I wanna go home

A friend recently wrote on my fb wall, "you have 650 friends...how loved you must be!!" Sidebar: The fact that I deleted 200 “friends" recently and I'm at 650 is a little weird.  Nonetheless, I am indeed loved by many.  J

The past two and a half weeks have been bananas, in a good way.  I've been traveling all over the place to visit friends and family.  I'm exhausted.  The kind of exhausted that greets you with morning with a vertigo handshake.

I drove to State College to visit an old friend...perhaps one of the oldest and most intimate.  She was in my student home when I was in middle school and I chose to go to my high school student home because she was there.  She was who I wanted to be when I grew up. She listened to the Doors, and Grateful Dead, and I'm pretty sure she's the reason I developed a crush on Kurt Cobain.  Somehow she got our houseparents to allow her to get a bird and keep it in our room.  I love(d) her dearly.  It's funny how some people just feel like home.  I like that.  People who feel like warm chocolate chip cookies and milk.  

I'm staying with a family who I met through work. She was my co-worker, then my friend, then my boss, then my co-worker, then just my friend.  She's pregnant with her 2nd child (I hope labor happens soon because she might just go nuts).  She and her husband have introduced me to what it's like to be amazing people and raise a child.  Their son is one of my favorite beings on this planet. Here's to hoping that baby number two graces us with his presence before I head out to the Pacific Northwest.  

On June 5th two of my friends from college got married.  The bride is one of my best friends.  I think it's because we both have a similar grasp on the frailty of human relationships. We expect the same kindness from the world that we give, and tend to take it personally when it's a bit stingy giving it back.  The wedding was comfortable.  It was gorgeous. It was them.  Friends and family were in attendance.  The music was straight from a playlist on one of their iPods if either of the had one. I met and got to know some of their L.A. friends and it was cool to put names to faces and spend time with the other bridesmaids.  It’s the people like that that make me want to live in L.A. But then I remember that the soul of L.A. is cracked and burned and would eat me alive if I spent too much time there.     

The wedding in Jamaica was quite an experience as well.  I stayed with family and went to the resort in the evenings for the festivities.  Capitalism is such an odd experiment.  It’s allowed the people of Jamaica to live in poverty while the foreigners with wealth benefit from the countries natural resources and tourism.  It’s hard to see.  I’m planning on spending a lot more time in Jamaica over the next few years.  I have to do something to benefit my country. I’d also like to help reconnect other Afro-Caribbeans in the States to their roots.  You’ll have to check out www.19more.org for updates.

I write this to say that even though I’ve been homeless, literally, since May 25, 2010, I haven’t felt that way.  Yes, it’s been a little hard to iron my clothes on a friend’s bathroom counter, pack for a three day camping trip from my car, and leave my dog with pretty much everyone I know in Central PA, but I’m still okay.  I’ve moved around more often than *insert famous musician here* on a farewell tour.  I used to feel lost and empty.  But in adulthood I’ve made friends with my lifestyle and have realized that the people who are supposed to be in your life will be in your life regardless of distance.  My definition of home transcends the Reaganomics era building surrounded by a white picket fence.  Home, for me, is a feeling not a place.  For once in my life I get that.  

Tell me how long the train's been gone

It rained yesterday. Unlike any storm I’ve seen of late. The water assaulted our itineraries and sent everyone, but the crabs, inside. You see, there are crabs in my yard. No, that’s not some ill-phrased innuendo. There are literally crabs in my yard where squirrels should be. They dig holes in the ground for cover and bite chunks out of the mangoes that fall from trees.

The house is exactly as I remember it except smaller. Isn’t that how it always is? Our childhood enlarges its memories and our adulthood stomps them down. My uncles showed me how to pick fruit from our mango tree, and how to pick out the ackee when it burst open; if you pick it before it’s ripe it can kill you. Uncle Balla picked me sour cherries from the tree and I spat my seeds into a crab hole. I identified the breadfruit on the ground before they could teach me as a way to show them that my Yankee pickney blood hadn’t completely overtaken the islander in me.

The projects in the states scare me because those housed within know, just as much as I do, that I don’t belong. They can smell me approaching as an anteater sniffs out its prey. It is at their edges that I transform into an innocent island girl. One who is ignorant of their mores, seeking only to observe. Here, I’m tentative for different reasons. I used to belong but that was long ago. My patois flowed effortlessly from my lips and I could cuss you if the need arose. Now, my years have made me hesitate. I can feel home creeping back to my lips. My jaw relaxes and my tendency to smile is even faster. My granma fell and broke her hip and now she is afraid to walk. When I came back to the states I had to fix my words and now I’m afraid to talk. My accent is an awkward half-breed. Some words come out patois, some in broken English and even more are pimp-slapped by the judgment of my lips and they fall short of inquiring ears. After an “Eh?” encouraging me to repeat they fair better, but the nervousness doesn’t disappear.

