If a photograph is worth a thousand words, then my recent profile pic update (see it to the right) is speaking volumes.

I am thirty five years old. I’ll be thirty-six in April. This year proved to be trying and trial, but most years present this way. This year was hell on everyone I think.

I made and did amazing things and despite the global financial situation, and my enormous challenges, I had some really interesting developments. I may write more about these later. Now the story of the little red dress.

In February I was diagnosed with chronic gall bladder disease. Because I opted not to have my gall bladder removed, managing it with a change in my eating habits, it has led to some of the most dramatic weight loss in my life. I’ve dropped from the 16-18 I’ve pretty much been since I was 19, to somewhere between a 8-12. Something like 60 or 70lbs.

Read more…

Yes folks, its official. More than two years since the last attempted murder on my heart, and I am feeling myself get ready to take on something more.

Lest you feel I know who it is, let me assure you: There are no present candidates.

However, I’m beginning to feel the slow burn of anger and my sense of betrayal to dissipate. I am feeling hopeful and free. Frustrated yes, because things aren’t happening as fast as I would like, but I take steps everyday to get to where I have to go. I take as few detours as I can.

I am getting there. Slowly, but surely.

I have pretty hair. Store bought hair true, but it is pretty. I bought pumice stones and foot brushes, dug out my foot scrubs and started to take care of my feet. Ya’ll I bought my first tube of lipstick, and a lip liner for the first time in three years, just last week. A magnificent shade of red might I add, in the tone I always wear. I still haven’t bought those high heels, but we’ll see how it goes.

The point is, I am changing my ways, and trying to work on this beauty regime. I am loving me in absence of lover. I am beginning to trust myself again. So maybe I will find a way to start trusting someone else again.

I am also trying to find a way to balance my home life. It’s hard, because I work and live in the same the same. My bed and the bed of my child, are mere feet from where I work. So this is the major challenge of my life.

I must admit, I’ve spent the better part of the last couple of years, holding the world at bay as much as possible, so I could stay here and spend time with Dayo. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. However, I find that depending on one source of revenue in Barbados, is proving a significant barrier to being able to afford to live independently, and still provide the kind of quality of life I want for my son.

Fortunately, for the first time in my experience of living in Barbados, I am finding opportunity all around me. I am taking on all I can, some I shouldn’t and am to the point where I must SCHEDULE projects in order to work on them. I make every effort to be pro-active about my work, and although production becomes frustrating as soon as more than two or three people are involved, I am still producing as much high quality work as I can and making a living.

I am surviving, and it pleased me to be able to start setting aside some money to groom myself.

One of my mother’s oldest friends, my Auntie M. — who my mother says is more like me than she will ever be (and this is truth) — has said to me on the phone and in person more than once, “when you were a little girl, you were the colour of honey and you lived in the Sea. You had magic coming off you in waves, and anyone who saw you, saw that.”

She says this, to remind me of myself. This daughter of the Sea, who never goes there anymore. Maybe I need to find a flat close to the sea. On the edge of water, and live there for a year or two.

I need to find that honey-coloured girl again, who didn’t need pumice stones, because the reef she played on kept her feet complete smooth. Who didn’t need lipstick, because her lips were always red stained with whatever fruit was around to eat. Who didn’t need pretty hair at all, and in fact spent most of her childhood with a low boy’s cut. I need to find that magic girl again.

I remember that the magic was my innocence. I was sad even then, and much too serious my mother has always said, but I know what Auntie M. means about the magic. I’ve forgotten what I had by grace, and must now learn again painstakingly.

I need to keep loving myself up. With Dayo’s help — he’s very much into kissing these days — I am forcing myself to do it, until I mean it. Until loving myself is habitual and requires no effort.

I’m getting to this dontcareish point where I just not letting myself get worked up over anything anymore. Where are my feelings?

I am getting fat!!! I’ve put on weight over the last three months, and a lot of it has to do with not being able to settle down and worrying. I wish money wasn’t an issue. I wish I…. I don’t know what I wish to be truthful.

My line manager is trying squeeze out as many days, managing to extend my contract by almost two weeks, which is good, because that gives me more time to figure out what the ass I’m doing.

