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.

Wishing you…

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.

Guilty Grinches!

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.