Reviving Time.

Dearest Friends,

This road we call Life is much like some o' them city roads in me lovely native land. 

Clatta-bonk.

We drop to the bottom o' the world. (That is how I know the earth ain't flat...but that is a story for another day).

Drag weself up, cussing the hole, sighing, relieve we only got a couple o' bruises.

Me, like a proper 3rd world person, understand that this is how Life go. I know too that I am far mo' lucky than many, many, many of me dear country people.

One-one time though, something in me does break. Lawd, it gon cost money to fix.

Spirit get like wet stick. Not a spark.

It is then, me dear Friends, I remember, full force, why creative people was put along the way, on this road. When that song, that music, float to we; when we stop to peer at books, to gaze at the art and listen to poetry; when we take time to watch them dance, we feel the spark rekindle in we.  

That is what this Walcott poem, which a Trini friend send to me some time back, do for me.

Walcott, from the Caribbean, does make me heart sing.

Despite all we problems, (which he capture in he writing), he find ways to celebrate we.

I love the Caribbean, the sounds, the sights, the smell o' food cooking, we resilience, the kindness I experience.

As a writer, I want to show you, dear readers, lovers of books and songs and art, who we are as women in me part o' the world. I want to show you the ludicrous, the playful, the broken, the happy, the poetry in we daily, mundane lives.

I want to fling open we windows, we doors, we hearts. I want to show you things them newspapers and magasines in Big Countries would hardly tell you about we (they tend to mostly describe we as poor, needy, suffering). I want to show you that we is people of hope, longing, with beautiful dreams too.

Welcome, my dear beloved Friends. Much love, neena. xx

P.S. Listening to the queen of music from South Africa right now:

MAKHADZI featuring Prince Benza - Ma Yellowbone.