Re-establishing Family Time

Ask yourself this: Do I value family time?

It’s interesting the things which unites us and the things which divide us. Ever since the advent of technology, social media, touch screen phones, tablets, laptops – there has been a sort of decline of family time. By this I mean, physically being together as one unit in the same place, could be living room, veranda – you name it! It’s a given, technology separates most of us from enjoying the simplicity of family time. By family time I mean watching TV together, going on family trips – talking to each other! Literally. I miss those moments where everyone gathers together to do something, could be praying, cooking, cleaning, just being together.

Thankfully certain things still unite the family. In Jamaica, one such thing is sports! Don’t you just love to see Usain Bolt being a complete show off on your television? Or what about when Tessanne Chin entered The Voice! I know my family weren’t the only ones who were bunched together screaming for her. Then there are certain shows like Magnum Kings and Queens of Dancehall, Dancing Dynamites. The great thing about these TV shows and broadcasts is that it not only unites my family and your family, but it unites the nation.

Don’t get me wrong, I know with Apps such as Whats App, Skype, social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (and all those other sites which I can’t seem to keep up with!) communication has skyrocketed! I can stay in China and video chat with someone in Grenada! And this is great! Right? But what about when your daughter or son gets home from school and immediately powers up the computer/laptop/tablet and completely ignores you?! Then a Whats App text comes in and they sit in their room or in the living room couch and laugh the time away…. Or you, the parent, you come home from work and go on Netflix to catch up on your favorite series. You neglect to check if your child has been completing homework. In fact, maybe your child is busy watching an X-rated series that they shouldn’t be watching. It happens. You know it.

Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I just like the old-fashioned family time, especially while you can still have them before everybody grows up and leaves. It’s a special memory your child isn’t likely to forget years to come. Truth is, we live with people we call family, simply because we are blood-related, but honestly, can you say you know them? Family time is important because you are forming a bond that ties you to another human being, in a good way of course.

So the next time you get in off the road and you are about to check your social media for updates, who liked your picture and who didn’t; the next time you are about to run around the back to take a selfie or  send around a viral video that is just  too funny, just stop. If your mother is preparing a meal in the kitchen, if your father is reading the newspaper or fixing another broken appliance, if your daughter is locked up in her room, or your son has the music too loud again, just go to them, and ask how their day was. Or tell them about your day. Play a board game if you have to. Just get in some family time while you can.

Do it today.

Depression

I have a dear firend:

she tells me things of the living and the dead.

she says she loves me and me alone, so she follows me everywhere I go.

My friend helps me to hide my bruises,

those red, irritated, hurtful bruises.

She wanted us to go away,

But I didn’t want to hold my breath under water all day.

You see, she is just like me:

she knows the words i’m going to say,

even when to go outside and play!

I asked her once if she had a home,

but she looked at me in the mirror and I said “No”.

–Marsha Lawrence

Cheque Please!!

He saw the thick drop of blood on the cold floor, then crouched on his knees, and in one swift swoop of his index finger placed the red substance in his mouth, and smiled. He moved like a panther, lithe and almost invisible. The claws in his mind reclined, for now.

Brenda’s left hand clutched her side, as the wound she suffered thumped with pain. She watched from inside the vent as the psycho looked for her. She silently berated herself for listening to Linda when she suggested blind dating. She shivered with fear as the last forty minutes replayed in her mind…

“Well, this was some date.” said the gentleman seated across Brenda. “You’re the first beautiful girl I’ve ever been out with, and I hope you’re the last.” He said too comfortably.

Nervously, Brenda replied, “Kevin, we’ve only just met, so let’s take this thing as slowly as possible.”

Kevin nodded in agreement, and swiftly reached for Brenda’s hand across the table. “So, how about we get outta here? It’s getting hot, and I kinda feel like walking – you know – get some fresh air.” Brenda could feel the heat of his touch, and as she withdrew it placed both hands in her lap, Kevin’s smile faded. She should have never conceded to meeting a total stranger she exchanged a few e-mails with.

“You know I – how about next time around?” she replied.

“Yeah. Sure. You uh want a drive home?”

