A small price to pay

"Music is to me proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic. And in tough times in my life, I can listen to music and it makes such a difference."
-- Spoken vocals from the 1 Giant Leap soundtrack

I used to treat CDs like Coptic jars, reverently, respectfully, mindful of the awesome power of the music within. That and they're expensive in Trinidad; scratch one and you're a couple extra hundred in the hole.

But in the past few years I've evolved into this CD-burning, backseat-throwing, leave-carelessly-in-the-sun-outside-the-case person. And in the process I've damaged most of my favourite CDs--almost always on my favourite songs, of course.

Friends have goaded me to join the mp3/iTunes bandwagon and I don't mind, I just don't feel like dealing with the hassle of getting an external drive so I won't slow down the laptop and I've seen too many people in tears after their electronic music files, carefully culled over the years, went poof. I'm a lazy back-upper; what can I say?

Give me a CD, in a case, with a lyrics booklet anyday. Besides, they look so pretty all lined up on the shelf like books. Staring at them makes me feel eclectic. :)

So I've started re-building my collection. I'm sure it'll be a long and slow process, if not somewhat expensive in the long run. But you know what? It's a small price to pay, I think.

Most recent re-buys:

Fallen - Evanescence

The Open Door - Evanescence

All That I Am - Santana

Supernatural - Santana

Bob Marley: Chant Down Babylon - Various Artists

The Orchard - Lizz Wright

More to come. And I'm always open to suggestions and additions...

By the way, I'm really, really disappointed that Orange Sky won't be passing through Florida on its July through September U.S. tour. Might have to make it a road trip or write about it to find an excuse to go.

Photo courtesy Corbis

The tireless nomad

4: 47 p.m. Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Va.

The man seated next to me on the shuttle pulls his phone out—to call home, I assume. We have the same phone. It hits me then that I have no one to call, no one to remind to pick me up at the airport, no one to miss me.

I drove myself. I left the car in satellite parking. $50 seemed worth the hassle of not asking for a ride. These are the things you do when you’re Independent.

Sometimes I forget how isolated I am in Daytona, isolated from family, friends and culture. And it’s not that I haven’t built my own space and my own circle in this esoteric beach town. I’m just someone else when I’m there. I am me when I’m with my contentious brother, the friends I grew up with—understood, comfortable, not putting on a show I don’t know I’m putting on until all pretense is dropped.

I eat Afghani food on Thursday; Jamaican on Saturday. I stroll into the club Friday night, greet friends, grab a beer, flirt a little with the bartender. I’m at home. I clop through the estate in Upper Marlboro Friday, safe in the dew in my flip flops. I order Johnny and Coke at the bar; I wine poolside. I barely know this social butterfly anymore, lost in the empty Florida sands.

Sometimes I see the life I could have had, filled with music, friends and popularity. A life I choose not lead in Florida despite the notoriety the job brings. I’m in love with impossible anonymity there. Here I am free. There’s no need to think about work and image, no need to explain myself to people who understand, who speak the same language—people who understand themselves in me.

I am two different people, maybe five: The journalist in Florida; the social animal that flits through her Trinidadian circles; the philosopher and philanderer; the impatient child and sensual woman. The only thing I always seem to be is The Writer Seeking Answers.

Am I the only transplant enduring these moments of simultaneous obsurity and clarity? Is it only because of the culturelessness of where I've chosen to land? I am no more interesting and no less confused than you. For what noble cause am I living? And to whom am I being true?

I go back to my Florida family: my beautiful goddaughter who I’ve come to love more than I thought it possible to love a child in my free-spirited existence; the inner circle of writers and friendships no older than six years; the lulling life that’s good to me and empty in so many ways.

5:08 p.m. Back to the life again.


9:24 p.m. The Red Lot, Section D, Row 4

Has it only been four days and three nights—an eternity, it seems? But there she is, the little red speed demon, tyres intact, impervious to thieves, water and all lonely wanderers but one.

Unlike the noisy family clambering into the SUV in front of me, whose engine tumbles and tumbles before it finally catches, she starts up with a roar, eager to get on the open road for the hour-long drive home. It begins to rain. I leave the windows down.

On the 417 at 75 mph, I stick my palm outside to cup the wind. Raindrops sting like giant needles. I enjoy the pain, the aliveness, the way my hand has turned red when I finally pull it back in. And suddenly I am happy, content to live life in my own terms for as long as the Fates allow.