I am quite eager now for the fat hairy bitch with crabs and constipation that this commute to stop being a regular part of my life. Now that I know that I’m leaving for sure, and there’s a date attached to this, I just wish it would hurry up and finish so I can get on with my life.

In a very real way, I’m preparing myself for the possibility of going back South for a few months at least… however, like always my belly is telling me it won’t come to that.

For now, it’s good enough for me to know that I am getting a couple more weeks of work (and since I’m on a daily rate, it’s the days that count!!) and tomorrow I begin a four-day weekend!!

Oh yes, oh yes! Four days of not battling the train… of sleeping until 9am (I’ve tried and I simply can’t sleep past 9am anymore.)

Tomorrow is also the worldwide launch of MacOsX Tiger and I want to go to the launch party at the Regent St. Apple Store. I want to line up like a geek for hours so I can say I did that shit. Those are experiences you don’t get down South, so I’d like to soak it up.

I spoke to my mother twice yesterday, and I didn’t tell her about the contract not getting renewed. I don’t know why, but I simply didn’t have the energy to deal with her disappointment, her negativity and such. It’s not that she’d say it’s my fault or anything, it’s just I can’t handle the disappointment in her voice, and knowing her, she could quite easily say something she considers to be the ‘truth’ of my situation, but in fact is quite mean. I just can’t face that.

This is weird for me because I usually tell my mother everything as it happens. So to have known such life effecting news for now two whole days and not called her and told her, feels very weird. It feels grown up too, I must say. In a way it’s my independence from having to report all my activities. I’m accountable certainly, but to myself, not my mother.

At any rate, more possibilities and opportunities are presenting themselves. I’ve been steadily sending out at least ten CVs a day, and getting call backs so at least I’m not desolate…

This weekend as well, is a White Bath weekend and I plan a feast for my Egun. Prayer helps… helps one to focus on that which is important: the balance between the temporal and spiritual.

God is good!

So it’s not quite that I’m dontcareish. It’s more like I am not sweating anything anymore.

Right now, I just want to focus on spiritual growth and dropping poundage. I’m getting fat ya’ll… it’s terrible. My eating habits have never been good, and I’m feeling it catching up with me, no joke.

So there it is, my (very) little flat.

The flowers are from my neighbours upstairs.

On Sunday they managed to get locked out of their flat, and they’re on the top floor. They tried every door and either noone was home (unlikely that early on Sunday) or noone would help them. When they got to my door, (I’m #1) they asked if they could use my phone to call the landlord company to get someone to come let them in to their flat.

So I didn’t even answer, just put the phone in their hands.

A couple of nights ago, I was cooking my dinner in the tiny kitchen, and I heard this soft knocking. I ignored it at first, because a) meh nah expect nobody and b) know noone in the building.

There they were, coming in from out, and told me they just wanted to thank me for helping them and then presented my shocked face with this enormous bouquet.

Actually that’s the first time anyone’s ever given me flowers.

Isn’t that just sweet? A cute little Eastern European couple… just lovely.

Well, well, well…. I gots news for ya babies.

Thursday and Friday evenings after work, I went to see flats. Friday night I saw a flat share in Marylebone that was looking workable, but wasn’t going to become available until sometime in April. Chile, I was looking to find somewhere right away. I don’t think I could have lasted anymore with that ‘getting-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn-to-go-to-work’ business, not even another week. The next place, in Bayswater, was a S-H-O-E-B-O-X! Teeny tiny, and cramped, and on the second floor but very, very cheap for the location. I would have done it though, because you can walk to Paddington in less than ten minutes from there… on the tube, two minutes tops…

Now all week I had this funny feeling in my stomach that it was going to be the Queens Park studio I was going to take; but you know, you have to explore as many options as possible.

On Saturday, my girl Ms. G, met me after a Friday night, late night dick run, at Queen’s Park train station to go view the flat in Queens Park.

As soon as I walked in, I knew it! This is the one, my belly rumbled. It’s a cute little butter coloured studio flat, with a huge ground to ceiling bay window. It’s got a tiny kitchenette and a fair sized bathroom with a postage stamp sized shower stall and a double bed.

