"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.

Filling in the blanks

My granny is very ill and is in hospital.

Diagnosis- rectal cancer.
Prognosis- good. hasn't spread. Likely to have full recovery after surgery and chemo.

And so it is.

When you just can't find the words...

Every family has secrets. I found out mine in a bar. Last year I confronted the situation, trying to get to a resolution- to no avail. This year I almost lost my brother due to a badly broken heart. This is the same heart I was trying to save last year.

I am so heavy right now.

Three Generations

Sweet Honey on the Rock

I just spent an hour on the phone with my MBA-holding economist father, who has been farming for over 20years on the side, convincing him to write a business plan. Yes, it took that long. I had to remind him of the days when he used to tell me that I have every excuse in the book and then some, to justify my latest mediocrity. I pointed out that the conversation was making it clear just where I got that from. He complied. He has made a commitment to me to draft one when he goes on leave from his job as a customs officer in Jamaica.

I have a burgeoning passion for helping to develop the talent around me. So much of it lies in my family. But sometimes, we are restrained by fears of failure and the need to guarantee income to take care of the monthly expenses that come whether or not you sell on drop of honey or a morsel of cake.

So I understand. Having taken that plunge two years ago with serious personal debts, it turned really scary when business got slow. I am sure it was only just for a time, but I could not tell my creditors that indefinitely. After three months of not seeing big projects roll in like they did at the beginning, I started looking for the small ones to pay the bills. But still, the bills were too high and eventually the money ran out and within another three months, I started searching frantically for some stable guaranteed income for at least one year. Had it not been for the kindness of Imelda, I don't know what I would have done.

I have been there. I know the struggle. I know the anxiety that comes when you fall woefully short of your expenses. Had I not taken this current appointment, I would have lost my car, and done even worse damage to my credit. I may have even had to face court action with an unforgiving government student loan facility and bankers all demanding that their monies be paid in full.

In spite of that struggle, I still feel totally convinced that talented people have a God-given mandate to utilise their talent in ways that truly edify them and their community. All I want is for them to organise a little better so that they can take full advantage of the collective talent pool. When the time is right, and the business income far supersedes that of the 9-5, then they may call in for early retirement. If not, they can still earn more than a few dollars "on the side" by simply doing "them."

My father produces the Sweetest Honey on Jamaican Rock. If there wasn't already a group by that name - introduced to me by Harlem Mama - I would have used that as the brand. My job as daughter and eldest child is to challenge him, just as he challenged me when I was growing up. His time and money paid off. I am now the pain in his side, pushing him to be bigger than his muffled dreams.

He has taken some really hard blows. He was made redundant when Mutual Life, the oldest Life Insurance Company in Jamaica folded. He had been doing very well in insurance up until that point. He took his redundancy package and invested in several acres of fallow farmland. It was a good purchase, but he had four young children, and suddenly times became very hard. It was right before I was ready to go to university. Whatever investments he had put aside for my college education went to naught (hence the student loans). He took it hard. He was always a good provider until then. We struggled together as a family, but he felt so much joy his farm that it became a source of family pride. I remember us lining up to kill chickens in the backyard and cleaning so much crap off the eggs that we supplied to the company that handled in-flight catering services for several international airlines operating in Jamaica.

Business wasn't always good, and he was forced to take a job at a much lower position than he is qualified for just to have regular income and to be near the farm, which is based in Trelawny, roughly 2-3 hours drive from our family home.

So now... I am pushing him again. I am saying...yes buddy you have good ideas and you work hard. Let's think of it as a business, as the family heirloom and let's make money. Let's just make it work and not just for meagre profit or joy. Let's make it work BIG TIME.

I have been doing my own research because he soooo needs my marketing assistance.

I tell you, I hate marketing/PR for companies and governments but I take pride in being able to help my own family and those friends who are for all intents and purposes, family.

Here's to making some sweet honey on the rock.

Rest in Peace Uncle Homer

My family is experiencing the first murder. Remote hills of Saint Mary in a place I couldnt call properly before I was 10. So beautiful and remote. Far from the hustle and bustle and crime of Kingston. Second murder ever, following one over 20 years ago. My grandmother's youngest sibling has been murdered. Mi chest tight. Really tight.

I having a bout with asthma over the past few days... and I have a project to complete today... so I cant really just let misself feel it... but bwoy... it dread. Over wha? Money? Bad Mind? Grudgeful? But God good. In all things. Even this. Give thanks. Just because him is God. And God alone.

To tell you the truth though... mi waan go home and cut a loud loud holla.

A new addition to the family

Yesterday Daddykin call me to tell me with sheer glee that the cow have bull calf baby. So we have six cow now. He is breeding his own collection of grandchildren because it seems he gave up on the possibility of me doing so.

Welcome to the family dear bull calf baby. May you sire many more calf babies.

I miss my family...

This is just one of the many branches... and this is not even everybody... but this portrait in my ways symbolises the colourful, beautiful, happy heritage that is mine. We are plentiful...and scattered but the love is there. More than can be put into words.

I can't believe it took leaving and living in isolation for me to see just how much of a great heritage I have. I certainly appreciate them now. I guess it is the struggle to between the individual and the collective- separating yourself to find your identity only to recognise that essentially, you are part of the whole. Flaws and all.

Blood thicker than water.