Years ago before the advent of cell phones, dare I say this because it really ages me, yeah anyway, before cell phones there was a song which made reckon to the crooner being… “caught between the Moon and New York City.” At that time this lyric was considered to be imagery at its finest, I mean who gets caught between the Moon and New York City? What an impossible situation conjuring up a myriad of possibilities this was, it must have taken a truly gifted lyricist to think up this hook. Impressive!
Fast forward, oh wait a minute we don’t do that anymore either…skip to the next track, next century and I am speaking to my cousin in Florida and he mentions that he is somewhere between Jupiter and Stewart County. Right then it strikes me that prior to cell phones if one were to be using such a directional in speech, one would either have to be on a pay phone, writing a jingle or scoring a hit song. Further to that thought, now if there is a nightclub or diner or any blip on the map called the moon, it becomes quite possible to be caught between there and New York City. As it was then. Therefore, maybe it is not the span of the world that has gotten smaller but the reach of my imagination that has gotten wider.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Silence
When I was in Prep school, elementary school to those educated here, we learnt a song with this chorus…
Silence is the silver thread of vibrant expectation,
Silence is the absence of a longed for visitation,
Silence is the feeling of a breathing all around you,
Silence is the loneliest of sounds,
Silence is the loneliest of sounds.
Poignant isn’t it! I don’t know the title of the song and as I think of it, I probably learnt it because I loved its poetic resonance, even then I had a love of the written word, it wasn’t taught to me either rather to the school choir for a Christmas play but I remember it touched me then as it does now…and I think I was about nine or ten years old at the time – but I digress.
Silence in today’s cacophony of whirring computers, cellphones and the internet has come to mean something totally different to what it meant to our grandparents or even us when we were younger. Today, there is always something running in a dwelling, be it a refrigerator or a microwave oven, leaving me to think that true silence is rare.
Well the other day I think I came as close to witnessing the nothingness of sound as I ever will. Now I’ve been in power outages in this country before, but none were so, well quiet and curiously enough this state of quiet was achieved without an interruption in electricity. You see recently there was a mandated switch to cable reception on a television – either that or get a converter box at a cost as everything is now being broadcast in high definition. But since that transition was made this was the first break in transmission and it was quiet interesting. Think of being placed in a bubble unbeknownst to you. The television did not work, and in some households because all are linked then that meant the internet and the telephone were also down.
People were literally outside looking up wandering what was going on! It was as if they forgot that the radio still worked. I mean, I know some folks get their household music from the cable music channels so you can just imagine. Everyone was just drifting to their windows and looking out kind of dumbstruck. Sure you could hear you fridge run but who wants to?
This leads me to conclude that although silence is wonderfully romantic to sing about; the security of din is far more comforting. Forget all that philosophical mumbo jumbo about if a tree falls in the woods and no-one is around to hear it....We want sound damn it and we want it now!!
Silence is the silver thread of vibrant expectation,
Silence is the absence of a longed for visitation,
Silence is the feeling of a breathing all around you,
Silence is the loneliest of sounds,
Silence is the loneliest of sounds.
Poignant isn’t it! I don’t know the title of the song and as I think of it, I probably learnt it because I loved its poetic resonance, even then I had a love of the written word, it wasn’t taught to me either rather to the school choir for a Christmas play but I remember it touched me then as it does now…and I think I was about nine or ten years old at the time – but I digress.
Silence in today’s cacophony of whirring computers, cellphones and the internet has come to mean something totally different to what it meant to our grandparents or even us when we were younger. Today, there is always something running in a dwelling, be it a refrigerator or a microwave oven, leaving me to think that true silence is rare.
Well the other day I think I came as close to witnessing the nothingness of sound as I ever will. Now I’ve been in power outages in this country before, but none were so, well quiet and curiously enough this state of quiet was achieved without an interruption in electricity. You see recently there was a mandated switch to cable reception on a television – either that or get a converter box at a cost as everything is now being broadcast in high definition. But since that transition was made this was the first break in transmission and it was quiet interesting. Think of being placed in a bubble unbeknownst to you. The television did not work, and in some households because all are linked then that meant the internet and the telephone were also down.