The guy asked me when I wanted to take it, and I asked him if I could come that night. We cut a deal on the deposit and the rent, and signed the paperwork and got my keys and pow! Ms G and I went back to her place in Fulham, and I called around and got a taxi to come and collect me, and by 7.30pm that night I was there.

After a quick run to the corner shop for coffee, bread and juice. I fell fast asleep. The early Sunday morning sunlight found me in my own place, just glad to finally have my own space.

So there you have it darlings, I’m independent in London at last.

On the way to the flat on Saturday night, I told the taxi driver I was excited because for me, my life in England began on Sunday for real. I am suddenly feeling human again. Like a brand new person!

I shall take pictures for you….

Feeling pretty good today.

I was paid on Friday, so I am officially a HIGHLY PAID well employed woman.

Yesterday I went to see a babalawo. I want to tell you all about how he saw this and that. Mostly he told me that I need to stop worrying so much. Also, that I need to stop talking out my business before I’m finished.

For the most part though, it is an echo of things told to me before. I have work to do, certainly, but for the most part all is well with me. I am safe, I am being protected and there’s no rush for me to do anything. I can take my time and develop myself and my spiritual skills in my own time.

Right now, the sun is shining in my life.

Eh… allyuh, when ah get a chance ah must tell you about this Jamaican fella that tracking me serious, serious, oui? Chile, two and three times a day he’s calling me.

He’s very sweet and amazingly, we have the same birthday, born in the same year. Hmmmm…. it’s interesting. The Nigerian guy who I had a date with in late Nov. last year, has popped back up and the Ethiopian is also on the scene. Most interestingly, there’s this whitebread Aussie guy who seems interested as well. Nice fella…. met him on the train again this morning. He’s sweet, he’s given me my first Valentine’s day pressie in at least a year or two. Actually, he got some free chocolates at the entrance to the train station and he gave them to me. So I dunno if that actually counts. Anyway, I think he’s cute and for me to admit I’m attracted to a white boy is quite momentous.

Even more momentous, is this overwhelming male attention I seem to be getting right now. I think my pheremones are sending out the old ‘come hither’, because chile, meh goan need a stick soon fi beat dem off.

No sexual joy yet though. Nothing to report on that front, but the day is young. There may be news tomorrow.

As of this afternoon, I am still fundless.

However, that will change next week as I have made arrangements to be paid every week, and there’s only one small  piece of paperwork left to fill out, and that’ll be done today or Monday, and then I’ll get paid on Wednesday.

So this is where I guess the surreality part comes in. Despite all the horrors of the last year, at this moment I feel like I did when I got on the plane to come up to England. As though I was in a dream and I was afraid to wake up and find out it wasn’t true.

I am in England. It’s been more than a years since I started writing about leaving the Caribbean and coming up here. To be honest, you know, even as I was psyching myself up for the leap, there’s a real  serious part of me that didn’t think I was going to get up here. And by here, not just being physically in England, but here, in a great job, working for a multi-national billion dollar company, working with cutting edge technology and making very good money too.

I guess once I was up here too, and the job didn’t happen in the first few weeks like I had hoped, it was just a constant battle against self doubt, stress, poverty and itinerance. I lost my heart many times to the fight, and it was all I could do to just curl up and cry my heart out. I’ve cried so much in the last two years.

Somehow though, as dreamlike as this week has been (and I do mean it, not just my awe at my physical surroundings and such, but because I’ve been getting up at 5AM every morning to haul my ass across London, then on to the Thames Valley to get to work on time) I guess my indulgence in self pity was just that. Because in truth, I wondered about the inherent promise of water the numerous signs this particular leg of my life’s journey indicated, yet took so long to materialise once I was here, I don’t think it shook my faith in the choices I made. In fact, in made my faith in God, my faith in the Ancestors and the Orishas even stronger. There is no other force that could have brought me to this point. It was purely the strength of my own will and that of the Orishas and Ancestors working together.

