Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Maybe the powerful diclofenac has worn off.  Mind grappling with money matters - the yearly trip to GRA a sign of the lessening income and also the inability to properly protest by not paying taxes  as taxes coming down. Body probably clenching or maybe there is not enough tumeric in the system. Heaviness in movements. Standing in line and then walking off is painful. There is an urge to stretch all the time. Full yoga routine , deep breaths.  The postures are maintained. Cool breeze.  Body at rest though results in the same feeling of stiffness and clenched body. Some thing in the head now about ignore this, it will pass. But the sense of satisfaction in having stretched and at least done something. There might be subconscious anxieties which are not being cleared by the deep breathing or the stretching.  A discussion with a young man about psychosomatic illnesses and so imagining nice and light things and hoping that the body will feel nice and light ...

Deep breathing. Mind racing. Come on, you have to do the surya namaskar today. Mind responding.. no, there is no point, go , lie down back. Mind responding.. come on.. move the hands from your sides.. clasp your hands. Body does not move. Hands do not move. Fear enters. Mind says.. come on.. bring your hands to the front of your chest to start over. Body is stiff. Only five more to go. The other eight have taken too long. Time is useless though. Work to be done.  Day to be planned.  Come on , breathe in and focus. Get through the next five rounds. Bring your hands up and over and bend. Body cannot move though. Eventually, hands move. The next five are done.. anxiety that they are not being done properly, gratitude that you get through even though you started off not thinking you can finish. Bhaji is green Bourda market. It is easy to walk through without thinking. Mind not too focussed.  Lots of colours on the grey morning.  Feeling heavy and not concentr...

Picture from http://chimamanda.com/books/americanah/ Ifemulu sits in a hot salon waiting for her hair to be braided. She is reading Jean Toomer's Cane (I never heard about it before) A white woman who wants a Bo Derek corn row says she knows about Africa from reading Things Fall Apart and A Bend in the River (Ifemelu then disses Naipaul's work about a" man who aspired to Europeanness", and later on she has a book of Derek Walcott on her shelf)  The woman asks Ifemulu what the novel is about. Ifemulu thinks "“Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.”" Americanah is not about one thing - it is about black and white, and black and black (and some white and white) and black and non-white and African and African-American and American African and comebackees (Americanah is a word for Nigerians who return from America) and those who never left and Igbo and non-Igbo and Nigerian and non-Nigerian, and clas...

Limp to UG and turn back facing the setting sun in the West. Something about the light.. it seems like a kind of light mist, smoke is wafting over the wall. There is no fire. The tide is high. The breeze is high. The light is in that position in which the usually invisible mist is visible. Christmas rituals change. No ginger beer and the Christmas Tree did not go up as life intervened.  Anxiety to have at least the two other rituals - the Book to read intensely over the two days and the walk on Christmas afternoon. The book is there.. Americanah.. powerful book , appropriate for the two days of reading. The walk though. Anxiety over the feet and the pain. The boots feel strange. I had bought them four years ago to run with and they ran a few times and then walked limped until shelved. Last time I used was last year Christmas Day.  The tingling starts in the feet. The breeze is high and the spray comes over. A young man earlier in the week, intelligent , talks about...

End of year emails. Christmas cards have things with snow, winter, jingle bells and so.  I wanted to do a Guyana Christmas photo walk but time ran out. Stone jar in the family for three generations and used only one time a year to make ginger beer. I don't always put on the step to sun but I know that many Guyanese would have some memory or have heard of ginger beer, sorrel, peppersauce and all kinds of things 'sunning' on the step. Thinking of that discussion at Moray House by Karran Sahadeo about the 'pictures and false memory' thing  in that this would only be possible when there is sun and when I could be bothered to sun the gingerbeer But I don't know if they ever do this in any part of the word. Happy Christmas from Guyana.

Focus on the here and the now. Nutmeg and coconut oil and castor oil and research. Metatarsal fracture. Limping in the pain and other parts of the leg start hurting and the body slumps and the mind slumps like what is the frigging point. 100 mg Diclofenac. A red tablet.  Stomach twinges after swallowing. 12 hours later, pain is gone but it is there in the mind because it will come back. You know it will come back on the instep. But fast walking and movement. Yoga done.  Stomach burning all the time like if you hungry. No cake though. Here and now. Get through the day. Cut the onion, strain the rice. Focus. Thing to write and then the pressure cooker cries out reminding you of the Here and Now. Mind is wandering all over. Things to do Ginger to buy. People in Town. Walking among people and not hearing or seeing them. Words slurred a bit Focus on here and now. Mangoes, tangerines. Coconut. Smelling thyme and wondering what could be done with it. Body feels fle...