People were literally outside looking up wandering what was going on! It was as if they forgot that the radio still worked. I mean, I know some folks get their household music from the cable music channels so you can just imagine. Everyone was just drifting to their windows and looking out kind of dumbstruck. Sure you could hear you fridge run but who wants to?
This leads me to conclude that although silence is wonderfully romantic to sing about; the security of din is far more comforting. Forget all that philosophical mumbo jumbo about if a tree falls in the woods and no-one is around to hear it....We want sound damn it and we want it now!!
Little Girl Bling
If stickers are the currency of childhood; then hair clips are little girl bling!!
So the interaction with the girls’ favorite crossing guard has resumed without a hitch despite our foul weather break. We walk almost every evening now and Miss M continues to be a highlight of our trek. The other day she asked me if I would mind if she give the girls some hair clips. I thought about it and responded gratefully because a girl can’t have too many shoes or hair accessories.
Well, if ever there was an understatement in the history of understatements the words “some hair clips” is a clearly that; for was I was in no way prepared for what I received the next day…a vat full of hair clips!! I am not kidding. Miss M gave me a container about 36 x 24 x 12 in size!! The container was so big that it had a warning label on the side cautioning adults of the possibility of a baby being locked inside! That’s not all, inside there were several smaller containers which had the hair clips color coded and sorted according to design. I was overwhelmed.
Then when I got home my youngest dived in with reckless abandon. She wanted every one in her hair regardless of whether it matched her outfit and nothing was too grandiose for her liking either. There were hair clips with fur on them, heart shaped hair clips, flower design ones, some with a pearlescent finish; I mean enough hair clips to patch a mile. Then when my eldest and saw them she sang Miss M’s praise and wanted to know what we could do to repay her generosity, I reassured her that mother’s day is coming up to which she responded "We'll really have to do something great for her, Mummy".
You know sometimes life gives you events which etch themselves on your psyche; I hope this act of giving is one of them for two such little people - allowing them to realize that sharing does not neccesarily need a reciprocal expectancy attached to it and spontaneous acts of kindness just feel right.
Now I just have to tame my girls’ wishes to be bling-blinging every day and find storage for the multitude. EGAD!!
So the interaction with the girls’ favorite crossing guard has resumed without a hitch despite our foul weather break. We walk almost every evening now and Miss M continues to be a highlight of our trek. The other day she asked me if I would mind if she give the girls some hair clips. I thought about it and responded gratefully because a girl can’t have too many shoes or hair accessories.
Well, if ever there was an understatement in the history of understatements the words “some hair clips” is a clearly that; for was I was in no way prepared for what I received the next day…a vat full of hair clips!! I am not kidding. Miss M gave me a container about 36 x 24 x 12 in size!! The container was so big that it had a warning label on the side cautioning adults of the possibility of a baby being locked inside! That’s not all, inside there were several smaller containers which had the hair clips color coded and sorted according to design. I was overwhelmed.
Then when I got home my youngest dived in with reckless abandon. She wanted every one in her hair regardless of whether it matched her outfit and nothing was too grandiose for her liking either. There were hair clips with fur on them, heart shaped hair clips, flower design ones, some with a pearlescent finish; I mean enough hair clips to patch a mile. Then when my eldest and saw them she sang Miss M’s praise and wanted to know what we could do to repay her generosity, I reassured her that mother’s day is coming up to which she responded "We'll really have to do something great for her, Mummy".
You know sometimes life gives you events which etch themselves on your psyche; I hope this act of giving is one of them for two such little people - allowing them to realize that sharing does not neccesarily need a reciprocal expectancy attached to it and spontaneous acts of kindness just feel right.
