What lies beneath?

'Apostroph'. It's the French word for apostrophe. I saw a sign today that read "Buses and Authorized Vehicle's Only" and it occurred to me that the problem isn't the apostrophe, it's what lies beneath.

I remember many years ago, when I was at college as an undergraduate, students were signing in to the matricaluation book with their names and their year of graduation but instead of writing Mary Smith '90, they were writing Mary Smith 90'. See the difference? The apostrophe BEFORE the 90 means that something has been omitted (the '19'). The apostrophe AFTER the 90, means that something has been left out as well, but it ain't the 19. Seems to me that what's been left out there is the understanding. This is not a situation where either notation could be right. One is right, the other quite simply, is not. The way language evolves though, for all I know, it's now considered perfectly acceptable to shorten the date in that way. Pity.

When I saw today's sign, I wondered about the understanding that informed the writing. It seemed to me that neither the writer nor the maker of the sign (and this was no paper sign stuck on a window, no indeed, this was a permanent sign with a metal sign post in the sidewalk) knew the difference between "vehicles"and "vehicle's".

I suppose you could say that it's no big deal but I don't think that's really the case. For every sentence I write, there's a right way to write it and a wrong way. Let's just take that last sentence right there: For every sentence I right, theirs a write way to right it and a wrong way. Now tell me that it's just an apostrophe or it's just a simple spelling mistake. It really ain't. There's right and there's write.

What lies beneath? If you don't know the significance of the apostrophe, or the significance of 'their' vs 'there'; 'right' or 'write' those are not simply spelling challenges, those are potentially comprehension challenges. When we don't comprehend the basics of language, how then do we comprehend the far more complex things that language communicates? As very young children, we learn to read. Later, we read to learn. At some point, our reading should inform our ability to understand and to make ourselves understood, either in speech or in writing. This isn't about writing well. I'm not asking anyone to be this generation's Shakespeare, I'm just saying that we should know the difference between 'vehicles' = more than one car and 'vehicle's' = belonging to the vehicle. Knowing what it is you want to communicate (possession (vehicle's) vs plural (vehicles) vs omission ('90) in the case of the apostrophe), is a good place to start. As for 'there' and 'they're' or 'their', that's a whole other story.

"They're going to leave their vehicle's tires over there". Maybe it's time to bring back dictation in the classroom.

Insight

She creeps quietly into the room
She stands, silent, in the corner
Can you hear her?

She only ever whispers

She comes not with loud clomping footsteps,
Nor banging door
She comes quietly
She stands
She waits
She whispers


Be still
She will not shout
Be still
Keep silence
Be still
And hear, and know


She stands on the edge of your consciousness
Just there, just beyond what you can see
Waiting for you to be still
Be still!

She whispers
But when she speaks
Her words roll loud as the thunder

Corruption: victimless crime?

At the same time yesterday, as many Trinis were enjoying the thrill of Keshorn Walcott's success in the 2012 London Olympic games (javelin), the people of Diego Martin and points west were enduring a thrill ride of an entirely different kind: the Great Deluge of August 2012 was in progress. When the rains finally stopped pounding down, rivers had overflowed their banks, drainage systems had given up the ghost and water was everywhere....mostly in places we don't want it to be; 2 were dead and 2 more were missing.

We in Trinidad have something of an edifice complex. We like big house. We are also not afraid to be a little corrupt if necessary, to get said big house put up on some high hill. So we will pay whomever we must, to get what permits or permissions we must, to build what we must, where we must have it. The trouble with that is that when trouble comes, as it did yesterday, it's not just you in your big house that's at risk. Suddenly, the corruption that put you in your big house up in the heavens, puts me in my little house way down below, at significant risk too. And that's risk I didn't ask for and shouldn't have to assume.

Over the last many years, we have been blithely gouging great chunks out of the sides of hills. What exactly did we think would happen? Hills don't generally grow back, they can't regenerate, at least, not that I've seen. So we've gouged; slashed and burned (our subsistence farmers are famous for this); and the dry season has parched and burned lands and no attempts that I've seen, have been made to stop or redress any of these activities.

