Till death do us part

We have had a rough patch this week, but have worked it through and stand stronger as a result. The thing about love and marriage is that when it's bad, it's awful. So awful that you cannot see beyond the immediate chaos... but then... if you are lucky... you get to have someone who is committed to making it work... no matter what. That is the difference between marriage and divorce. It isn't that some marriages are perfect, but that some wholly imperfect marriages are blessed with the commitment to work tough times through.

The thee me wed

Sometimes marriage takes more out of me than I think I want to give.

Sometimes I feel as if my exit strategy wasn't so convoluted, I would have made my way out.

Sometimes I feel like I should expend as much energy on said strategy as on the marriage itself.

Sometimes self-preservation trumps procreation.

"There is no shame in poverty"

ESC told me that last night when we wanted to charge our debit card and I told him the last balance but cautioned that it may be less due to banks fees. I asked him if he wasn't nervous about the possibility of of embarrassment if the card got declined. It was then he looked into my eyes and spoke with the wisdom of someone who had made peace with his reality. When I heard it, it took me a while to allow it to settle in my consciousness. Very strange it seems for a girl who has for all intents and purposes, grown up under very humble circumstances.

It seems that even though that has been my reality, I have never really owned up to it. I have always wanted and worked for more. I have made certain to put myself in a position to rise from my paternal middle & maternal working class family backgrounds, especially in the light of having attending some of the most prestigious schools in my country and having a "First Son" as a boyfriend.

I used to walk with a calculator in my handbag years after giving up math as a subject. I am the college student who would walk to the supermarket adding up the few items in my trolley, making certain to account for taxes, just so that I would not be embarrassed at the counter. I would also meticulously check my balance ahead of purchases so that I wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of having such declined- especially in front of other customers.

I know... I suffer from a lot of pride. Maybe I should add that to my other weakness- impatience. Good thing I don't seem to suffer them with any severity as that would probably mean that I would have been doing underhanded things to get ahead.

Seriously though, when my hubby said that to me last night, I feel like it just went and lit up my entire existence. "There is no shame in poverty."

Ever since I was a child, I was told that I had a "high chest." In other words, I had an affinity for the niceties in life. It didn't help that I went to the schools of the privileged and was surrounded by others who had only what I could dream of. But, by far the worse part is the very dichotomy I often speak of that is my family. I was smack dab in the middle of both a middle class and working class background with parents coming from worlds that never should have collided.

My father's family accepted me but only barely tolerated the fact that I was clearly a mistake from an era before widespread use of prophylactics. My university student father was smitten by the country cousin of his neighbour who was living with that family as a sort of nanny to the sons.

My father's parents were the principal and the arts/craft/social studies teacher. (Though the circumstances of my father's birth was also the fodder of soap operas, that is another story). My mother's parents were the subsistence farmer and the lady who sold excess foodstuff from the farm at the market. My mother did not complete secondary school, having dropped out like most of her 9 siblings.

As much as they tried to do right by me, they really couldn't overcome the disparity between them. They never got married, even though they tried to prolong a relationship. Daddy rented us a house but never came to live with us, even though he was there every morning and evening, picking me up and dropping me home and overseeing my homework. Then he found a woman with whom he could relate - a teacher whose mother was also a teacher.

They married and I went to live with them after my father threatened to take my mother to court for custody and she relented, knowing that he would be better able to give me a life that she would fall very short in providing. It was a painful separation and it made me unstable for very many years to come. Initially I would live with my mother during the week but have piano lessons at my father's on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I would spend the night and would also spend weekends. When people would ask me where I lived, at 8 years old I would say "On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Weekends, I live in Spanish Town with my father and stepmother and on the other days, I live in Portmore with my mother." When I moved to Spanish Town during the week and Portmore on weekends, things never got any less complicated.

As I grew older, I could see the difference between how I lived when I was with my father on weekdays and how I lived when I was with my mother on weekends and it troubled me deeply. I started to hide in closest on weekends when it was time to go to Mommy. It was too much for me. It was two extreme worlds and I was identifying less and less with hers as I grew.

