think ‘bout holidays and beach, boats and strolling downtown with reggae inna me ears; the dark-skin lady with the Georgia twang, washing she 3 cars in she driveway; the elderly Haitian couple; the blonde woman with she pretty blue-eye girl-chile dawdling behind, and she cute toddler in the pram…or stroller as they say in Merca…all these strangers greet me as if I wearing Elie Saab or Chanel, which all o’ we know is appropriate attire for world famous explorers-influencers who pose on mountain-edge.

So why the sour-man, and others like he, barely glance me way? Anybody would think I baring fangs. I never hear a good morning or good afternoon or even a grunt from them. 

One o’ them, I can understand why she ain’t want to say howdy. She big brown dawg dragging she by she right hand. The dawg leaning forward, she slanting backwards. In she left hand, she got a bag full o’ poo. I think I see shame in she eyes. If she from the Caribbean, she got a right to feel shame. Caribbean people don’t pick up dawg poo.

“Pooo,” I say to meself. “Pooo.” I turn up me toffee-nose and head to the big pond that they call lake which smell like fish. Something weird about this pond. Every time I walk past, I does go home smelling like fish. 

I stand at the edge, but not too close…notice, I never say me is Intrepid Explorer…I ain’t want no alligator chase me up a tree and make me lose dignity all over the Internet! (You never know who got a phone ready to film these things.) 

I stand near the pond, gazing like a proper environmental lady at the hot afternoon sunlight glittering and bouncing like a thousand shiny boats on the water. Breeze raise up and lick me hair, lashing it all over me face. How glamorous! Just like in the movies. If this was me film about me, Salma Hayek would be acting as me. 

Time to go home now.

I walk past a car with tint-windows. These windows is nice. When you walk past, you can see you’self and admire.

Me dear!

I nearly holler with dread.

Staring at me in the vehicle-window is a swamp creature, hair in disarray…jabberjastay, to use me mother favourite word. 

I hustle home. A sour-man approach me, wrinkle-up he nose and cross the road.

Suburbia ain’t no easy place, yeah. I got to be Brave. Strong. I got to dispense good advice like a proper world-famous explorer-influencer. 

Walk with a comb and bade with perfume. S’all for now ‘til next time.

Plenty luve, neena.

Home should be a safe place.

My dear friends & all travellers passing by,

A terrible thing…horrific, actually, happen in my lovely native land. 

In Mahdia, a town in the interior of Guyana, eighteen teen girls and one five year old boy die in a raging fire in a school dorm.

The other children who survive, I don’t know what trauma they gon suffer for the rest of they lives. 

This thing trouble me so bad, I decide to share some safety tips I did learn one time. 

(I promise, I got some cheerful things to share next time. I going to do some sewing. I want to visit your blogs. And I want to do some sketches of the art that life show me on me walks. I ain’t a good draw-tist, I gon use me words too.)

Anyway, I hope these tips can help you and friends and fambly:

Your home, safe and sound.

Please take care of you! Remember to eat good food, read a nice book and free you’ mind.

Oh…you can find me here too…I been so busy doing all these things:

neenamaiya.carrd.co

Plenty luuuve, neena.

Mansion.

Ahhh!! 

How lovely to be here again, me darlin' friends!

Hello to any strangers passing by.

One month! One whole month I ain't been here, and not a day go by I didn't wonder what y'all up to.

I been learning to build a home, a website. No! A mansion. 

Like one o' them in my lovely native land or a' island in the Caribbean.

In my lovely native land, the mansion would be in the middle of a wide-open field, pretty grass and clear sky, as if rain rinse out the dust. In the Caribbean, it would be posing on a mountain surrounded by trees, and the view would make you believe that you own the entire glorious panorama set out before you.

Me dears, the mansion start out looking fabulous with a massive frame. Huge ambition, yeah. 

Imagine a home-owner building with zest and zeal, passing orders like Big Boss to workers. Boss eyes light up like stars, mind busy-ing about like honeybees, happy with thoughts of all them things she gon do once she settle down in she brand new home. 

