Lifety-life

Right now, too much happening and it twist my sweet circle-routine of work into squiggly lines.

I got house-guest, more coming later, I taking care of family business and the phone keep ringing bangalang bangalang...

Circus

One day, while my computer been sick, I been in town. Rain been falling as if the devil and he millions of demons and all them bats outta hell been weeing on we.

I had to deliver some papers at the lawyer office. I turn to pick up an umbrella on the back seat o’ the car. Only to find I did leave the two good ones at home. All I had was them two bad ones in the car.

One had holes. It used to be black but now it got the colour of ash.

The other one still black. But now it snarling.

You ever see that movie with Jim Carey and the li’l dawg and the mask? Remember when the li’l dawg put on the mask he suddenly get long, dangerous fangs and he claws them grow sharp? Remember? Well, that is how this umbrella look. Two or three spokes escape from the hem and stick out, long and savage.

Now, lemme tell you, I got a weakness for umbrellas...I don't mean them ordinary ones you buy here. I mean them designer ones, the kind I see in fashion magazines, in ads on tee vee and so on...I especially like them plastic, see-through ones that come down loooowww in front…some clear and some o’ them pale pink or blue or lemon.

I like umbrellas the way plenty girls like shoes and clothes.

Besides, I always think, umbrella is a functional thing yes, but why shouldn’t people make functional things in a creative way too? Why not create beauty with ordinary objects?

Mm-hm, all this I think ‘bout umbrella, so you can imagine how I feel stuck with this snarling one.

As I try to cross the road I look around. Nobody else had one snarling like mine. I see wobbly umbrellas, faded umbrellas. I see some looking like they catching a cold. Some look like they on they last days. But not one body had a snarling, aggressive one.

I tell myself, “Hm, I living in a 3rd world country so is okay to look shoddy.”

I tell myself, “If any thief attack me, I gon strike he in the eye with them spokes.”

I cross the road, drop off the papers at the lawyer, go back out, stand at the roadside and wait for the traffic to ease up so I can cross again.

Suddenly, I hear a voice coming from my left. A man voice.

It say, “Watch that antique umbrella deh.” [Look at that antique umbrella there].

I thought I hear what I hear. But I had to hear it again.

I ain’t turn me head, I ain’t know who I talking to but I ask, “What?”

The voice reach right in front of me now. It belong to a thin-face, lean, black fella driving a minibus. He looking straight ahead, driving slow in the heavy traffic. He face dry and expressionless. And he repeat, “Watch that antique umbrella deh.”

Y’know, when we was li’l children, my mother used to say, “Watch people and you gon never be bored.”

And somewhere I did read, “All the world’s a circus.”

Heh.

Never thought I would be the clown one day, complete with umbrella.

I laugh so hard that people on the other side o’ the road hear me above them cars beepin’ an’ bawpin’.

Ooops

oops.

ooops.

ooooops.

So many things been happening...family business, meeting relatives and friends...so many things that...well, if I tell you this you ain't gon believe.

I didn't get time to switch on this computer since Wednesday or Thursday last week...I ain't even remember when.

And today, now that I can start blogging again...

First...I keep getting a message that page can't be found.

Then...pfft...powercut.

Now...I can only view one page at a time. If I click on the 'minimize' button, the page disappearing.

I beginning to develop a persecution complex.

Ishmael and Fareeda

A recent event paste on to my mind and can’t unglue. It is meeting Ishmael and he wife, Fareeda.

We meet them after an uncle living in the USA ask a favour.

My uncle send some dollars for Ishmael with a family friend, and he ask my mother to collect the cash and deliver it to Ishmael. Uncle say that Fareeda got cancer.

Ishmael used to be the driver for my uncle, when my uncle was working with a local manufacturing company. As soon as my uncle get word about Fareeda, he send the cash.

Now why would I agree to visit a forty-eight year old woman I ain’t know, who dying with cancer? As if I ain’t hypochondriac enough? As if life in this blasted place ain’t full o’ suffering enough?

Well, apart from the fact that my mother preach it into we head that we must visit the sick and dying, I like to go to strange places. I like to sit in the car while somebody else drive, sit like them floppsy-ears, lolling-tongue dawgs that enjoy car-ride.

So off we went into the village with the old, brukuh down roads that narrow like lanes. Past rusty wire fences and bright walls. Past li’l, old wooden houses that look in extra need of paint, especially ‘cause they living near brand new concrete homes. Was a quiet morning, just them trees along the way going woosha-woosha, shading them lanes, sprinkling sunlight.

Ishmael got a spacious shop with a red concrete floor. He and Fareeda live in a small apartment behind the shop…I could see the kitchen through the open door in the background…oh man, that lunch that Ishmael been cooking had my stomach revving up though I don’t eat meat…fry boulanger…eggplant with chicken.

Above the shop, Fareeda sister and family live. The yard so clean that the smooth concrete driveway shine, I swear. Next door is open land and breeze.