So by the time I won a space in my 90 average high school, I was really muddled. When others spoke of parents who were doctors, lawyers, teachers, housewives, and other semi-important-sounding professions, I could relate from my father's side but my mother at this time had gotten in a relationship with a no-good Rasta man and had become a fishmonger who sold fish on the street side. I could never say that to myself, much less to my classmates. To them, my father sold insurance and had a farm on the side and my mother was a teacher. I adopted my stepmother as my mother, using her life to replace my mother's. I thought it sounded better and it was less confusing.

Things changed as I got older and got closer to my mother, who seemed to understand me better than my father or stepmother. I grew increasingly rebellious and hated my father and started to idolize my mother and her family, seeing the purity of their humble existence while magnifying what I considered to be sheer hypocrisy on my father's side. Daddy became the evil one and I shunned him.

It has always been either or for me where my parents have been concerned. Ever since I was old enough to recognize that there was a huge difference between them, it seemed impossible to balance them equally on a scale.

I still identify better with my father's side than my mother's side but recognize that I owe her side a debt of gratitude for the authenticity that I strive for daily.

As a result of the diversity in my own family life, I am able to dine with kings and yet enjoy the company of their humblest servants. I am able to see people for who they really are and not only for what station they have in life. I married for love. I picked out a man who had good qualities and lots of ambition, with whom I could strive to build my own wealth. I became a better journalist and interviewer, learning to observe and listen keenly to people of every age, station and culture because each has a remarkable story to tell and each has lessons to give. But all this has not come without struggle. And I still struggle to accept what really is.

So when ESC said to me "There is no shame in poverty," it took me way back. I may be a fishmonger's daughter, but I took my time and observed that he was signing the charge receipt before I switched off the engine and joined him. I still have a little of that high chest in me.

The egos of men

Men have egos that are often times bigger than the sum total of all their parts- of which actual working brain matter is a scant fraction.

I knew this before but nowhere do you find more evidence than in the sanctity of marriage... when a bachelor' wings are clipped to prevent straying.

I find the lot of men grossly inappropriate when dealing with the opposite sex. Men unwittingly weave themselves into sticky situations and then wonder how on earth they got all that icky stuff on them. Duh!

What is it about being coupled that makes some men feel so in need of attention and affection of women other than theirs?

Automatically, the wife/girlfriend becomes the anecdotal dragon and stories get rearranged craftily to position the man as a prince in distress, opining to the sensibilities of the woman whose attention/affection/empathy he seeks.

"Oh poor you. Did she really hold out on you after surgery? If you were my man, I would never do that! I would make certain you were rushed back into surgery after getting your stitches ruptured. After all, a good woman NEVER says 'No' to her husband. You know what, even though you are married, if you were nearby, I would help you out."

The foolish woman doesn't realize that she has been pity-played by a cunning manipulator and now he has gotten her to sponge wipe his massive ego. He doesn't tell her of the numerous times he has put off his wife's/girlfriend's advances and how his inability to handle those requests due to him being tired from his super exhausting job has been the bone of much contention. No.... for his stories to other women, the wife is always portrayed in some degree of frigidity and he is of course the hot, raunchy sex god who just wants to give it good and regular! Ha!

Women, don't be fooled. When you hear coupled men uttering any veiled complaints about their women, tell them to sort out their business at home and stop twisting stories for the ear of every other woman. It is very likely to be bullshit. This is the reason married men are always "going to leave" lives, or their "relationship is on the rocks," or they are "waiting for the right moment to leave."

There are those men who fabricate these hard luck relationship stories as part of some justification for flirting and flirting only. But even so, sometimes the flirting goes to a level that would make a reformed prostitute blush. There are others, who have every inclination to take it as far as you will allow. Everybody has problems in relationships. Every human relationship will have moments of strain and weakness, you just have to make certain that you are not a pawn in a chess game in which you have no chance of ever coming out winner.

If I had a dollar for every newly married man who increased felicitations in direct correlation with complaints about new wives having headaches, periods, or not satisfying them sexually, I would be a wealthy woman. But nothing is more disgusting than a newlywed who is already looking outside of his marriage to build his egolust.

As Ma would say, if a man is complaining about his wife ... just nip it in the bud and say "Leave her and come." If she is so bad, he would be doing everybody a favour.

