June 1st signals the start of read Caribbean Month!
This is what also motivated me to begin this blog. I was creating a caption for my post but it was wayyy over the character limit and couldn’t be posted. However, I still wanted to share the caption with my audience.
The original caption was an extract from a piece of creative writing that I submitted in my first year of University. It was an exploration of myself in this society, which meant I also tried to get certain messages across in my use of punctuation
Here it is:
For me being Caribbean is rhythm, it’s passion, good music, beautiful storytelling, legends and ore, washing your clothes with green soap and a brush until your fingers are numb and peeling, the vaseline that then acted as a salve, Dettol baths, the elders that envelope you in a cloud of Vicks every time you embrace, it’s plan-tin not plan-tayne. it’s the flavours and the food, the Dutchie filled with magic, the ginger, the rum, the pear and having to learn that outside of your people -you have to call it avocado, the bulla (that will never beat the bun) and cheese, the nutmeg and the cornmeal, the condensed milk straight from the tin, the cerasee after eating too much and binding your belly, the vital food still being bomb! it’s the glass front cabinet filled with the good china, my dad’s sound system serenading the summer air, being greeted more kindly by my neighbours when Usain Bolt was on their TV screens, being obsessed with Rihanna and wishing that my Nanna knew her family, going to Carnival and the air feeling mystical and my body feeling light and free but still being aware of the police and knowing the sun is boiling their blood so they’ll want to do something crazy. The next day feeling the weight of the world again when the reports of stabbing’s and gang crime come through. The next year not being allowed to go. It’s being able to tell your kin from anywhere, every holiday and event being a celebration of life, even the funerals, hearing the wickedest curses and experimenting with them under your duvet cover, patois allowing you to almost be bilingual in a way, rolling your eyes when you hear your secondary school teachers butchering the syllables in an attempt to be relatable after they told you to speak properly, my family being a melting pot and being asked how does that work when people look between my relatives and I, not understanding the obsession with gender roles on the Twittersophere because most of the Caribbean men I know cook and clean-because after all cleanliness is next to godliness. giggling with my girlfriends at Vybz Kartel lyrics, dancing with my sister to lovers rock……yearning for a land that I haven’t visited since childhood, being told to go home and being conflicted because where is home? People seeing my dad- is he a rasta? can he get us weed? not minding educating people on your culture and even wanting to share it but also feeling protective of it,… my heart being filled with joy when your nephew and niece embrace their heritage without shame.
What does your Caribbean/culture look like to you?
@TheBraidedBibliophile 