Veranda in the Sky

Some plans are stone tablet commandments, others are shopping baskets, I chose my annual leave week with the latter in mind. Working around the clock to help to plan a funeral from thousands of miles away was hardly the top of my priorities.

However, when the largest connection to your heritage is no longer, it is fitting to produce something that reflects their impact. My grandma will only mean so much to a certain group of people and in a decade, that group may have shrunk significantly. I’m grateful that I had the chance to have a relationship with my grandmother. I walk with my physical head high, because of the confidence she gave me.

Due to the lockdown in my motherland, I couldn’t physically be there, yet I was still able to share my tribute digitally. I delivered this acapella in the first instance, yet it felt right to give this the treatment I would give my main creative output.

Both grandparents are now reunited on the Veranda in the sky. With that being said, I wanted to share my favourite moment from my grandad’s funeral a few years ago.

I know it’ll take time to come to terms with this yet her being at peace is all that matters.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.

Last Words First

We all have firsts, some we go on to repeat across our lives, some that are embedded into the story of someone else’s, and some that are truly life-changing. What happens when your first is someone else’s last? It is the latter that I find myself unable to process.

In the last 7 days my words of love to my grandmother were the last she heard before she died. I’d known days before that she was ready to go and by the time I spoke to her, she couldn’t see or speak – she did, however, make sounds acknowledging she’d heard me. I’m told that she passed within moments of me ending what was a short phone call.

I’m like a needle flickering, trying to find the right sound level, somewhere between shock and contentment, it’s….weird. Emotionally draining from the reality that I have lost the main connection to my Jamaican heritage, my last grandparent. I feel like the ice that refuses to melt in the face of the most intense cocktail. Detached yet wholly involved.

In the first 15 hours after it happened my only question was, how do you process grief? For the first time in my life, my shoulders weren’t broad enough to face my working day. The loss has hit other family members more acutely. How do you process grief when you have the pressures of the world gnawing at your soul?

Grateful as I am for having writing as an outlet, grateful as I am for being able to write on cue, my vocabulary feels limited right now. I don’t have the poetic mastery for this. I try to pull myself together because I have no buttons left to fasten me. Is there such thing as good grief?

The advice that comes to me writing this is to remember you’re human. Allow yourself to be just that. There will be bigger losses in future, I hope I can balance them out with gains. I hope, I pray and ask you to send one up for me, for my family.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Dad….tell me a story…..My mum took over the duties pretty quickly then left me in the company of books. Other kids had a toy collection, I had a book collection that stretched to an original copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people by the time I’d reached 10 years old.

Night after night, once I’d put a book down I’d tell myself stories for months at a time. I was always the lead character who took time to become a star. I enjoyed writing stories, then music came along and I didn’t.

I learned to read when those around me had to make life difficult. I learned to read when I was wrong in the eyes of others. I read sporadically and for all my talent with words, I never considered myself a storyteller.

Reading rooms and capturing moods has become a key part of my writing, my everyday life. I now know my story well enough to tell others. An acquaintance once said to me, that if they wanted to know me better, they’d read my writing.  Arguably, the archives of this blog could help you to know me a little better.

My narrative here has always been, the story of someone who is getting to know themselves better………later in life. As the clock struck for the first seconds of 2022, I had two questions for myself. The first was, “you’ve made a lane for your creativity, now what? I can’t answer that yet, I have some ideas though.

The second question I asked myself is, what narratives or stories are you going to stop telling yourself this year? That I can answer.

This year I’m going to stop telling myself that the local creative community doesn’t like me. That I am unloved for what I bring to the table. Although there are statistics that I can use to bolster that story, as with sport, the eye test will tell you more than the numbers. This year that story will be consigned to a flashback and not be the main feature.

Walk in your strengths!

It ain’t gotta be that tho

Darkness descended on the face of my week.

I felt weak, worthless, and bleak.

2022 is this you?

Is this me?

Knowing I have a milestone birthday this year, I’ve been reflecting on the question of. “what have I got to show for my years?”. It was as though I’d summoned a firing squad and asked them to unload their favourite weapons.

It should be the case that weaponising everything we aren’t is a crime against our humanity. Somehow we do it willingly in the hope of being better people. Maybe the initial side effects of vaccination at the beginning of the week played into my overall sense of gloom. However, as I begun to feel physically better, I recognised there is a journey to be had this year and shifted focus to the steps forward.

I also took stock of some of the places and spaces I’ve been to. Almost 20 years I go I put one of my first poems called “Between Together” online. I also accessed the poetry forum in which I developed stylistically and read through what I was doing creatively. I now recognise that poetry helped me to process different parts of myself. Though I am assured of who I am now, it still does.

As part of the creative journey this year I hope to post as many blogs as I have years between now and December 31st. There are physical, relational, and spiritual journeys that will most likely remain personal until such time as I am inspired to unpick them.

Ahead of writing this blog, the words accountability and discipline were meant to be the focus. As I come to the end of it I can only share with you the words of the song “24” by Kanye West that encourage me daily.

“Know you’re alive and God’s not finished”

Although we know our darkest parts, as long as we are alive, there is a reason why we are here and each day it’s on us to fulfill a piece of that. All I ask for is for the right people to come into my life to help me along the way.

Kanye West – 24

With that what

Aries through Capricorn Kujichagulia is the frequency I be on

Palo Santo a minesweeper to resident evil and pantomime

Speak your spine and catwalk your skin

Natural treasure’s more treasured than national shrugs

Day and night still come whether or not we look for the sun

The thickest masks drop with caskets

Without knowledge of self are we plastic?

Those laced for their track meet while others can’t believe their time

Ujima centres I and starts with you

Without N T Y the C O M M is malnourished

Seasons sew, season and render for reaping

We can only harvest if we don’t sew in polemics

Celebrate the bloom, shade and cavalcade of leaves

A burning sage creates living room in hail and flood

Branches become cudgels when jealousy makes the cut

It’s Ujamaa from mama papa and up through generations

Until we pixelate we feed and eat from the same tectonic plates

Until we pixelate imani fuels and nia hydrates us

Every move of the clock is a nudge to an area of the body

From pulse to yawning I am richer for reaching each morning

Indomitable black candle roaring

I am the diaspora without a hive mind

I greet your gradient as though it were mine

I can only flower because I grind

There can be no TY unless there’s U and I

If I want to fly, if I want my crown to shine I can’t tag a Lear

Imani, nia, kujichagulia