Now I just have to tame my girls’ wishes to be bling-blinging every day and find storage for the multitude. EGAD!!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Manners, A Double Edged Sword
Alright, I grew up in a pretty strict society even though today it may seem very lax. Children would speak when spoken to, neighbors would greet each other pleasantly on the road and most importantly a child would never dare to pass an adult on the street and not recognize their presence. I guess by now the direction that my argument is about to take must be pretty obvious. I am constantly offended by the way some children in this my adopted nation, just kind of walk past an adult without even acknowledging them. What happened to good manners?
Maybe to some this may seem too inconsequential to even briefly mull over but it is a real blight on a society. Who are the parents of these cattlelike young people that just mosey along chewing their respective cuds and regurgitating insolence through their many stomachs akin to grass? How could they not know in their most basic being, that it would be nice to be respectful to a passing adult?
On close observation I note that this phenomenon strikes at every level of childhood, from the very young preschooler to those children close enough to adulthood that one would think should know better. And don’t for a minute think that your being familiar with their parents may cause them rattle their civility even for a minute…NOT! My neighbor lamented the other day that some children play with his kids, ride their bicycles in his driveway, see him sitting there and do not even nod in his direction, they then have the temerity do it all over again, the process could continue for hours unchecked.
But who is blame? The Parents…for not imparting to their children the importance or being as old time Jamaicans would say, “mannersable,” maybe. The neighbor…for not insisting that they acknowledge him after all they are riding on his property…could be. Or perhaps society is to blame for the manifestation of declining environments where a child’s safety could hinge on whether he or she speaks to a stranger adult or not! In that case then perhaps, it is best that a child speaks to no adult rather than endanger himself trying to discern who is safe from who is not. Welcome to the Razor’s Edge where Manners becomes a double edged sword!
Maybe to some this may seem too inconsequential to even briefly mull over but it is a real blight on a society. Who are the parents of these cattlelike young people that just mosey along chewing their respective cuds and regurgitating insolence through their many stomachs akin to grass? How could they not know in their most basic being, that it would be nice to be respectful to a passing adult?
On close observation I note that this phenomenon strikes at every level of childhood, from the very young preschooler to those children close enough to adulthood that one would think should know better. And don’t for a minute think that your being familiar with their parents may cause them rattle their civility even for a minute…NOT! My neighbor lamented the other day that some children play with his kids, ride their bicycles in his driveway, see him sitting there and do not even nod in his direction, they then have the temerity do it all over again, the process could continue for hours unchecked.
But who is blame? The Parents…for not imparting to their children the importance or being as old time Jamaicans would say, “mannersable,” maybe. The neighbor…for not insisting that they acknowledge him after all they are riding on his property…could be. Or perhaps society is to blame for the manifestation of declining environments where a child’s safety could hinge on whether he or she speaks to a stranger adult or not! In that case then perhaps, it is best that a child speaks to no adult rather than endanger himself trying to discern who is safe from who is not. Welcome to the Razor’s Edge where Manners becomes a double edged sword!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Gauging Responses
In this world of political correctness, I find myself always trying to give the most right (I know, grammatically incorrect) response to any question. I literally must have a built in gauge in the speech section of my brain that gathers, fetters and checks over my every response before it is cleared for delivery. Gone are the days of just answering a question from my heart because those types of retorts I have often noticed, draw a snarl or bad feelings sometimes causing repairable damage. Remember when you were young and could just blurt out exactly what you thought? Look back at those times properly with clear vision even as you thought you were voicing your opinion truth be told, there was probably some other party looking to revise your intensity.
I have resumed my walking regimen with the children now that the weather is changing. Every day we meet up with a very nice Yard neighbor who usually walks along with us to get his grandson. This particular day my youngest was complaining that the sun was in her eyes so my neighbor suggested that she ask her dad to get her a pair of “sun spectacles” (curious thing about my people is that we have this engrained habit of calling items by their original or outmoded name… hence glasses are spectacles and pants are trousers… even though conversely a lot of us don’t know when to use an A sound as opposed to a H sound – go figure). To my horror my baby said “I don’t want to hear that!”