I look at my life now, and I realise I have a social life. A real social life with friends, outings, meetups, parties, limes, shopping (even with no money) and most amazing of all, in LONDON! I never thought it was going to be London, in my mind I was going to go to Birmingham or Manchester, not London. Yet here I am.

Surreal. Like I said.

So most critical right now — other than getting enough money to get to work next week, because again I am down to nothing and with no guarantee of getting money this weekend so again I don’t know how I am getting to work on Monday — is finding a place to live after the 4th of March.

Tonight’s the night, going down to Fulham to stay at Ms. G’s.

I’m trying to find a flat near Paddington, which is the station I leave from every morning. I need to do that to avoid dramas like this morning.

I left in enough time to get to the station before the 7.30am train, yet once I got to North Greenwich, it was to discover the the Jubilee line was suspended between Waterloo and Baker’s St.

Worse, the train inched it’s way to Waterloo. It was held at North Greewich for nearly ten minutes. That’s ten minutes of being PACKED up against people in a seriously crowded train. Got to Canary Wharf, and was held on the platform for yet another ten minutes. Got to Canada Water, another wait; got to Bermondsey, YET ANOTHER WAIT.

By 7.30am, I was still in London Bridge. In the end I had to get the Bakerloo into Paddington, and waiting a half hour for the 8.35am Exeter St. David’s train, got to work about an hour late.

It’s a good thing it’s so relaxed here, because noone batted an eyelid, it seems their quite used to commuters, since a good chunk of the people here commute from London or near London.

Anyway, I’m hoping to get a little place somewhere near enough to Paddington to cut down on not just travelling time to work, but the chance of delays cramping me that badly.

I’m hoping to find a nice place; somewhere with wooden floors and big windows. I don’t need much, but I don’t want to be cramped either.

So we’ll see how it goes, eh?

Anyway, the same way I got to work this week, is the same way I’ll get to work next week I guess. By the grace of God and the kindness of someone.

So I made it through my first week of work. What a blessing to be able to get up in the morning and come to work! It’s amazing how easy it is to take things for granted, but I will always remember how badly I wanted this job.

As much as I say that, I’m really, really looking forward to sleeping later tomorrow and Sunday! Also, looking forward to not having to get up at 5AM, next week.

Ahhh…. simple pleasures; simple joys.

I’ve been sitting on this entry for a number of days, and been fighting up with the London cybercafes and shit, believe me, I wasn’t getting through. I’m here at one of my mother’s friends posting this, so don’t dig nothing if it’s a little out of date.

——

Well it’s been a few days and still all I can report is that this is definitely as different as you can get from where I just left.

It’s surprisingly hot in London and I understand there’s a heat wave to hit us come Sunday.

It’s been interesting, the last few days. First off, I really didn’t have any jet lag. After my girl, monilove23 met me at Gatwick, we lugged my suitcase and heavy ass duffle through the airport and onto a DLR (Docklands Light Rail) train then switched to tube.

We got out at North Greenwich station and got a cab to Maryon Rd, where she (and well now I do to) lives.

She lives with one of her best friends from Barbados, T and T’s boyfriend an Italian dude M. They were both very cool. We hung out talking for a couple of hours and then well, I crashed. I got very sleepy, but I think it was just because the seat on the plane were so fucking uncomfortable, it felt like I fought with it the next morning. We arrived at Gatwick at about 6AM, so you can imagine I was tired. I only slept for about three hours.

After I got up, we talked some more and watched TV most of the afternoon.

My mother called to make sure I got in without any trouble, and then I made out to the pay phone and called YMK to let him know I got in. I’ve given up trying to reach my father, the phone there just keeps ringing and no one answers.

Then monilove23 and I went to Sainsbury’s to get a proper phone card, then we were hoping to catch a movie. By then it was about 9pm, and there were no shows starting that late, so we came back home and well I knocked out early.

The next day (Wednesday), M took me into Central London! I was so excited. I stopped first and got my travel card. I decided to go with a full month pass, because I hate the nuisance of weekly purchasing. Then we were off!

We travelled the Jubilee line from North Greenwich, then switched to the Northern Line at Waterloo, getting out at Tottenham Court Road. It was marvellous! I was out and about in the city!!