The thing that mar the charm of the place was a spot further up the road. Right at the foot of a sign that say littering is an offence, a man in the village dump garbage. And the other joke is, the garbage truck does collect every Tuesday, so there ain’t no need for the man to dump.

When we give Ishmael and he wife the money, is like somebody switch them on…I never see people face light up so. Ping, zing. It humble me in a way I never expect. When we visit them another day, they tell we how they use it to pay for medicine.

The first time we visit, we talk to them at the front of the shop, through the wrought iron grill. Ishmael tell we how the doctor here get vexed because they seek medical treatment in Trinidad after seeing the doctor here; they did want a second opinion.

But they couldn’t afford the treatment in Trinidad so they had to beg and beg the doctor here to do the surgery on Fareeda. The doctor here do the surgery then said there was no hope for her.

Ishmael take care of her at home. She say she musta do something good sometime in her life to have such a caring husband, Allah bless him, she say. He look at she with he grey-green eyes, and she stare at he with she black, black eyes.

They say how plenty people kind to them; some send soup; the village nurse come and give her medicine, look after her, no charge; and the cancer society too been very kind and caring.

The second time we visit, we sit in the bedroom, Fareeda lie on she bed, then she get up to show we a photo album.

The thing that strike me was how I ain’t see despair or fear in her eyes.

Before I could stop it, my mouth went into gear. “Are you scared?” I blurt out. Then I sit quivering, worrying that I offend her.

But she answer quiet, not the least upset. “Scared? No, I ain’t scared,” she say.

As if I ain’t learn enough to keep my mouth shut, I blurt out more, “Not me. I scared…”

“You scared?” she say. “I just sad that I ain’t gon see my children and grandchildren anymore. You know, material things don’t matter to me now…”

She die last Friday, bury on Saturday. Rain fall in heavy grey sheets the whole morning then stop in the afternoon. Was an almighty big funeral, like the whole village turn out. First, they had the funeral at home, then them men head on down the muddy, pot-holey road to the masjid…mosque…with the coffin, a long, long string of men in white and black.

I don’t know why meeting Ishmael and Fareeda stick in my mind so…maybe is the whole thing about being part of a couple, love and loss…I keep thinking, it ain’t good to get attached to people, but it ain’t good to NOT get attached either…

When this machine stopped

Like a piranha without teeth...nah, worse, like a donkey without a bray, that was how I been feeling without this compooter.

Anxious, nauseous, suspicious, ungracious I wuz.

Okay, I exaggerate.

But lemme tell you, when you feel like you got no voice, when you feel like your hee-haw jump up and leave you, all kinda thoughts begin to play like monkey in your mind.

While this pooter was gone I fret about crime and the madness of this place. But that ain’t all. As if I ain’t masochist enough, I start to wonder if E. M. Forster was right.

E. M. Forster did write a story, The Machine Stops. Is about the future, when the whole world dwell in a very sophisticated underground and a big machine control life. Then the big machine stop working.

The whole world begin to collapse. Fortunately, out in the open air some unsophisticated people been living, moving around, not depending on the big machine. The story end with the hope that these people out in the open-air gon be the ones to keep mankind going.

To calm my monkey thoughts I plunged into embroidering the new wall-hanging...I sew from morning ‘til afternoon, ‘til me eyes start to wobble. I end up having to take eye test. That is a story by itself.

I visit a woman dying of cancer. That is a story by itself.

I been to town in the rain with a mash up, break up, peel up umbrella and...well...

...that is a joke by itself.

In the end, like people with sour grapes I convince myself that computer ‘n’ communication is one humongous hocus-pocus.

But then the computer come back.

And I want to bray again.

Hee hawwww.

First on the menu

I got a whole pot full o’ thank yous cooking here, lemme serve it up while it bubblin’ hot.

Thank you, Nicholas Laughlin
for this!

I read it when the computer been misbehaving. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and by the time I walk ‘round the house two times, bustin’ my pea-brain to find a really nice way to say thanks, the computer went phagli…stupidee…bonkers. I still can’t think of a perfect way to say thanks, I’m overwhelmed.

And thank you, Kim Youngblood for the mention in your article, "Who’s Who in The Caribbean blogosphere," in Caribbean Beat.

[Heh. Me. A who's whoot.]

[For them who ain't know, Caribbean Beat is a magazine for Trinidad airline, BWIA.

Cousin Analis bring the magazine to me on Sunday morning; she watching while I flip through, waiting to see my face when I come upon it. Thanks, cuz.

Psst, hey, Mad Bull you in the opening paragraph of that article, man!

Other bloggers who is "who's who":

Living Guyana

Caribbean Cricket Blog

Chookooloonks

Cayman Cop

Caribbean Free Radio

Nicholas Laughlin’s Blog

The Caribbean Beat Weblog

And Blogger pals...and my only sistah, KFM...thank you for keeping in touch…I appreciate, lemme tell you, I really appreciate!

Phewwww!