She gon bade in she spa. She gon entertain on moon-light nights in the verandah; family and friends gon eat and swop stories and jokes. Guests gon snooze on beds with cool, white cotton sheets on warm nights, bedroom windows open, let in the breeze and the sound o' crickets and frogs and the call of the odd heron. (Mosquito-screens safe-guard you from blood-suckas).

Books. The mansion gon have books.

Suddenly, guess what.

The mansion-building get abandoned.

The outside of the building look bleaky, like when too much rain fall and leave streaks and fungus pon the walls.

This can only mean one thing.

Money done. Either the boss gone to jail for illegal activities through which he or she been earning to build the mansion. (No mo' laundering.) Or the property is in family dispute in court.

Lemme jump in quick to say, I ain't been doing nothing illegal, I ain't in a dispute. I just trying to explain how the website I been working on look now. Fungusy. Abandoned.

I am the boss and I am the workers and I run outta puff. 

Actually, to be more honest, I am being very dramatical. To be even more honest, the website look as if I buy a project from Ikea and I do exactly like what men do. I jump in with me hammer and nails and bolts and material and start to build.

A cousin say, "You got to learn how to do it first before you start. Read up all the instructions first, watch videos."

Ohhhh.

That is how you do it.

So, me friends, I immediately set to work...thinking and thinking about reading them instructions and watching them videos. Oh boy, thinking does take up plenty energy. To relax, I go for walks in the afternoons, in the hot sun, with a light breeze blowing tune in me ears.

I hope y'all doing good, finding nice-ness everywhere.

Cheerio for now, plenty luuve, neena.

I didn’t go to a waterfall.

 My lovely friends and all visitors passing through,

I does think about this regular, how I like to experience wonderful things, like sea lashing up and waterfall plunging down. I does dream ‘bout contemplating beauty ‘pon a mountain top, of me rambling through a lush valley. But as you and me know, fabulous travels ain’t alway possible. 

So I really glad I learn how to find delight in tiny moments. Just put me outdoors and you would think I discover the world.

I did take some photos to share with you all, look them here.

While you look, I gon visit other blogs. Til next time, I hope you can find light and brightness to fill you’ insides. Plenty luuuve, neena.

First hospital time:
Through the window, into the hospital room, the early morning light shine in. 

A photo on the wall of me mother hospital room.

Second hospital time:
Y’all won’t believe this but…I look up and, on the ceiling in the emergency room
where my mother been lying down, waiting…this is what I see!!
The nurse say an art student did paint it. 

Been home to freshen up, get food,
waiting for me brother to pick me up to go back to the hospital,
I stand in the sun; the light and bright colours infuse they self into me. 

I return to the hospital full of the energy, the vibrancy of this plant. 

Finally, I’m a paper-bag writer!!

My lovely friends, and all strangers passing through!!

A fierce case o’ gladitis rushing through me head and heart!! I am a paper-bag writer! I never in all me born-days thought I could be one…but here me is, a bona-fide one!!

So you can understand what I am blabbering about, lemme share with you what I write somewhere else recently: 

I knew, as a child, that being a paper-bag writer wasn’t a “proper” career. I learnt this from one of the Beatles songs my brothers and their friends would blast whilst hanging out in our big ole family home near the Atlantic.

I would imagine a book so dirty, it had to be hidden in a paper-bag. I wasn’t sure what the song meant by “dirty” but it sounded like something Very Bad. Somehow, the paper-bag writer and the dirty man in the song became one, and I would picture grimy alcohol bottles, a long-suffering wife, worn down and pale, and a starving writer.

(At one point, I’d pictured the writer scribbling his dirty story on a brown paper-bag, but that made no sense. How many paper-bags would he need?)

Even as a child though, I knew I wanted to do something with words…soooo…after graduating from university, I dedicated myself to writing for media. Yawn yawn. Writing for media became a bit of a drag. My imagination grabbed hold of my head, shook it and hollered, you need to be a paper-bag writer. (I’d discovered the truth about paper-bag writing by then.)

