Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Image from here . Evening chores in progress. Some time lapse as I have to wait between two sets of chores. I could go sit down and look out the window. I am shaking my back a bit as I walk, and I realise that there isn't as much pain as usual. I have not had pain tablets. I had two B complex. I was scared to go down on the old bed sheet to do the yoga routine earlier in the day. Previous attempts had failed as I could not go through. Today though, I  was able to go through most of the yoga asanas  though not reaching full stretches for most of them. But still.. better than nothing. I think right, while I wait.. let me see,s the surya namaskar Just one round or two rounds, I know that my foot no longer comes up as it used to and I would feel disappointed.  I used to do 36 rounds in the morning. Aum Mitraya Namah  I bend forward, my back is stiff and my fingers are not reaching the ground. I think, arite.. is just two rounds.. bend the knee, and go...

Body is flushed after doing the house work and even though it is raining, place not so cold. Mind is in turmoil as I try to sort out the things to be done.. thinking of what has to come after the shower. The shame is there that I can longer do the paid uncaring work with the unpaid caring work. The embarrassment of saying no to work which I would like to have done, because of the work which I cannot do but have to do, and the anger at myself for not switching modes, for not finding patterns, for not organising things. For not putting things into compartments so that I could be productive and unproductive so that I could recover to be productive again.  But I am always recovering, never recovered and I have not accepted as yet that this is the life, or end of life before I expected it. The anxiety of cooking , cooking food which might not be eaten, in favour of things which are wanted but not there because I forgot to buy them... and forgetting other things which have to be...

Image from Grueslayer @Wikipedia,  (CC BY-SA 4.0 ) I see the sign on the cart "Doubles $200" at the busy corner of the road and I think to hell with it, I am going to stand and eat one and I don't care how much mess I make on my mouth and hands and clothes.  I am not hungry , I am binge eating to deal with the dark clouds which are darker some days than others and which sometimes shift when I have food in my hand and mouth. I like doubles. No, I love doubles and on a few visits to Trinidad, have eaten doubles for breakfast, lunch and dinner on some days.  The cart is small. The man who is selling the doubles is dressed in white, wears a white cap. The channa curry and the pepper and the tamarind and the mango achar and the cucumber are in a glass case. The bara is in a styrofoam box. "I have to get a bigger cart.. I coming out a week now, sales good" Young man. He is selling to a young Cuban guy. I know in Trinidad there is a fascinating rythmn of t...

The genip is dry and "huksy' , sweetness coming only if you roll it around long in your mouth and then try with the teeth to squeeze out any juice. I knew it would be dry but hoped still . Genip man passing every day including Sundays. Something about the man, young, today wearing a hot pink tee shirt, pushing the trolley. Some days the genip is 'in yuh mout, out yuh mout' .. melting before you could turn the seed and your mouth fulling up before you could swallow all the sweet juice. Some days the genip not like that. This genip season, I hear the genip man pass and I tell him, hey hey, and I come down and buy a hundred dollar worth. It is movement, I do it as a habit now . So today when I am sitting down, not wanting to move, feeling exhausted , tired.. thinking that I am lazy that I should do like the women especially who keep moving , doing things, no matter what bothering them. So genip man come and I buy the dry huksy sweet and I say right, let me ea...

Food provides the release from the difficulties . I wrote about the 6 unexpected lessons about mental health from another plate of random things. A day which is difficult in a range of difficult days. I am yearning for junk food , for sweet to binge on but I am exhausted to go buy. And in the night as I sort out what to eat, I realise the plate is random, not junk. 1. Ochro The woman who sells the ochro also from time to time has the nicest, thinnest plantain chips. The kind of plantain chips which start crumbling if you handle too roughly in the pack. The kind of plantain chips which make a nice film even nicer. The kind of plantain chips I wish I had  bought more than than two packets. I remembered the last time I had lost weight, I had stopped eating plantain chips daily. I turn back and I see the ochro. I am uncertain what to do, as the patient who I hope would get benefits from the ochro has gone beyond the benefits stage.  I buy the ochro. 2. Eddoe curry ...

Still from the trailer of From Ashes We Rise Pointer broom  " I went to Berbice.. that is where I first saw the point[ing] broom .. "the audience laughed and corrected the artist.. ".. pointer broom, and I thought, I could do something with it" The film From Ashes We Rise is a film directed by Khadijah Cadberry, in collaboration with visual artist Elodie Cage-Smith. The film is associated with a mixed media piece featuring a painting with two mask installations. The masks are made of recycled materials.  The artist was in conversation about the film at the opening night of the Timehri Film Festival 2019.  The idea of 'doing something' with pointers from the broom, in addition to all the other things such as sweeping, jaraying upset babies, or putting in strategic place to ward off evils spirits, that kind of creativity.. is special. The pointers are turned into sun burst like decorations around the masks. There was something special in how...

Red handwriting Monday 24 November, 1997. I am at work, work being in the Information Systems Department at Guysuco. The Co-ordinator of Help & Shelter calls. "Vidya, there is a woman here to see you... she insists that she wants to see you" I am puzzled, I don't go during the day. "Vidya.. the woman says she has come to see you.., let me know when you can come" The Systems Manager is okay with me stepping out. I am a little frightened in case I did something wrong. The woman, in her fifties,  is sitting in one of the Counselling rooms. She has a newspaper clipping in her hand. The clipping is kind of open as though she was reading it again. A newspaper clipping of the article Andaiye had 'asked' me to write (it was more told me to write) for her Sunday column Woman's eye View. "This article, it was like you were talking to me. I saw it, I decided to come down, to get out of my situation.. "  She talked. I listened...