So what if my strongest physical, permanent responsibility is a plant named Sam, waiting for me now at home to be watered? So what. Ties are meant to be complicated.

"These are such wonderful experiences, which might only be meaningful or noble as the years go by."


Photo courtesy Corbis

Journalists get laid (off)

9: 33 a.m. A text from Sara: did u get the call? you still work here if u didnt

No, I didn't get the call. But for the rest of the day every time one of my cell phones rang, I'd dread looking at the caller ID, dread seeing the office number come up. It never did.

By the time I got into work nearing 3:30 p.m. for my Monday Night Cops shift, they'd already made most of the calls and sent out most of the e-mails to the editorial department. We lost 33 reporters, photographers and editors yesterday, 99 companywide, all three of the newspaper's bureaus and a few publications--a move management says was forced by the lawsuit and bad economic times.

There was this morguish air in the newsroom as we slowly found out who they'd fired. I half-heartedly made my calls to area law enforcement to check if anything major happened and even they sounded apologetic, speaking in low tones like someone had died. A few sources called to make sure I was OK. OK was relative. You can never be OK watching your colleagues with careers, families and bills packing up their space and leaving for good.

After less than an hour, I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the scanner and a notepad and headed outside for the picnic benches to get some fresh air, to jot down my feelings and to escape the tense atmosphere. A few reporters were working and interviewing inside, but it was muted, as if they were, like me, afraid to talk too loudly out of respect. There was definitely none of the usual banter and laughter.

But outside was no escape. I had a clear view of the parking lot and my former co-workers carting out their things in boxes, distraught friends holding farewell vigils at the trunks of their cars. Cars were leaving; it was like 5 p.m. at 4:30. Other reporters were filing in from the bureaus, a little uncertain and dazed, for an editorial meeting at 5. They didn't tell us anything we didn't already know: It was one of the worst days in the history of the newspaper.

Today will be chaos as the bureau reporters shift space to our main--and now only--office. Many will have to face their own logistical issues having to commute as much as 90 minutes now to get to work. I won't be there for much of today. I'll be at a City Council workshop and a multimedia assignment at City Hall in now-bureauless Palm Coast. Management shifted beats around a bit, so in addition to covering city government, I'm also now the youth affairs reporter. It will be a while before things settle down again.

By the end of the day, those of us who'd survived the cuts were drained. But there was also this air of relief. We'd made it. I've read but been able to ignore our negative public leaving venomous comments at the bottom of our stories today.

We lost family yesterday; some people don't get that.


Photo "Packing up the office desk" courtesy Corbis

Chasing rainbows

I don't know what I'd do if I didn't live five minutes from the beach, a stone's throw from the water. I don't know what I've been doing all this time, my head buried in work, minutia, exhaustion rather than feet buried in the sand.

I'm there all the time now. On evenings with a book. At night alone, with friends. On weekends, windows down.



The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

I'm coming over the bridge and there's a rainbow to my left. I'm headed home and I'm driving straight into it. Only I don't want to go home, I want to find out where it ends. I pass the driveway.

I don't know where I'll be in five years. Five years ago I didn't know I'd be here. This is what life is: change, uncertainty, pain, seduction, questions, contentment, gifts. Life is five years from now. And five years after that. Life happens tomorrow in a tense newsroom.

When I'm open, you're closed
Where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

My finger's on the dial button, like it's been for the past few weeks. It's easy. I can call, invite him for a casual dinner, a night on the rocks, a night on me. But I don't. I slide the phone shut. It's his turn. But I forget, we don't have turns anymore. And that's OK.

I've always loved living alone.

I decide to head south. It's where the rainbow is. I wonder how far I'll have to go, if this fading coloured giant is just leading me on down a road with no end, only to disappear.

The arrow light turns green and I swerve, make a screeching U-turn to head north again. Fuck the rainbow.

I look in the mirror a few minutes on and it's already gone. It's not often I know so soon that I made the right decision. But that's OK.

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find You and I collide.

-- "Collide": Howie Day


Photo "Lioness Lying in Grass" courtesy Corbis

When a friend dies

When a friend dies
the salmon run no fatter.
The wheat harvest will feed no more bellies.
Nothing is won by endurance
but endurance.
A hunger sucks at the mind
for gone color after the last bronze
chysanthenum is withered by frost.
A hunger drains the day,
a homely sore gap
after a tooth is pulled,
a red giant gone nova,
an empty place in the sky
sliding down the arch
after Orion in night as wide
as a sleepless staring eye.
When pain and fatigue wrestle
fatigue wins. The eye shuts.
Then the pain rises again at dawn.
At first you can stare at it,
Then it blinds you.