It still feels like a dream, but with the smell of reality.

I didn’t get to explore much, although I did find a store selling Apple computers. It was a spiritual experience for a Third World Mac junkie… to have so many Macs sitting in one place and (omigawd!) a 40GB iPod! Shit, I told Michele to hold me back because I nearly fucked the G5 and the iPod in a cluster fuck. I left the place fanning myself to cool down…. shhiiiiittttt!

I’m going to get that 40GB iPod. I’m just not going to be able to stop myself. I am madly inlove with them and the scroll wheel is back on the new models.

That first day though, apart from the G5 and iPod highlights, we had lunch with monilove in Russell Square, sitting on the grass and soaking up the sun. Then we made our way back to moni’s job, then to Borders! Another spiritual experience for a Third World book slut. I bought £32 worth of books, including the 2005 Writer’s Handbook, Eats, Shoots and Leaves (which is absolutely hilarious and is making me giggle out loud) and The Opposite Of Fate by Amy Tan.

Then we went across the street to Foyles, where I bought nothing, but geeked out on the computer books floor.

A few doors down was a bargain bookstore (I forget the name) where I got a very interesting Tarot deck, the TarotSutra, a deck designed for couples to use as a tool to developing intimacy and sensuality.

On the way back to the tube, because by this time my feet were killing me, I saw a sex shop. I have never been in one before, although one would hardly find one in either uptight Barbados or Catholic Christian Trinidad. I didn’t stay long but it was vvery interesting. I paid no attention to the racks and racks of porn stacked up against the walls and went straight to the sex toys.  My eyebrows raised a couple of times, but I grinned wickedly. I’m definitely taking YMK to this shop when he gets here.

Then it was off home. Later, I called YMK again, because the day before we got cut off and when I tried to call back, the cell phone was off. I told him about the sex shop and declared me a freak.

“Like I lied to somebody!” I replied insouciantly.

He was on his way to Tobago for Great Fete Weekend, where he’ll be working with his uncle and his childhood partner Lizzard Blizzard.

“So you are going,” I commented. There had been a lot of talk about me going up to Bim, then going back to Trini to go. Much talk of us going together. However, in the end I realised I needed to be in england before the end of July, because I need to get a job before September. As it is, I have very little money at all and as much as I am going to buy an iPod, that’s all I can buy before I start to work and it means sacrificing on a lot of other things. I figure it’s worth it, because my life has not been the same since my first Gen iPod died.

“I’m only going to work,” he replied. “Not to party.”

“Oh gorm, throw ya waist nah! Do it for me,” I protested. I wanted him to at least have a little fun on my behalf, I really wanted to go to Great Fete.

“I started writing in my journal again,” he changed the subject.

“That’s so cool,” I replied. I really think it is cool. I’ve been encouraging him for a while to start writing, because he has some talent.

“Well now that I have something to write about, I’m writing it down.”

“What are you writing about?” I asked.

Silence for a second or three. Then, “You know stuff I don’t want to forget, and what’s been happening to me.”

I didn’t push.

He was on the boat over and I’m trying to stretch out a £20 phone card, so we only spoke for a couple of minutes and there was no mushy, “…missing ya” comments.

Yesterday I went into London on my own, and roamed indeed. First, I had some real out of the way adventures on the tube, missing my stop, then going in the wrong direction and having to double back, getting out two stops after the Tottenham Court Road and walking back.

All that said, I saw more of London than the previous day,

Then I went to see monilove @ work and we went to Nando’s in Soho for lunch. She bought.

I made it all the way down Charing Cross Road and knocked about in the second hand book stores, getting another copy of The House Of Spirits by Isabelle Allende. I read it years ago and want to do it again, it was such a good book.

I walked around a little more, but then my feet got tired so I made my way home.

I’m trying to get a cell phone organised, because I really am going to go to war against the pay phone near the building where I am. It’s been eating my money in the most indiscriminate way. You put in a pound, use thirty pence, it doesn’t return your change. You put in two punds you get twenty seconds. WTF? British Telecom see? The parent company of Cable and Wireless, so what does one fucking expect. Gotdam teefing motherfuckers!!