I thought and intervened immediately. “No Honey, you can’t speak like that to Mr. H., he is an adult.” My embarrassed neighbor muttered a lot of platitudes, “its okay…she didn’t mean anything by it…children will be children,” but the damage had already been done. All of a sudden I felt as if the innocent mutterings of child reflected badly on my parenting skills thus, I sought to edit her. What’s so bad about her reply? Shouldn’t her candidness be applauded? Wasn’t her candor coming from a place of truth with no intention to hurt or dismay and technically should be embraced? But the ways of the world intervened in the form of Momma and she apologized and perhaps learned a lesson that day.
Three things cometh not back: the spoken word, the sped arrow and the missed opportunity.
I have resumed my walking regimen with the children now that the weather is changing. Every day we meet up with a very nice Yard neighbor who usually walks along with us to get his grandson. This particular day my youngest was complaining that the sun was in her eyes so my neighbor suggested that she ask her dad to get her a pair of “sun spectacles” (curious thing about my people is that we have this engrained habit of calling items by their original or outmoded name… hence glasses are spectacles and pants are trousers… even though conversely a lot of us don’t know when to use an A sound as opposed to a H sound – go figure). To my horror my baby said “I don’t want to hear that!”
I thought and intervened immediately. “No Honey, you can’t speak like that to Mr. H., he is an adult.” My embarrassed neighbor muttered a lot of platitudes, “its okay…she didn’t mean anything by it…children will be children,” but the damage had already been done. All of a sudden I felt as if the innocent mutterings of child reflected badly on my parenting skills thus, I sought to edit her. What’s so bad about her reply? Shouldn’t her candidness be applauded? Wasn’t her candor coming from a place of truth with no intention to hurt or dismay and technically should be embraced? But the ways of the world intervened in the form of Momma and she apologized and perhaps learned a lesson that day.
Three things cometh not back: the spoken word, the sped arrow and the missed opportunity.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Watch De Ride
Recently while giving this child a ride home from school and that neighbor a lift, I was struck by how my car resembled a good old Jamaican Robot. For those unschooled in yard transportation ways, the Robot was an unmetered mode of transportation - more than a taxi but less than a bus, or for terms that anyone who has been through Brooklyn NY can identify with, the Robot was the more unruly grandfather to the dollar van. I say was because I’m not sure if they still ply the streets of Jamaica, but when they did they were menacing!
My friend and neighbor and I reminisced on our childhood experiences with catching minibuses plying any random route in Jamaica. We relived how the robot was almost always was a Volkswagen panel van which had both a Driver and a Ducter. The Driver’s role was simple; get the vehicle from point A to point B, stopping to pick up twice or three times the van’s capacity in passengers, break or flout all of Jamaica’s road laws as often as possible and scrunch over on his seat to allow a schooler a kotch while maintaining enough space to aide his control of the vehicle.
Now a Ducter was always a very important character, he kept the day’s intake lodged between his fingers in fan like configuration dispensing change at will while holding the string that both opened and closed the door. Minibuses were never empty but no matter how filled they were the Ducter was always calling out to anyone who would listen and was willing to take the chance “...two more”. When he was not doing that, he was hanging out the vehicle in periscope fashion, calling to all the young girls and trying to touch pedestrians as the “bus” wheeled past, door open, carrying him squinting into the breeze.
Additionally, I am sure the Ducter’s job description required he be able to bang on the side of the van to signal the needed start or stop of the vehicle and if he cared not to bang he could simply sound off, “one stop driver” – he was key personnel. In a traffic snarl it was not unusual to see a Ducter get out of his bus and take his banging talent to the next level as he slammed his hand on the hoods of cars that dared to block the way of his bus leaving a wake of unsuspecting drivers wincing as they crushed their brakes and envisioned phantom impact only to hear, “watch de ride” or get out the way!
The trip down memory lane was interrupted by my eldest calling out in subway fashion “next stop, neighbor’s house, keep please move to the front of the vehicle,” mimicking that eerily mechanical voice piped through the trains she has ridden in. At that juncture I was struck by how different our life experiences are. How sad it is that she will probably never know what a minibus is. Hey, I don’t even know if they still exist!