On the eve of our first anniversary

ESC (Easy Skanking Chef) and I came home a few hours ago from our 3-night hospital retreat. Sunday night he came home and made a mad dash for the bathroom, threw up a few times and the rest is history. Two hospitals, emergency surgery and all that jazz. Of course all of this happened while I have been suffering through the longest bout of colds/asthma ever faced by anyone without health insurance. Thank heavens he had insurance and was covered... I am just as sick as a dog and nursing my hubby back to health.

The place is a mess and so I am trying to tidy up little by little. I am getting a housemaid to come for a few hours in the morning to tackle the major things that would set my allergies reeling with a free pass to the emergency room.

I am also applying for a job tonight with the company I want to work for here. It is an entry level job but it comes with a decent salary and benefits, not the least of which is health insurance.

The trailing spouse: this woman's story

My cousin asked very poignant questions about the possibility of me packing up and moving again to follow ESC and where in all that would I find a place for my own dreams. I answered her comment directly but I am posting parts of it here because I thought others may be wondering the same thing.

I am living my own dream, even if it is while trailing his. Fact: I love to travel. Fact: I dream about living all over. Fact: He is more likely, based on his own career choice to be the one who will easily get work.

We decided before we got married that we would spend several years living the expatriate life, soaking up the experiences and then eventually settle down when we had children who were ready for school.

I made a choice to come over on his visa because the other choice was him on mine since the jobs that he was interested in nearby me had dried up due to recession. I decided that I didn't want to start off a marriage with an emasculated man and since he was willing to give it all up to come and be with me, I decided not to let him and come instead.

There are a million zillion things and dreams I have and marriage doesn't stop me from reaching them. In fact, my marriage is the conduit for a lot of them.

We are BOTH making sacrifices for the first three (or so ) years of our union that will have a HUGE impact on our lives later on.

Fact: His hours are RIDICULOUSLY long. Longer than even those in the same industry in the Caribbean. Fact, the quicker he gets higher, the more time we will have together.

Fact: His next appointment is seeking to place me also so I will have my own work even in the midst of him rising. It makes sense for me to transition into the industry to ensure long term job placement as his trailing spouse.

Fact: Even when he reaches Exec Chef, he will have really long hours, it would be wise to ensure that I have a chance to work part-time so that I can satisfy my desire to work part-time when we have children because the two of us cannot be hard hitting at our careers and raise a balanced family.

Fact: Even if he reaches Exec Chef and I decided that I wanted to head back full force into the game- switching Mom jeans for a smart business suit- after being sick of trailing him he would be willing to put his career on hold for me and mind the chilrun.

Fact: Two of us cannot give the same output at the same time due to the nature of our careers and expect anything but a failed relationship.

The morning before the wedding

ESC is playing me love songs. His good underwear are washing. The one that holds my stomach in a little is drying. My overnight bag is almost fully packed. Two more guests have confirmed bringing the total numbers to 7. Seven is a good number.

We were up until 7 am. He came in at 4. We video chatted with Imelda and ran everything by her until we got her "in-charge" approval. Even practiced the kiss that is meant to preserve lipstick and not have him walking around looking like a pansy.

We held each other closer than ever before. We talked. He massaged me and moisturized my AC depleted dry skin. He massaged my feet. Both of us thought of that first foot massage four years and and where it has taken us. We kissed. We knew we made the right choice. We let go everything we had been holding back. We finally, completely really tuned in.

I am wearing a panty that says "Soon to be Mrs" on the back. Tomorrow this time, I will be wearing a much less conservative one that says "Bride" on the front.

He is gone to get us drinking water and a surprise for me. He hasn't been able to withhold surprises before. Just this one.

I am going to take a bath with Imelda's homemade kosher lemon grass soap. And wash mi foot in the tub (chisel down with pumice). He will massage me with olive oil to further moisturize my skin.

I will never forget this morning. We should have taken a picture. Just for us. Now, when everything is just- perfect.




P.S. Yesterday...
The florist at his hotel kept on smiling at him yesterday. Florists are privy to everybody's secrets. Well perhaps only those who say it with flowers. This is his second purchase their. Both have been for me.