**deep breath**

Well I’m off to meet the dude with the phone. Going back into Central London and will try to meet monilove for lunch again. I’ll pay this time.

—–

Simone and I never had lunch that day, but I met her after work and we went home together.

All of last week I was like a cat; I’ve been making wider and wider circles around the area I know in the West End.

Funny thing is, I’ve been here for less than a week and I feel like I’ve been living here for years.

X Factor

It could all be so simple

But you’d rather make it hard

Loving is you like a battle

And we both end up with scars

Tell me who I have to be

To gain some reciprocity

See no one loves you more than me

And no one ever will

Is this just a silly game

That forces you act this way

Forces you to scream my name

Then pretend that you can’t stay

Tell me who I have to be

To gain some reciprocity

See no one loves you more than me

And no one ever will

No matter how I think we grow

You always seem to let me know

It ain’t working

No it ain’t working

No matter how I try to walk away

You hurt yourself to make me stay

This is crazy, this is crazy

I keep letting you back in

How can I explain myself

As painful as this thing has been

I just can’t be with no one else

See I know what we got to do

You let go and I’ll let go too

Cause no one’s hurt me more than you

And no one ever will

Care for me, care for me

I know you care for me

There for me, there for me

You said you’d be there for me

Cry for me, cry for me

You said you’d die for me

Give to me, give to me

Why won’t you live for me?

Lauryn Hill

(The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill)

——

It’s moments like these, that I’m glad I have a journal that I can pour out my feelings, my disappointments and my frustrations into.  I think if I didn’t I would have gone off completely by now.

Back in November when I wrote about going to England, and getting out of the Caribbean, I declared one of my greatest hurdles was getting past my mother. So said so done.

When it comes to doing things I want to do, my mother is like a vulture watching me walk out the desert, or through canyons and mountains, alone.  She will wait and watch. When the dream dies, she will swoop down and caw, crow over it’s bones and consumes the thin stringy flesh of what is left of my aspirations. She will never mourn the death of my dreams with me, she’s glad to see them fall. If that isn’t true, then in my thirty years of life, she’s yet to show me differently, or say anything that’s differently.

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I am amazed that I am turning 30.

I try to stretch my mind back over the last twenty-six years of active memory, and you know, I don’t think I had any real idea that this was where I was going to be.

blackgypsy said in her blog, that she realised for the the first time that no one had ever brought her flowers. I’ve never gotten flowers either. Isn’t it kind of sad that I’ve reached thirty and not ever had that kind of of typical experience. I also kind of envy American’s for proms, because I would have liked to have one as well.

I want to be careful before I say that my life has been bad. It hasn’t. I’ve been very lucky. It’s very easy though, to let your gratefulness for survival make you not wish to truly ask to live the life you want.

When I was younger, I would hope and wish and want things, only to be bitterly disappointed. So for a long time, I just stopped really hoping, or rather, I’d hope but be convinced no matter what I wanted, I’d never get it, because in the past I never did. What I got was almost always some simulation, or something close but not quite, or a stone when I expected bread.

The last couple of years have been different though. I’ve desired and wanted for myself again; not only that… as much as I have complained about my job and what not, I prayed for stability and regular employment for a long enough period that I could decide what I wanted, and that’s what I got.

I have been blessed, and have been saying that all along.

So why is it that age thirty is freaking me out so much? I know, everybody supposedly goes through this, but I’m just having trouble conceptualising myself in five years. I have been quite apathetic to birthdays in recent years, because they’ve all been depressing or sad. This year, I don’t know how to feel, but weird is definitely one of the predominant motifs of this birthday.

I’ve always been like that. I’ve always had trouble picturing my future. There would be these concepts I would play with, and know deep within I was going to have one day, but where I would be, what I would be doing, these are always things I have trouble picturing beyond, let’s say tomorrow or next week,

I try not to make too many plans… because you know what they say about plans.

It’s just, with just about a week to go, I am a little flabbergasted.

WHAT THE FUCK!! I’m going to be 30!!!

There’s so much I haven’t done and experienced, so much I want to do still… how could I have gotten up here so fast?