We go on telling ourselves, "Gawd iz ah Trini" (God is a Trini, ergo all shall be well) and do nothing to fix what we've broken. Well all isn't so 'well' this morning is it? There has been loss of life, along with some pretty significant property damage and losses. Even now, I am waiting with bated breath to hear about the state of my own house in the west and those of various friends in same affected neighborhood.

Corruption hurts. We may like to believe that corruption is a victimless crime but nothing could be further from the truth, as this weekend's flooding shows. We want to think that it's just a bribe so that we can get what we want, but I would suggest that the fact that you need to 'pass change' as we say in T&T, means that what you want is not in the best interests of the collective. And to be clear, let me say that subsistence farming on state lands by squatters is as harmful to the collective good as is privately funded construction of questionable legality or government-sanctioned hill-gouging practices.

As a people, we have committed numerous sins against the environment. Unfortunately, many of those who are today paying the price of those sins, may have committed none. Plenty of folk who don't dump; don't slash and burn; and maybe even try to recycle (a tough thing in Trinidad & Tobago) are this morning facing a mountain of mud and debris and stiff clean up bills for their homes. In some cases, they may have lost everything they own.

It is often said that the Earth is on loan to us from our children. We need to wake up to the fact that it is not a roll of toilet paper. There aren't 10 different varieties on store shelves nearby for when this one runs out. This is the only one we get. We really should treat it that way.

Going for Gold

We (Trinidad & Tobago) have sent 31 athletes to the London games. We won't get 31 golds but we don't need to. We'll win some (well ONE for sure), we'll medal in some, we'll fail to place or finish in others, but in all instances, they will have tried. What more could we ask?

I love my country. I curse it, its politicians, its laissez-faire attitudes, its 'make-the-fool-go-further' approach to business, its attitude to the environment and health and welfare, but I love my country. Still though, one of the things about the country that pains me most is that we don't seem to understand what it takes to be great. And we could so easily be great.

We don't seem to get that for every Keshorn Walcott, who today won a gold medal in men's javelin at the 2012 Olympics, there are hundreds of John Browns, who will win nothing. This does not for a moment mean that the John Browns are worth nothing, but rather that maybe they haven't yet figured out what they can win at. They haven't yet had the opportunity to find out. Keshorn Walcott found out. Hasely Crawford (100 m gold, 1976) found out. Wendell Mottley (100 m silver, 1964, Yale graduate, politician) found out. Ato Boldon found out (3 bronzes and a silver in 2 Olympics and now has a pretty great career as a broadcaster). What about the rest? The job of a good government, a good education system, a good social system, is to ensure that every John Brown, who might otherwise end his race with a DNF - did not finish - has the opportunity to find out where he/she fits and how he/she can add value to the country they love.

Keshorn and the other 30 Olympic hopefuls have found where they want to be and are doing what they want to be doing. They have found where they fit. If we as a nation, are really so worried about our crime situation and our future, we should be trying to find out where the lost boys and girls of POS and environs fit and give them the opportunities to explore the things they are drawn to.

Many years ago, when I was an elementary (primary) school teacher, I had two students whose stories have stayed with me, Johnny and Hakim. Johnny was a little boy whose background I heard was difficult. Johnny was though, one of my hardest working students. When I would give the class ten words with which they had to write sentences, Johnny would come to school the next day with astonishing work. First, this 9 year old boy had the penmanship of an old man taught by some colonial days teacher: beautiful; tidy (almost to a fault); careful. Second, he wrote the most delightful and thoughtful sentences I had ever seen. I don't know that he was trying to please me, but he certainly did. After I quit my teaching position in search of fame and fortune, I once saw Johnny on the street. I asked him whether he was still writing those beautiful sentences to which he replied sincerely, "Miss, we not bright again since you left." Not much has hurt me as those few words did, offered as they were, by an earnest little boy on a street corner. I cannot remember how I responded, I just know my heart hurt.