-- Marge Piercy

I need a day

I need a day, just one day, when I'm not being a good friend, a dutiful daughter, an available sister, a dependable freelancer, a busy reporter. I need that one person to say it's OK to make it all about me today.

Just one day to curl in bed, not answer the phone, not cook, not clean, read a book, watch a movie, be alone, not say "Yes", be there for just me. That's my problem: I say "yes" because I care. But am I caring about me enough?

Don't answer that.

A man for all seasons

I can't remember the first time I met Arthur. I think I was too young. But every time I went to Trini, I stopped by to have a few beers and catch up. He even endured being interviewed twice and let me write about him. He let me steal books from the shelf at every visit.

I spent my last night in Trini for Carnival at Arthur's with my dad instead of drinking with friends at some bougie bar somewhere. I promised the next time I visited, I'd come look for him again. He was such a sweetheart and the jazz bar was like a home away from home, filled with old friends and good times.

He made his last trip to Maracas Bay on Sunday and his heart gave out last night. I feel this gaping loss. He's my father's contemporary and collegemate and I can't help but feel a tinge of worry that at some point I'll have to deal with losing my father as well. That's what life is about, I guess, loving and losing, coping with that loss and moving on. There's been so much death lately, sudden and impending.

Today, my friend and I are leaving home with no plans, going out into the sun and celebrating each other. It seems a day for that. Rest in peace, Arthur. You were loved more than you'll ever know.


Photo by Robert Taylor courtesy Caribbean Beat magazine

redundant

You've got to love Mondays when you open your inbox to an e-mail sent by a reader so moved by your story that he sends a message at 8:26 a.m. Saturday to tell you you're redundant. With that subject line.

Yes, he was right. I slaughtered myself in the grammar department when I wrote "PIN number" instead of PIN.

But he also sent the same e-mail twice, which is redundant, isn't it? It took everything in my power not to point that out.

Things I've done recently that I haven't written about

Though I'm sure it'd all be immensely entertaining. In no particular order:

1. ILLEGAL: Gone to a wedding in Orlando where I snapped a picture of a woman's feet because she was wearing a teal suit and mermaid pink, pearly shoes. Why God, why?

2. ON SECOND THOUGHT: Gone to the Orlando Fringe Festival and ended up wolfing down a lamb-ladden gyro in seven minutes and seeing gay-and-proud comedian Paul Hutcheson recount his life's disasters. I left with the memory of a dragon-covered flapping penis seared into my mind for the rest of my life. Good show. My hands still smell like that white gyro sauce. So do my friend's pants, no doubt.

3. KINDA WORK: Interviewed beauty blogger afrobella and kept straying off-topic to wine and Buju. We made plans to meet up at the Best of the Best next week.

4. VROOM: Paid a short-tempered auto center employee more than $50 for an oil change. Spoiling your car with fully synthentic oil is such a thankless job--until you get on the highway.

5. IT'S A GIRL: Planned a baby shower in half a day and pulled it off with superb aplomb the following day--with the help of the pregnant friend's Mom, of course. God bless Jamaican jerk pork.

6. MORE FYAH: Covered the wildfires in Central Florida. I've shampooed and deep conditioned four times and still can't get the scent of wood-smoked bacon out of the curly tresses.

7. WORM: Bought six books, borrowed two more and been enjoying that full-up feeling of knowing there are Things To Be Read.

8. IT STARTED WITH A CHAIR: Watched Juno. It was really good. Seriously. Go watch it.

9. MIDNIGHT: Called my best girlfriend, threw on a bikini and went to the beach at midnight with a hidden bottle of merlot and two wine glasses. We left with the memory of a streaker's flapping penis seared into our minds for the rest of our innocent lives.

10. MORE VINO: Escaped work (early?) at 7 p.m., downed a glass of white zin at the beach, rolled up the jeans--obviously not far enough because they got soaked to the knees anyway--and sat on my reporter's notebook in the sand staring at the horizon.

11. WE READAY: Bought a plane ticket to D.C. for D.C. Carnival.

12. INSANITY: Visited there a few times. Or somewhere nearby.

13. CRIED: And cried some more.

Enid

I must have been 15 when my godfather approached me for books for a friend's daughter. By then I'd developed a sharp possessiveness toward my library.

