Skip to main content

Make memories

Image
By
I found this quote and I liked it. Jeremy Irons said, "We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams." Check out my last blog post, let us dream together, after you read this blog post. I have been on this Earth for forty three years now. My earliest memories are located in Mount Pleasant, Arima. I remember hiding under the bed and eating powdered milk as a child. I remember the leaky roof. I remember crossing the ravine with my mother. Some memories remain with me and some have faded and some are gone forever.

Education was a focal point of my younger years. The mantra was to get a good education to get a good job and make a good living. Passing common entrance for Saint Mary's College and then graduating from Morehouse College were happy memories from that journey. I remember hearing UB40 for the first time in my aunt's dance studio and falling in love with their music. To this day their music gives me the feels. Music lives with us. Through the good times and through the bad times.

I remember having a breakdown and being hospitalized in New York and the nurse teasing me with "trini to the bone" from the David Rudder song. I remember being so sick and just wanting to go back home. "Sweet sweet T and T, Lord how I love up dis country, no place in dis world I'd rather be." We like to lime and eat good food. Trips to the grocery to pick up eatables punctuate my memories. I have always battled with eating healthy and exercise. Sometimes my basket only has the healthy stuff. Sometimes I am coming home with a pint of funky chunky monkey.

I love walking. There were times when I would walk to the Aranguez Savannah and make about seven laps I think it was and then walk back to home in El Socorro. There were no urinals so I had to make use of the bush sometimes. Is that good fertilizer? Those walks took me about three hours. I once walked from San Juan to Port of Spain. Sometimes I did bird photography on my walks. A bird I tried a few times to capture but I didnt was the red and black tanager.

I write this blog post without much effort as there are so many memories to choose from and I remember a tweet I made earlier today, "collect moments not things". I am a loner and most of my memories are with myself or my mom. I am alone but not lonely. I spend a lot of time online and connected on the world wide web. I capture memories with photos, videos, blog posts, poems and art. I have not been to Tobago in seven years and counting. This is a poem I penned some months ago that I would like to end with.

Tobago
by Hassan Voyeau

Walking along the sand
Camera in my hand
Memories we create
Great food we ate
Throw my troubles away
Give thanks and pray
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I actually love this post. It's palpable, the feelings of you looking back
September 11, 2023 at 5:19 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A pot of callaloo

By
Call for Submissions: Archipelagic Entanglements   https://singaporeunbound.org/opp/archipelagic-entanglements When I saw the call for submissions online I was doubtful. I do not know enough history. I do not understand the topic. Then after chatting with my friend Chatty I realised maybe I can be the topic. My ethnic and racial makeup is an archipelagic entanglement. Colonialism meets indentureship meets slavery. My mom is East Indian muslim and my dad is French, Portuguese and Mulato christian and who knows what else. I am an example of a pot of callaloo. Everyone's favorite Sunday lunch. I am what happens when lineages cross oceans and histories collide. I am thinking to myself now, what is the message I want to put forward with my blog post? What is the direction I want to take? Maybe it is this. What can we do when we have such a rich heritage and know so little of our own history? First of all I do not think I am alone with this struggle. I did not realise this until I though...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cup of coffee

By
This is a chapter from my latest book called Breezes of Tobago . The cool morning breeze blew the hat off the tourist passing the coffee shop. We sat at the table waiting for our order of coffee and bagels. I had stayed up late writing and was now needing caffeine to stay awake. On entering the veranda of the coffee shop, the sign reads "happiness is a cup of coffee" and "sip your troubles away". This had me thinking about what is happiness? And was the theme of my chat with Chatty as we enjoyed our breakfast in Tobago. I told my friend Chatty that if we could put happiness in a bottle and sell it we would be rich. My friend Chatty then told me that money cannot buy happiness but it was a good idea to make a living. If according to the sign, happiness is a cup of coffee then maybe happiness is coffee in a bottle then. We could call it Caffibean, a taste of the Caribbean in Tobago, a blend of the happiest coffee beans from Tobago. Tobago is not known for its coffee p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sandy beaches

By
This is a chapter from my latest book called Breezes of Tobago . This story begins on a cool Friday evening in May. Fridays are the best days. Already a great start. It had rained earlier in the day and the clouds were moving away and the sun peeking through. I walked from the apartment where I was staying to Pigeon Point beach. Along the way I stopped for coconut water freshly extracted from the nut and straight into my mouth leaving traces on my cotton jersey. They say that coconut water is the drink of God—fresh from the nut, sweet with a hint of salt, a liquid reminder that paradise can exist in small and simple things. They did not say that but my friend Chatty did. It is my friend Chatty's first trip to Tobago. I asked him what he thinks of Tobago so far? He grinned, wiping a drop of coconut water from the corner of his mouth. "Man… it is like stepping into a painting. The air, the colors, the way everything smells after the rain—it is unreal. I did not know paradise cam...
Post a Comment
Read more