The second child whose story I think of often, is Hakim. Hakim whispered to me one day that he wanted to be a doctor. I wrote out for him on a piece of paper what the steps would be: high school; O' levels; A' levels; university and then medical school. It all would start with his high school entrance exam which was two years off. We folded the piece of paper and he put it in his pocket. I charged him to hold on to it tightly and look at it every day. It was to be a guide, a tool, a goal sheet.

About 4 years later, I saw Hakim again. Begging. "Hustling a bread" he called it. Where are they now, Johnny and Hakim? I have no idea. Hakim may still be 'hustling a bread' and Johnny may have continued to believe that he was somehow smart only because of me. Either way, that's two that may have been lost because their opportunities were limited at age 9.

Today as we celebrate our gold, bronzes and the years of effort of our athletes, I want to remember Johnny and Hakim. Why? Because on the flip side of every wonderful success are the children who lack even the simplest opportunity to become one tenth of who they should be. Keshorn's success may be our success but by the same token, so too is Hakim's failure our failure.

We have greatness in us. I know it. It is why my country makes me weep. We have greatness in us, but we choose to squander it, to pick and choose who will rise and who will fall. Perhaps these Olympics in which a fella from Toco has won a medal, we will finally begin to understand geographical/racial/gender/ability discrimination cheats us all. Just imagine if the boy from Toco had never picked up a stick to throw. Just imagine if he hadn't been encouraged to dream his dream. What would we be celebrating today?

Emancipate

Is there such a thing as a 'spiritual emetic' or perhaps an 'emotional emetic'? If there is, I need to know where it can be bought. I feel like I need to have some on hand, just in case I absorb anything unhealthy on any given day.

As I was going about my business the other day, I experienced something that made me think that each of us, at some point in our lives, needs to purge ourselves of some of the junk we've imbibed either emotionally or spiritually.

If for example, you have spent much of your life being fed a steady diet of 'you don't belong here', 'you are not worthy', there must - for your health's sake - come a time when you spit that up and out.

If you have spent much of your life being fed a steady diet of 'you are stupid and worthless', there should come a time when you spit that up and out. There should. Indeed, there must.

In Trinidad & Tobago (where I was when these thoughts first occurred to me), we just celebrated Emancipation (August 1st). May I suggest that we all need to emancipate ourselves from the various poisons in our guts and spirits? Get an emetic, a laxative, a counselor, a priest, a shaman. Whatever it takes. Get that garbage up and out and don't for the love of Heaven, go back for more.

As the late great Bob Marley once said, "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." No time better than right now to set yourself free.

The Doctor is IN!

I'm usually very glib about the fact that I have no health insurance. "It is", I typically say, "what it is", but to be completely honest, it really isn't that simple.

Several years ago, one of my lungs collapsed spontaneously. Just like that. One morning, while chatting, I felt a sensation that I can only describe as feeling like I'd been stabbed in the chest. Because it was the right side not the left, I thought it was gas. [If you're a Trini, you understand that you can have gas just about anywhere and it ain't nothing that a hot cup of tea can't fix.] Well I had my cup of tea but it didn't fix it. Soon thereafter, I developed a nasty cough that would not go away.

I was in Trinidad on vacation at the time all this occurred. I hopped a plane two or three days later (don't do this at home!!) and traveled back to the US. A month later, I had the pain again, followed by several days of nasty coughing. At that point, I went to the doctor. I was working at the time and so was insured. Dr. P gave me a requisition to have a chest x-ray done. His style is to test for the worst thing and then work backwards. He doesn't test indiscriminately, but based on what I'd told him: the pain, the coughing and the now second cycle of same, he felt an x-ray was warranted. I took the script and trotted off. I never went for the x-ray until I had a third episode. Don't do this nonsense at home.

On the morning of my x-ray (May 31st, I think), I worked out with Billy Blanks's Tae-Bo for 45 minutes (because I anticipated it would be nothing serious). I then went to work and at 10:00, went for a chest x-ray.

