Catching Up
O’ I have not been able to write for days! That is not entirely true since I’m being kept busy with semester papers and projects. Who sen' meh to go back to school?
When they say ‘read for a degree’ they really mean it (in true Trini parlance, ah telling yuh, meh eye huttin' meh!) and they also mean write a dozen papers, design and build not only prototypes but real thing according to specifications too, even if you do not have an engineering bone in your body! Psst! If you know how to build a tower, I’ll sneak you on the team since none of us are engineers and we need all the help we can get!
Well, as my dear Mrs. C used to say when I would be hugging her and whining “they did not send for you”. “You chose to go, so keep quiet and do.” I used to take meh love bouf (read, as rebuff for non-TnTs) and go do, quietly. Naw, I’m not ready to keep quiet yet.
So as I was saying, no, writing, each day I take 2 hours to sort through my household items to determine keepers, and dumpibles (yes, I just made up that word. English is a changing language) Ha! Ha! Today was bill sorting day. Why, you may enquire do you have to make a day of it? You see I have this habit of keeping bills because there was a time in Trinidad and Tobago when according to the majority of businesses, especially the utility companies you were guilty until proven innocent. You always had to prove to them that you had paid your bills so I got into the habit of keeping each and every bill and receipt! So now I have bills, receipts, old postcards, things to laugh about and things to cry over, since…, no I’m not telling the length of time because it is just too long! Ah shame! LoL! Found one of my first pay slips! People, I was paid NOTHING, the amount was so miniscule. I realize though, it was good training for my current situation where every penny has been pinched till it’s bruised!
Started on a box from 2010/2011 and came upon incomplete poetry once again. Cannot remember everything that was going on in my head at the time therefore I cannot finish most of them. But this one below, while it sounds melancholy, I remember actually giggling while writing it because I was watching the faces of the many patients, trying to have patience while waiting on this man. I was watching the passing years etched on their faces. I wondered at how their beauty had faded into another kind of loveliness that took some getting used to. I remember questioning my own aging and whether or not I would scare myself with my older looks? Somewhere, within all that waiting, and ‘Rubik’s cube thinking’ that my mind often takes, a few words were written in green ink on an old envelope. And which, I now present to you! I hope it triggers your imagination to see beauty in age as I remember seeing it that day.
Until
Thanks for reading! Leave your comments too!
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In the Eye Clinic
Like broken trees we sit
As age works its magic on us
Some of us
Have lost our leaves, while
Others like me
can see the colours of autumn appear
turning our green into gold- yellow, orange, red
as we slowly twirl to earth
our sap drying and the bark wrinkles
Written by: Jeannelle Bernard in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, around May, 2011
Dearest J!
ReplyDeleteMemories are a treasury where we return to dig for past occurrences be they pleasant, annoying, funny etc. Utilities, like taxi drivers, are the same the world over. I think they have the same parents. The Botswana Telecommunications Corporation once sent my mother a hefty bill which included phone calls to Egypt. I put up a spirited but futile argument that we do not know anyone in Egypt except Pharaoh Tutankhamen who died 5000 years ago! I ended up paying anyway because Mum could not be without a phone as she was sickly. She passed on in 2008. Dad preceeded her in 2003. (I am now a 100% orphan. LOL). In short, keep the old bills and receipts; they will save you from greedy utilities, banks, lawyers and other scavengers.
I enjoyed the poem about The Eye Clinic. You have a way with words JinJin.
Cute poem. When will the BOOK be written. Hey might I suggest a " PEN Drive " and possibly a scanner to help will the bill sorting. You might want to look into that.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy,
A Trini in Arizona.
Jeannelle:
ReplyDeleteFunny to me, trees continue to grow even when they are broken . Life rushes out of them in smaller green leaves and odd little stems and branches. In a nutshell, they refuse to lie down quietly and die, but must celebrate every little bit of life with living. m.