My friend and neighbor and I reminisced on our childhood experiences with catching minibuses plying any random route in Jamaica. We relived how the robot was almost always was a Volkswagen panel van which had both a Driver and a Ducter. The Driver’s role was simple; get the vehicle from point A to point B, stopping to pick up twice or three times the van’s capacity in passengers, break or flout all of Jamaica’s road laws as often as possible and scrunch over on his seat to allow a schooler a kotch while maintaining enough space to aide his control of the vehicle.
Now a Ducter was always a very important character, he kept the day’s intake lodged between his fingers in fan like configuration dispensing change at will while holding the string that both opened and closed the door. Minibuses were never empty but no matter how filled they were the Ducter was always calling out to anyone who would listen and was willing to take the chance “...two more”. When he was not doing that, he was hanging out the vehicle in periscope fashion, calling to all the young girls and trying to touch pedestrians as the “bus” wheeled past, door open, carrying him squinting into the breeze.
Additionally, I am sure the Ducter’s job description required he be able to bang on the side of the van to signal the needed start or stop of the vehicle and if he cared not to bang he could simply sound off, “one stop driver” – he was key personnel. In a traffic snarl it was not unusual to see a Ducter get out of his bus and take his banging talent to the next level as he slammed his hand on the hoods of cars that dared to block the way of his bus leaving a wake of unsuspecting drivers wincing as they crushed their brakes and envisioned phantom impact only to hear, “watch de ride” or get out the way!
The trip down memory lane was interrupted by my eldest calling out in subway fashion “next stop, neighbor’s house, keep please move to the front of the vehicle,” mimicking that eerily mechanical voice piped through the trains she has ridden in. At that juncture I was struck by how different our life experiences are. How sad it is that she will probably never know what a minibus is. Hey, I don’t even know if they still exist!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Telemarketers...As Explained by a Six Year Old.
Ring, ring, ring.
I look at the caller ID and ignore the telephone hissing, “telemarketers,” as I continue my task preparing dinner. My youngest inquires, “Why didn’t you answer the phone Momma?” Immediately my eldest chimes in, “Telemarketers again huh Mom?”
“Yup!” I answer nonchalantly.
Youngest: Momma, what’s a telemarketer?
Eldest: I’ll answer that Mom.
Before I can respond, she begins her lecture to her awestruck, intently listening younger sister.
Eldest: Well baby, (forget the fact that she is only 21/2 years older) a telemarketer is a bad person that always calls Mummy during dinnertime asking her to buy something when they should know that she has no money and she already told them so and make her to say, …I’m not interested, please take me off your list!! Then they force her to hang up on them. Right Mom?
Youngest: Oh! We don’t like telemarketers Momma?
My Reponse: No Honey it’s not that we don’t like them, we just don’t like them always calling during dinner.
Everyone seems satisfied with my adjunct. My eldest beams at what she believes, is her masterful explanation of the situation, my youngest quietly ruminates in her light bulb moment. Dinner preparation continues as per usual.
I look at the caller ID and ignore the telephone hissing, “telemarketers,” as I continue my task preparing dinner. My youngest inquires, “Why didn’t you answer the phone Momma?” Immediately my eldest chimes in, “Telemarketers again huh Mom?”
“Yup!” I answer nonchalantly.
Youngest: Momma, what’s a telemarketer?
Eldest: I’ll answer that Mom.
Before I can respond, she begins her lecture to her awestruck, intently listening younger sister.
Eldest: Well baby, (forget the fact that she is only 21/2 years older) a telemarketer is a bad person that always calls Mummy during dinnertime asking her to buy something when they should know that she has no money and she already told them so and make her to say, …I’m not interested, please take me off your list!! Then they force her to hang up on them. Right Mom?
Youngest: Oh! We don’t like telemarketers Momma?
My Reponse: No Honey it’s not that we don’t like them, we just don’t like them always calling during dinner.
Everyone seems satisfied with my adjunct. My eldest beams at what she believes, is her masterful explanation of the situation, my youngest quietly ruminates in her light bulb moment. Dinner preparation continues as per usual.
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