After years of hemming and hawing, and publishing digitally, I got my author’s copy in which I’ve done some scribbling. 

And now, the clean copy is out! You can buy it online from practically any book vendor (order it and they will ship it to you). You can also get it from these book sellers…click on their names, and you will go to their sites):

Barnes and Noble

Prologue Book Shop

Book Depository

Amazon

Here’s a polite description of the book:

On the north-eastern tip of South America sits a beautiful home.

Visitors from as far as Eastern Europe have been welcome there. Conversation reveals the madcap relationship between mother and daughter living in the house, and the hilarious, sometimes sad, affairs of the locals. Food is plentiful. Fish with a rude name is served. Tall tales add to the sauce. A snake dances. Stones grow. A ghost seeks help. A woman sheds her skin, spins into a ball of fire. Dreams can mean anything.

The book, a collection of dialogue, stories, quips and musings, highlights hope, grief, beauty and humour in a 3rd world setting.

It is, in essence, an irrepressible celebration of home.

And here is what the description of the book ought to be:

Oh me Lawd-oh Gawd-oh! Them people mad-ohhh!

On a serious note…I’m about to do something that I’ve never done before. 

I’m asking for your support to make the book sale go viral. My goal is to buy a tiny home of my own. If my old ma (now 86) wants to move with me, it would please me no end. Her heart is beating slower than regular, and the cardiologist cannot determine why.

In the meantime, I’m tidying up Book 2. Vroooom vroooom««««« Can you guess what it’s all about? Skrrrrrks, lemme haul up brakes on me mouth and don’t say no mo’.

Thank you for reading this far, friends and visitors. Thank you for your support. Remember to take good care of you. Eat good food, nourishing and nice. Dance up and play. Plenty lurve, neena.

January wasn't no jamboree.

My dear friends and all strangers passing through,

What a calamity that hit me this soon-soon year, January Twenty-twenty-t'ree.

Mama been in hospital...not one time. Two times. I decide to stay with she during them scary nights. She woulda freak out all by sheself in the strange room, drug-up and disoriented.

Both times, she had room with a view. Wide sky with birds, and sunshine spilling into the room like glory on a Sunday. I trick meself into thinking, yeeeaaah, we in a hotel and is a li'l holiday. 

Reality does have a way of grabble-ing you by the heart though. 

One morning, before the sun rise, I dozing and dreaming in the lounge chair, snuggle-down with me red, fleecy blanket, two white hospital blankets and a pillow that feel like warm white bread. The Filipino nurse come in with a fleabottomist. 

"Good morning," I say.

"She is from your country," the Fillipino nurse introduce the fleabottomist.

Ms. Fleabottomist barely throw a dour look over she shoulder, mutter something that I presume was hello, and she get to work whilst I snooze off again.

Suddenly, into me dream-state, fly the voice of Ma, calling out me name, two, three times, in abject terror. I rush to she side and stroke she forehead as the fleabottomist puncture she vein. Ma, she eyes closed like she is away in pain-land, ask in a thick and sluggish, drug-soak voice, "Where am I? What is happening? Why is this happening to me?"

I ain't gon lie, sorrow tug at me like it got great iron hooks. 

That, me dear, was why I did choose to stay in the hospital, so I could soothe she, and help she land gently back to comfort and safety. 

She useta be a tough dame y'know, but now, cancer and stress bring she to a frail state.

Me and she make friends with them health care workers from Haiti, the Philippines and one African-American nurse. If I had a home of me own, I woulda invite them to eat and gyaff...chat...and we would share immigrant stories.

Me sister and brother-in-law arrive the Saturday they release Ma, and we gyaff-up...chat...good and hearty with the East Indian Jamaican nurse. Even in distress, you can still find people who help you rejoice. eh?

I got pictures to share soon.

Take care of you, eat nice things, wear nice clothes, sing and dance, that really help.

And blogger-friends, see you on your blogs soon.

Plenty love, neena.