When you do these tests, they test you and then ask you to sit in the lobby and wait to be called. For the well, one of the medical assistants will bring you your envelope of scans and tell you to take them to your doctor. For the unwell, like me, the radiologist herself comes to the door, still dressed in her lead apron and calls your name. When I heard my name and looked up and saw her, dressed in her lead apron, I knew that this was not good. She said to me, "I've spoken to your doctor, (I'm thinking, "Whatchu talkin' to him for????") and he says you should go to the GWU Emergency Room." For the next ten minutes or so, the only words that came out of my mouth were, "Excuse me?".

I went to GWH where they tried to admit me immediately (Uh no eh. Not happenin'.). I was allowed to go home and pack a bag, but surgery was scheduled for that very Friday - 2 June 2006.

A spontaneous pneumothorax is fairly rare, something like 0.1 episodes per 100,000. They usually occur in tall (check), slender (check), 40+ (check) men (uhhhhh no), and the fact that you've had one puts you at no greater risk for another in the other lung but insurers know best I guess. At least they think they do.

My main point is this: crap happens. Health crap happens. I am a freak about eating well and exercising and still had to have $50,000 worth of emergency (?) lung surgery and now, every insurance company tells me, "Oh you had that thing? Well no, we can't insure you. And you have that other thing? Oh Heavens no! We can't insure you!" My 'other thing' I was born with. It was found when I was 37. It's not a big deal but it is an imperfection. Health insurers don't trust imperfections. You just never know when they might start actin' a fool.

So this health care law is a lifeline to me. I have none of the lifestyle ailments: I don't have diabetes, a weight problem, high blood pressure, gout, or anything else and still I am uninsurable. For those of you who don't get that this can happen to you too, trust me when I say it can.

I am so grateful that I can now get insurance, well first I'll have to get a job but that's a story for another day. That must happen at some point but Bless God, the doctor is now IN, even for me. I could not be happier. Never mind my wrenching sobs, I'm very happy.

Happy Father's Day

Good thing I have you.
Can't imagine where I'd be without you.
Let's not get carried away, you're hardly perfect......
Which is fitting, since I'm at least a marathon's run away from perfection myself
Still, it's a good thing I have you

Mother has stories, so do you
So do I, but we're not talking about me (fortunately!)
Remember when I'd had surgery and you called?
You wanted me to 'tell you something good'
That did not go well!
What's good about having a piece of your anatomy resected?
The cure was worse than the disease
All I could tell you was that I was feelin' no pain (thank you Percocet + Oxycontin)
I don't think you much appreciated hearing the truth
Sorry about that. There were things I didn't yet understand
Still, it's a good thing I have you

You didn't come to fatherhood the old fashioned way,
Neither did you come to it easily, I think
You've had to be forced to deal with the unpleasantness of parenting
But I'm proud of how much you've allowed yourself to learn
I'm proud of how much I've allowed myself to learn
You've managed, without knowing it, to model success (haha! you say) and artistic integrity
I don't always agree with you and sometimes I want to smack you but still
It's a good thing I have you

It really is a good thing I have you
It really is a very good thing I have you



To the father who chose me. Happy Father's Day. I love you.  We love you.

A thousand cuts

When we say that we have freedom of speech that means something. What exactly it means, depends on what you want to say and how you mean to say it. I've found that often, we cloak ourselves in FOS when we're about to say something really nasty, perhaps unnecessarily so.

When Rush Limbaugh used some pretty ugly language earlier this week to describe a young woman with whom he disagreed, he used his *free speech* card. He called her a slut on national radio for expressing her opinion with regard to access to birth control. I have to say, that even for Rush, this was going a little too far. It's one thing to have a disagreement, it's another entirely to choose to be so disagreeable.

I get that ratings typically jump the more outrageous the utterances commentators make. I get that some (perhaps many) of us seem to want to fight the culture war by making the opposing side and those holding opposing views 'villians', but even as I get all that, I also get that this level of ugliness in the national discourse, does nothing to advance said national discourse.