But he was the kind of man who treated books like a spendthrift treats money, reading one over the course of a few days and, once complete, leaving it with creased spine where visitors like me would find and take it away.

"I read it already," he'd say with a dismissive flip of the wrist. "Someone else can read it now."

So how could I say no to parting with mine? I dug through boxes of $20 hardcover Enid Blytons snagged in monthly trips to R.I.K., plucked out three of my favourites, well kept, and handed them over.

Sometimes I think about those books and the ones still boxed somewhere, testaments to my nerdy childhood, August vacations spent inside inhaling books. I wonder if I'll be able to pass them along to my children.

And I romanticize the gesture I'd made, hoping in some way that those books changed their receiver's life the way Blyton changed mine, turning my world into one where toys came alive and tiny patches of blue sky meant good weather ahead.

I know you think your mom is the greatest

But actually, that would be mine.

I am truly a dumbass: From the kitchen mishap diaries

Parboiled rice. It's not that serious, really. But judging by the smoke now trapped in the apartment, it was that serious.

Rice. Water. Salt. Bring to boil. Simmer for 20 minutes. Only I leave it boiling. Only I sit for a full 20 seconds wondering what that popping sound is. It's called burning rice. Adds water, turns heat down, wishes for instant rice.

Pops spring roll and fried wantons in toaster. Leaves kitchen. Second mistake: out of sight, out of mind. I sit for a full 20 seconds wondering what that burning smell is. Smoke. Didn't we deal with the rice? Opens toaster, flicks on fan above stove, curls foil into a ball around the blackened appetizers, opens balcony and front door, scrapes plastic scale off toaster.

Yes, plastic scale, now lopsided, sits atop toaster. See entry title.

Nail on the head

Writes Trinidadian journalist Attillah Springer:

"It’s World Press Freedom Day today (May 3), and I guess some of us would love to boast at the fact that Trinidad and Tobago is the only English speaking Caribbean country to be in the top 20 of the World Press Freedom Index (we’re number 19). Even UK is number 24 and the USA is number 48.

"I’ve been thinking about this number 19 status. How we ended up there. Do we really have press freedom or is it just that nobody takes the media seriously enough to think of anything that gets published or broadcast as a threat to their authority or their profit margins?

"Maybe the media are as much of a pappyshow as all other institutions in this country, like the church or parliament. Toothless, useless. Maybe we’re all just going through the motions because we don’t know anything else or can’t do any better.

"... where are the journalists who are willing to do the work to ensure that these stories get told? Where are the editors who will support them? Where are the camera people and the hackers and the bloggers doing the dirty work?"


Except in the country I live and industry I work, we're able to tell those stories. At least, we'd like to think so. Only they're tempered by advertisers and the paper's potential for lost ad revenue. They're tempered by who has the money and therefore the power. And still, it's not as bad, I suppose, as the country ranked 19th.

I've been spoilt, you see. Something I was only able to acknowledge after spending a few months at a Trinidadian newspaper last year, slowly going insane. Because outside of writing alongside the journalists I revered as a teen, there was little there for me, but to escape to the relative safety of the Private Sector and Writing Ads. But to escape to the place from whence I came via the place I tried to return.

It took me less than a month to despise the clinical green walls. The way my shoes slid on tile with every step. Unsteady. To have a run-in with a highly-respected veteran journalist whom I realized wasn't so respectable after all. To read untrained writers with more concept of editor-influenced bias than basic grammatical rules. To find Public Relations Officers who didn't understand their responsibilities.

To have newfound respect for Trinidadian reporters who struggle against the lack of resources, the non-existence of transparency and freedom of information, the mauvais langue. To meet oases in the newsroom who restored my faith in where the media could be.

Because I? I've been spoilt, you see, in a country ranked 48th where Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech might seem unmet, but are more achieved than in the country that ranks 19th.

So where are the journalists who are willing to do the work to ensure that these stories get told? And where are the camera people and the hackers and the bloggers doing the dirty work? Still fighting, still struggling, still scared to seek the information, well-hidden, that will enlighten readers and destroy the messenger.

Bored

I'm bored. Bored, I tell you.

Not with this life. No, never that. Bored with this blog.

Bored with this layout. Bored with it's lack of content. So bored that I barely write in it. More bored than my handful of readers, probably.

Should I close it? Should I re-design the layout in the hopes that it would inspire me to keep coming? Should I truly put myself out there more than I've been doing?

Should I be so bored?

It's OK, Gary

We still love you.