My cousins Danae, Safiyah (say-fee-ah), and Qadera (Kah-deer-ah) are all gentle with me. After spending a few short hours with them Qadera told me she loved me when we dropped her off and Safiyah clung to my neck and told me she wanted to stay. Is that what it’s like to have blood family? An immediate acceptance? Once they heard the word “cousin” their allegiance was mine, and mine theirs. I wanted to talk to them about the things I hint at with my students. I wanted to make sure they knew how beautiful they were, that being intelligent is wonderful and they should never hide it. I don’t know if it was because of my newly established familial moniker, or because of the internal clock that has begun ticking. Either way, I enjoyed its presence in my system.

I’m tempted to stay here, not because of the beauty sold in magazines and airline commercials. Rather because I feel myself filling up. My cousin listens to me when I say she “muss bade” before we can watch tv. I am introduced as “yay-ahn.” Eric’s daughta legitimizes my existence. I belong. I don’t feel the need to justify my presence as I do in the States. I just exist. My auntie Herma (erma) cooks me breakfast and I am satisfied. My tongue has long craved the bitterness of ackee, sal’fish, green banana, dumplin, and hot tea. The sweetness of sweetened condensed milk satiates my desire for food. I don’t snack. My skin is smooth and soft from its saltwater bath and sandflea exfoliant. I see what is happening in my country and I am hard-pressed to find a solution. That may be why I am enamored with Marcus Garvey.

I am indeed torn between many worlds, which seem better off without my presence. “No man is an island,” or so they say. I was born in the States, raised in Jamaica, brought back to the States, my parents divorced, my mother moved, I went away to school when I was eleven, and have yet to settle down. I don’t know where I belong. Everywhere I go seems right when I am there. Perhaps it’s time to hibernate. I’ll embrace myself in a cocoon of safety where my intellect can rest, my heart can restore and my body will find its place. I am the blank tile in Scrabble that works with any word, but has little value. I don’t understand myself. Not yet, perhaps, not ever.

I think the struggle will be helping others, and myself, find peace with that.

Jamaica Day 1

Yesterday was tough. I went to bed at 12:00 am and awoke at 4:00 am to leave my apartment for the final time. My bones wore weariness like an invisibility cloak, heavy despite its transparency. Around 4:45 am I left to walk to the airport. It was a nice walk, but I was nervous about catching my plane on time. I got to the long-term parking airport and was able to catch a shuttle. The trip to Atlanta was impressively uneventful. My trip to Mo-Bay was equally so.

When my uncle and I spoke on the phone last he asked me what I would be wearing since he hadn’t seen me in about 20 years. I told him I’d be carrying a pink bag and I look just like my father. I struggled to get through customs because I didn’t know the address. It turns out that the people behind the desk not only knew my uncle, my grandparents, and my aunts, but one of them lived down the street from our house.

Humid air similar to the suffocating thickness of Japan greeted me like an old friend. I drank in the condensation and felt at home. Nervously I looked around for the uncle that I’d practically never seen. A driver asked me if I was Nancy, I told him no and continued to browse the drivers. Finally, a man with eyes like my Uncle José walked up to me. Before I could speak he said, “Yayan?” (That’s how they pronounce my name… I smile every time I hear it). Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me close and said “You look just like ya fadda. “ To spite the heat our embrace was long. To spite us, that embrace left us drenched in sweat. He told me to stand at the corner and wait while he went to get the car. I watched my uncle walk away, and smiled because I knew this Jamaica. The one they were selling on the plane and in airports, the one that greeted the dozens of married or engaged couples as the worked their way through customs was built. This one, the one I remembered was grown. It grew out of the hearts of its people.



We drove, talked, laughed, and it was ordinary. He filled me in on the civil unrest and we talked politics. I found that I cared more about the politics here than in the states, perhaps because this was paralyzing dysfunction, whereas the governmental inadequacy in the States is slightly crippling for some and functional for others. At one point silence settled comfortably.



The closer we got to my parish the land became familiar. Not socially constructed familiar where you pretend you recognize things to be polite. Rather raw familiarity. I recognized a road where I walked barefoot as a toddler. My street brought back memories and I knew the house as we approached. My Uncle Jo sat on the porch and I jumped out to greet him. He’s always full of jokes and smiles. He’s no exception to the adage that the funniest people are often sad inside. The more I’m around him I see it in his actions. He’s an attractive man with a quick wit that got his doctorate in something having to do with Math and Science when he was 26. I grew up with him so he will always be familiar.



I don’t want to spend my whole trip living in words. It’s easiest for me, but I think what’d be best is if I just shut this puppy down, sit on the porch, drink hot tea, read a book, listen to the reggae blasting from someone’s house, and wait for my uncle to pick me up. At some point today, I’m going to plait my hair. It’s nice to look around and see women with their hair in plaits. In the states I always feel so strange doing it, but here? No problem, man!

Here is a picture of my cousin Danae (sp?) she's in grade 1. I think I'm creating another Apple lover.:)