Freedom ain't free, so folk often say. In fact, it exacts an extremely high price. Being free means that yes, I am entitled to hold and share my views no matter how repugnant they may be to you. At the same time, freedom should also challenge me to try to share those views in ways that are not repugnant, disrespectful or incendiary. Perhaps I should be asking myself, "Does saying this in precisely this way really move the argument forward? Do I really care to move the argument forward or is my goal just to offend/demonize the other side?" If my goal is only to offend not to influence, then certainly, I can speak as freely and as vulgarly as I wish. If however, my goal is to engage in 'discourse' - which, per dictionary.reference.com, means "a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing" - then I should try to share my ideas in ways that may potentially draw others to my way of thinking or at the very least, not leave them cringing next to their radio. Calling a woman I have never met a slut simply because she holds a different view, is probably not the way to go if discourse is my goal.

I know Limbaugh and others like him, are free to speak.  I also know that this isn't exactly hate speech, but it is hateful. The fact that you're free to do something doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing to do. I'm free to eat 10 pounds of bacon but I don't do it because I know the consequences would be dire. I'm free to drink myself into a stupor on a nightly basis, but I don't do that either because I know my liver won't thank me for it. Good sense prevails because it should and because I don't want to offend the system - my body - with my excesses. The wounds these excesses of free speech inflict upon the body politic are perhaps small, but death by a thousand cuts is still dead. I'm just sayin'.

Viola is not her hair

Apparently, a Black woman's hair is a political statement in the US. I once had an Italian woman tell me (after I'd pressed and curled my usually natural hair) that she could finally take me seriously as a professional. Before the press and curl I was smart and had an MBA. After the press and curl: same IQ, same MBA. So why the change of attitude? I threw back my head, unhinged my jaw and laugh out LOUD because I thought she was joking. She was not. Apparently she's just clueless about diversity and cross-cultural sensitivity. Or something else was at work there.

We (people of color and perhaps others as well) tend to forget that two or three hundred years of investment into the annihilation of Black pride has been quite successful in many respects. Many of us don't really like ourselves and why would we? The first to die in a movie is usually one of us. The bad guy is all too often one of us. The stats on prison rates are all about us. And when we do finally do something right (like maybe win a Presidency), the abuse rains down like you can't believe, up to and including someone shouting out at a State of the Union address, "You lie!". So what's to love about being Black?

In that context, when Black women show up as themselves, fully themselves, natural hair and all, of course it threatens the world order. How is it possible, in spite of all the disapprobation raining down, you still think you all that? Ah, let me tell you.......

The truth is we're not threatening the world order, we've just decided to give up the creamy crack (perm cream), the fake hair, the 'tracks' and the hours in the salon. It's not that big of a deal. Some of us just want to go a different route. That's all. No political message.

To be fair, let me say that it is not only Italian women who offer odd thoughts about natural hair. I've had a Black woman tell me that if I was going to attend a certain high-brow event with her, I would need to get my hair done. "OK", I replied, "it will probably be about time to do it by then anyway, so that won't be a problem." "No, no", she said, "you'll have to perm it or get a weave." When she insisted that braids were 'unsuitable' for such an event, I simply offered that I really didn't need to attend at all.  To her either a weave, or a perm were preferable to the hair my God gave me. I stayed home. 

The real issue IMHO is authentic self-love. Plenty of folk, Black, white and every color in between, have trouble with it - their own and other folks'. Many of us can't stand to look at ourselves in fullness and truth and so when others do it, as sista Viola did, it makes us nervous. Heck, it made Viola nervous to 'come out'! So yeah, people gon' say stuff.
 
Viola is an especially lucky girl because in addition to her inner voice, she also has someone at her side encouraging her to be fully herself not just at home, but in the world where pre-packaged, pressed and presented (some might say 'plastic') is what works best. 

All Vi is saying is this: For my movies, I'll wear a wig. It's part of the costume. But for my life, no hair accessory is required. I'm coming dressed as me. This is me. Love it or leave it.