( Two men reportedly killed 9 year old Ashley Boodhoo a nd her grandmother and another man in the house in which Ashley lived with her siblings  and relatives.) I am sorry Ashley that I only saw the headline about your death and did not read the story because it 'was another one'   I am sorry Ashley that two men like me killed you when you tried to find your mother. I am sorry Ashley that as a man that I could not stop the men who went to kill you and your mother and grandmother I am sorry Ashley that the reason I am writing this is that I am thinking of the children I know whose fathers are abusive.  I am sorry Ashley that I cannot stop the abuse by the men I know and the only thing I seem to do is to tell the children not to bother with the abuse, and to stop depending on their abusive fathers for love. I am sorry Ashley that even though your mother used the justice system, it did not stop the man and his friend from killing you. I am sorry Ashley that dom...

The instinct on entering a room which is dark at sunset is to switch on the light. It is amazing though, to watch how the windows darken and how the light looks through the glass. The brief evening time is good for reflection. Night does not have to mean doom , it could mean rest. The darkening room with the lit window could be a place from which you could look out without having to see anything.

An invitation from Avinash S Richard to a Night photo walk came earlier in the week. It seemed a good thing to try to do.. mental health management requires sometimes plunging into the unknown and facing up with the fears.. unknown topic with a group of people who I did not know. So plans made but in the end, comfort zone beckoned.. but in my head something said.. get the rass out, take the camera and go walk about.. start at near 6pm and see what happens.. what you willl learn. So in a half hour or so.. a walk around the block, jump up on the seawall. Trying to hold hand steady as the man said, or to brace on something to avoid shaking as night time requires steady hands. It was interesting looking at the night things.. and how the light works differently. And bifocal lens spectacles means seeing things different from the camera would.. So no perfection.. but..53 images and cut down a bit First a practice shot.. a few of them One thing about the e...

Searing pain in the foot which comes about for no reason and thoughts of I wish I was dead.. thoughts which according to the journal I had this time last year. Part of me laughs, and says.. well you are not dead, wish instead that you are alive. Remember when you used to run and think that despite everything.. the mind and the body that you will try the yoga routine again. But it does not work. Body is unbending.. tensed up as if to try to stop the mind from racing through the spiral which goes nowhere. Deep breathing and focussing on the body does not work this time either. It is easy to cry in frustration. But something is saying.. do what you could. Today. So a few stretches, but the foot is paining and the soul is tired. Something glowing in the sky. It is the moon again. There is no scientific evidence but there is a time for science and there is a time for finding comfort that you are not to blame again. Someday soon my head will touch my knees, and I will go throu...

Woman sends a message to ask for two lines to describe 'you' and you stumble a bit. Anxiety around cooking and some of the other tasks. Anxiety in anticipation of another battle to ask the person who is not well to go see doctor rather than keep coughing/retching and visions of that battle which tense up the body in anticipation of what might be inevitable. Tax payment which will remind you that you continue to make less money.. and anxiety that the money will not be enough. Body is tense. Stomach is rumbling. The sweet orange tea brings some relief.. Sugar.. sugar.. sugar.. Time aside to do some yoga.. the stretches which bring relief. The mind is calmed usually. But something.. one posture has the mind racing more and it is a long time before I realise I am not moving.. to the next posture.  The body is tensed up.. and bending with the tense body does not help. And so frustration that this which is supposed to help is not helping.. The mind keeps running.. back ...

The man laughed when he told me that I would have to jump in the tank to scrub it out good. I could hire him. But it was one of those tasks that had been put off for  a long time, and I needed to do it. And to make it meaningful, writing about the lessons made up when thinking of it.. 1. Time flies - the past condenses The task had been put off.. next month, next month. It was meant to be an annual task. As I check through, and go through memory, it seems like it was over two and a half years. The water tasted as it always does, like crap, so there was no way of knowing that time had passed and what had happened you think last year, had happened two three years ago, and really and truly, it did not matter. 2. What is supposed to be clean, isn't .. The man asked whether oil had gotten into the tank.. because the sludge in points was black and looked oily, separate in density from the brown rust sludge. But I put my hand in it and it was not oil. This water which we are t...

Must have been the strawberry jam on the doughnut on the first day when calories are to be counted or the spontaneous surya namaskar just at sunset.. something about the moon, and knowing that you can't really catch the moon but that it is okay to try. Orange sky in the south west and all of a sudden there is some feeling of gratitude for being able to stand in that moment and watch that moon over that coconut tree. Some stupid thing about feeling that you and the moon are connected and that even though you cannot touch the moon it is still there and it is all okay.  A night last week the body rebelled after the fruit meal went awry and the body wanted to purge the watermelon. The headache first which paracetmol would not cure. The nausea which the generic zantac did not cure. But all the time, some strange thing about saying.. it will be over at some point. And the headache is the last favourite of my aches. Something about looking beyond the headache and the body's ti...