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.

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

It starts with me

How can I celebrate an aesthetic that I was never invited to be a part of? How can I, a black Briton with Jamaican heritage celebrate something designed to connect me to African roots when I don’t know enough about what it is to be Jamaican? These were the reflections that arose after I watched the film Black Candle, a documentary about the origins and expression of Kwanzaa.

For many years and many reasons, Kwanzaa is a celebration that has bypassed me. As a teenager, I remember my parents receiving a card from American relatives that referenced it. The impression I was given, was that it was/is antithetical to who I was/am supposed to be, and promptly forgot about it.

Although I consider myself black and sufficiently connected to the past and present culture, the one thing I have never considered myself to be is African. Do I need to be African? How many umbrellas do you have to share before you decide it’s better to dance in the rain?

“Me I’m super fly, (against my window) super dupa fly, (I can’t stand the rain)  

Missy Elliot

I have claimed myself in opposition to others. I have claimed myself in opposition to white, in opposition to being stereotypically British. Until today I have never questioned what it is to be Jamaican. What will it take to create a deeper connection to the heritage of an island I’ve visited 4 times?

It will take more than stripping “white gaze” poems from a Black history month poetry set minutes before taking to the stage. It will take more work than a few hahas at comedy viewed online and plates of food cooked through the year. The aim, not so much as to be a scholar but to have more reason to wave the flag.

For me, expressions of what it is to be black in modern Britain have been spearheaded by those of African descent. As they bombastically express pride in their cultural norms, I wonder if this shift has been coming within me too. Perhaps Black Candle has pushed the reset button.

“We’ve come a long, long way together, through the hard times, and the good, I’ve got to celebrate you baby, I’m going to praise you like I should”

 Fat boy slim – Praise you

Where do you live?

I’ve lived in virtual worlds with virtual girls and tried to marry their reality……..

The pandemic has changed many of us, it has changed ways we connect with people, with ourselves, with the very objects around us and yet, for some, even a few, it has remained more or less the same. As I write, the most popular social networks are not working. As I write, I remember thoughts I scribbled in rhyme form when I could no longer sleep at 4 am. Both significant, separate yet eerily connected as old premium texts used to say.

Who will check for me and want to care about me when I’m older if I don’t have offspring? Who is checking for me, caring about me now outside of my family. How many people could really pick up the phone and say hey? Who is in your actual social network?

Where do you live? As in really, live?

Is home where your thoughts are or where your body resides? Where do you live for the majority of the time? I enter my artist headspace a lot and find that I have to be intentional about leaving it to ensure that I don’t sing the same old songs time and again. I leave that world to allow mine to be enriched by others. I am more about people than places. I take a few intangibles to every environment and decorate from there. I often feel like the real world poetry community which I’m part of, doesn’t want me there. In those moments, I hibernate and write a little more, seek another tribe and hope to fulfil my duty to hone and share the best of my talents.

The bible says that “in my father’s house are many mansions”, I wonder how many we have or create four ourselves. Where do you live?