Note from a spinster

I used to hate that word. "Batchelor" conjures all things George Clooney and "Spinster"... my granny's miserable twin sister. "Batchelorette" may be politically correct but I am not certain that the British First Aid in English has made that the official synonym for "unmarried woman."

Then somewhere along the way...through great soul searching, I found my peace with the word, the term, the concept, the existence. I was an unmarried woman, no? A spinster, no less, no more.

I started off my 20s as most of us do questioning everything. God, religion, family, friendship, relationships, people, the opposite sex, the same sex, age, work, love, hope, life, peace, sanity, identity. I started off my 20s depressed.

I remember Azikiwe explaining to me at about 23 years old that my constant doodling of abstract faces and my counter-depressive practice of drawing faces with charcoal in a drawing pad was the revelation that I was questioning my identity. It was subconscious. But I had every right to be doing so.

I had some fundamental paradigm shifts in my last summer of being 19- the one that ushered in twenty. Being born in early August means that I spend two summers at every age. The ushering in...and the fading out.

It was a cathartic point. I made decisions that would forever disrupt my worldview and how I viewed myself in it. Therein lies the conflict. If I no longer knew who I was after 19 years, then who was I really?

That took me years to answer. Almost 10. And it wasn't smooth sailing.

There were some hits and plenty more misses. In the quest for finding out something of which you know the foggiest, there are often times more failures than successes. There were many lessons in that... chief of which was the one taught by the harrowing process itself- resilience. Anyone can fail. Everyone will fail. It is the process of starting over after failure that truly reveals character.

So there were many starts. I started many jobs. Many relationships. Many friendships. Many interests. Many philosophical outlooks. Many self-help projects. Yet, I continued to fail.

And then... as I developed a new language to name this new identity that I was discovering, I began to have a concept of who what where when why and why not.


Fire. Fascinating. Beautiful. Hot. Burns.

Talent. Embedded. Growth. Release.

Work. Love. Visible. Square-peg. Round-hole.

Love. Fascinating. Uplifting. Transforming. Hurts.

Grace. Undeserved. God. Granted. Revealed. Redemptive.


I have been thrashed about on love's floor and broken into pieces. Yet, like the phoenix from the ashes, I rise.

I rise, rose and continue to be risen, pressing on to greater glory higher than my own.

This is a gift...this spinster business... what else could nine years of finding yourself be?

So at the end of it all, on this the twilight of a new day in my journey, I salute the spinster in me, who has helped me to define me.

I walk away from this place whole and into a marriage whole. I am whole on my own. Even in my darkest hour. I am happy on my own. Even in my moments of utter despair. I find my own joy. It lies within when all beauties fade.

I have grown. Leaps and bounds. Ask anyone who truly knows me. But how? Because I have lived in every moment-good and bad and allowed them to take me places hitherto unreachable. In doing so, I discovered my biggest revelation of all time. Grace.

I give thanks.

My last weekend as a bachelorette...

Well we're movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.


Fish don't fry in the kitchen;
Beans don't burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin',
Just to get up that hill.
Now we're up in the big leagues,
Gettin' our turn at bat.
As long as we live, it's you and me baby,
There ain't nothin wrong with that.


Well we're movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

The unbroken circle

These past few weeks since my arrival in Dubai have been somewhat of a crescendo in my life experience. There is a whole lot going on... and in moments like these I tend to be quiet. I have to be quiet because I know God is speaking to me.

I can't say that He speaks in a baritone or a husky English accent or even that He uses the language of Rastafari because I cannot honestly say that I know what His voice sounds like. But I don't limit his ability to communicate with me just through voice anymore. It's being led to read a passage in the bible that is applicable to what you are going through, it's seeing the way ESC looks at me, it is experiencing the fruits of a wholesome, healthy love on a daily basis, it's the small job opportunities that are aligned to where I am and where I want to go; it's leaving home and heading further than I have ever been and knowing deep in my heart that my home is anywhere ESC is; it's realising that for all the good things I see manifest on a daily basis, it is the hand of God that makes it possible.

When I tell people of the good news of our engagement and nuptials, they seem to say in accord "You deserve it." But I don't. There are more "deserving" people walking hungry in the streets. It is by grace that my blessings are given. It is with great humility that I receive.

