That happy place.

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.

Life.

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.

Visiting you.

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.

Eighty six.

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!

 That was in Georgetown, in we lovely native land. Trekking back and forth, to and from the courthouse, them street vendors get to know she well.

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,

If I go for walks with she, or we sit on the front porch, and she see something that remind she of a poem, she reel out the quote like magician pulling ribbon from the mouth. 

Musta been the colour of the sky that remind she of this one afternoon:

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.

Where is your oasis?

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.

Listen, oh, listen....

Friends! How y'all doing? 

I been for a morning walk, facing the morning sun, and I ketch meself smiling like a fatuous fool full o' happy-feels. Nothing like post-dawn and morning breeze.

Look a video I make about breeze in me lovely native land, I hope you like. (Click on the full screen icon to read.)

And I been writing on Substack about sound around the home:

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.

Have a wonderful week, my lovely friends. Eat good food, drink good drinks. Dance li'l bit and love plenty. neena. 

De pee-can tree.

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.