Travels.

I been to where a tree refuse to die, and it kill men who try to chop it down; I been to where old woman take off she skin, spin into a ball o’ fire and suck the blood of new-born babies. I pass between the legs of the sky-tall moon-gazer who straddle roads, stare at the moon, wait to squeeze victims to death with he mile-long legs.

All these places we did visit on Christmas afternoon, with me foreign-friend relaxing in we verandah lounger, and I next to she in the white-wood rocking chair. Mamma in the other rocking chair was co-pilot.

Me and mammy spin travels all afternoon, telling we friend from Chekhov-country, tales about this here land.  And she listen with she hands fold on she belly which mammy did feed with bhounjal liver, dhal puri, and mauby with ice.

Dear Reader, you won’t believe the places I been to right here this past week gone, without a single plane ticket.

I been to…brrr, shiverRrrRRr…houses that residents flee as misfortune after misfortune topple down ‘pon them.

Foreman, working on the house across the road where them Brazilians used to live, trawl over to we yard to gyaff while he wait for the landlord to come.  He tell me these stories as I, spade in hand, dig up mud-sludge that the rain leave on we driveway.

Voices whisper, he say, and things go thump at night and young Merican woman in one house couldn’t sleep, the foreman say. And in another home more south, a white man spirit in a cork-hat used to wait ‘til a young Guyanese woman sleep at nights and he do wicked-wicked things to she.  Cork hat? That is from the old slave-master days, I exclaim. Later I think, can you imagine what that man used to do when he was alive, and the spirits today still imitate he? Talk about we deeds living on!

Oh, yeah, I been to a place where the ocean serve up tea and milk, coffee and cream, mud and froff.  Standing on the sea-wall, I remember my mother telling we visitor about them lead coffins that the sea is hiding now, how mammy and she children come to know about them, and why the lagoon is gone, and about the boy-child that some criminals did kidnap and hide out there.

Reader, so many things I re-discover about this place where I sometimes think nothing does happen. So much I discover in me while worrying about mammy, waiting for the biopsy result…didn’t know I had the humour, the patience, the courage. Courage in a coward! Imagine that!

And that is what I wish for you all this new year. Discoveries right where you sit, walk, live. Discoveries about you, in you. Courage you never know you had, and patience. Energy, strength, good health and humour too.  And imagination to make your life spring up, shake up ‘n’ jiggle like a bird in fresh rain-water.