I know, and have known perhaps forever that I am destined for greatness. Greatness is as you define it. I am realising that the greatest thing of all is to be content in whatever circumstances because "The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need." It is a humbling existence, yes, just sitting back and allowing God to be God rather than running around like a headless chicken profiling as the "in-charge" of my life. My mantra is "Let God be God." Simple but effective.

Simplicity is blissful. Truly. I am certain that I wont always have so much time to myself, but I am reveling in it now. ESC works long hours and that gives me space to do what I need to do.

I have grown. Immensely. I can recognize it. There was a time when the only time I truly acknowledged the power and grace of God was during the bad times. Now the good times are just as humbling. It means that He has sufficiently broken and moulded me to the point where I fall in thanksgiving at the sight of a blessing. I don't believe in luck. Luck is for those who do not believe in anything bigger than themselves. I don't believe in randomness. I believe in order-divine at that. And my life, as haphazard as it may seem at times, is ordered.

I see how things connect. Every conversation, every encounter, every thing I feast my eyes on, everything I listen to, every experience I have had, and even everything I do.

ESC asked me for a facial at 3am this morning and as soon as I touched his face, he began to doze off. When I was through, he hugged me and said "Thank you."

"That's what I am here for," I replied.

And it is.

I am here to love and support and challenge and encourage and give and receive. I am a vessel. My life is not my own. My dreams are a mere fragment of my purpose.

We have decided to be on a sexual fast fast in these two weeks leading up to our wedding- a lesson in restraint, but I felt deeply convicted for us to be prostrate before God alone during this time leading up to such a huge milestone in our journey. It is about us asserting that God is the centre of this union and without Him, we would not have been here, and we cannot make it. It is about seeking his continued blessings for our spiritual, physical, emotional and financial health. It is about praying for the blessings of our unborn children. It is about us individually and collectively aligning ourselves to His will.

This is the biggest step we have both made in our lives and there are lots of emotions that come with such change. This is our time to be still and know who is God, and to let His divine order take up permanent providence in the way we live our lives together.

I have learned a lot about love from ESC. In many ways, he has re-written my book of expectations. My standards we lowered and he raised them up by treating me like his queen. I feel like royalty. I am royalty. Daughter of the Most High... and queen to my earthly king.

All of this makes me humble because I can remember countless nights and days of bawling my heart out to God praying for Him to send me someone who truly loved me in a godly way. Someone to be there for me. A life partner that knew Him and was thirsty for Him.

These were my prayers from over 10 years ago. I have had my heart broken several times since because I was busy doing it on my own and looking for love in the wrong places. A girl gets hurt that way.

I am not saying that I have been a saint-by no means have I- and therein anchors my point. None of this is deserving. I am not getting any of this peace, and joy and spiritual green pasture because of something I did...it's all by grace.

There are two people in my life whom I would have loved to be here with me to experience just how much their baby has grown up- Aunty Bev and my mother's youngest sister, Cover who was more a big sis than an aunt. Both died of cancer. One when I was 11 and the other when I was 24. I know that they have been here with me all the time though, and helping me to fight my battles in the spirit.

I know ESC also wishes his father could be here. He died before he really got a chance to know him after he left his wife with 5 children. I know that ESC wants to draw on his own father's strengths and build on his weaknesses. I know that he will be a better husband and father than his own because he knows what not to do.

I thank God that I have a father who has been a brilliant example even though it hasn't been easy to have a child as fierce as me:). He never gave up on me. And my mother who has made her fair share of mistakes but who has proven to me in so many ways that there is absolutely nothing like a mother's love. For Imelda for being my surrogate... some bonds do not have to be biological to be powerful. And to Rootical Flava who has been there from day 1, through the highs and the crashes and still answers her phone in the middle of the night. I would have had a nervous breakdown or two in my life if God didn't place you all in my life.

I know that the struggles will come. They are part and parcel of the process, but as I have learned form Muslims since I have come, when things are going bad or good, I will "Look up and say 'Thank God.' "

A wedding for Sheer Almshouse

It's official. The date is set. Marriage counselling attended. Church booked. Tears shed. October 14, 2009. Dubai.

Yes, ESC and I are really getting married.