“No. No bother. I like taking the bus.” She lied. She rose from her seat, and awkwardly shook hands with Kevin, whose eyes went from mellow to steel iron. She exited the café and began walking down the boulevard. She checked her watch, it was only seven-thirty in the evening, but Brenda swore it looked darker and even more eerie than other nights. It was no use turning back now, she thought, as she suddenly felt silence closing in on her. She was only a few blocks from the bus stop. Her steps became heavier, her pace became faster, and her eyes searched every dark corner she came upon.

Suddenly she heard whistling behind and spun around.

“Hey Brenda! I didn’t think you should be walking alone. Want some company?” It was Kevin! He seemed calm, too calm, and the alarms screamed in Brenda’s head. She broke off in a solid run, and while she did screamed “HELP!”  until her throat was sore and her eyes burnt with tears. No one came to her rescue, so she never stopped. She saw a mechanic warehouse with a dim light inside and dove through the slightly opened door.

“Please, somebody help me!” Brenda screamed.

She heard Kevin from a distance singing her name, and frantically searched for a hiding spot. She brushed past a few old cars, and then winced with pain as a rusty piece of metal caught her dress and tore at her skin. Immediately the wound bled, and Brenda swallowed the cry that formed in her dry throat. It was then that she saw the half-opened vent, and quickly made her way up and nestled in its cold darkness.

Kevin never ran, but walked briskly and confidently. He pushed open the door and it made a screech loud enough to wake the dead. “I hate bitches like you – all polite and shit.” Kevin snarled. “You know our date isn’t quite finished, and when I find you,” he laughed, “I’m going to make you beg.” It was that moment he saw the drop of blood, but then he heard a rattling sound coming from a room in the left corner. A stout man came out, rubbing his eyes, still groggy from sleep. He flipped a switch and immediately an overhead light revealed Kevin’s annoyed face.

“Hey, who are you? Don’t you know we’re closed?” the stout man drawled.

Kevin walked up to him and without any warning, stabbed the man in the neck. The man’s eyes came alive with pain, and just as quickly closed with death. Brenda saw the man’s body slammed to the ground and unconsciously released a gasp of sheer terror. Immediately, Kevin’s eyes sought the sound and steadied on the vent, made even more visible by the light.  His smile was low, but sharp and his eyes danced with humour.

“Brenda, Brenda, Brenda.’ Kevin chirped, walking slowly towards the vent.

Brenda’s lips trembled wildly while tears bulked and stained her face. This was the end. Kevin would kill her as easily as he did that poor man, and her corpse, dismantled and broken, would make the news… if they ever found it. He tore the vent open and grabbed at Brenda’s soft hands.

Triumphantly Kevin said “You’re mine.”

“Noooooo!” Brenda screamed.

“CUT!”  the director yelled.

“Excellent work June – I love that scream – damn it shook my cochlear.” The director laughed. White lights revealed the setting of the artificial mechanic warehouse. The dead man got up and walked over to the water cooler. June, cast as Brenda, came out of the vent, slapped Tom, cast as Kevin, on the shoulders and teased “You villain.”

“Ok, let’s wrap it up,” the director shouted, “tomorrow we’re on to the next scene.”

Lights out.

When it began….my affair with words

I remember being a little girl, about four of five, and call me crazy, but I remember my eyes opening one day, it was the process of the walls of my innocence tumbling down. I remember I started to think a lot – question things. I would ask my mother “What’s this for?” or “Why is this different from that?” My mother would later tell me how “prime” I was. It was a process I couldn’t escape from. It was the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of intelligence. And how did I respond to this? Well, I started to write…a lot. I started writing songs because the radio was my greatest friend! I just loved the voices that came out of the speaker, the words, the melody. So I started to replicate. I wrote songs for my girl band called “Particular Girls”. This band comprised of my sisters and myself. Our stage was the little veranda. Our audience? The plants and the trees I guess. We performed for our pleasure, for our entertainment. And it was such a memorable time, just singing and dancing and being kids. My affair with words began with music. I didn’t even called it writing.  I was just putting to paper what I felt inside – it didn’t have a name or limits. I also became a lover of diaries. I would finish a diary before the month was over. In those diaries, I would write down my fears, my anger, and boy oh boy, there were some angry stuff in them. But you know what? It was therapeutic for me. Reading them over when I was older was very funny. I think you are starting to see how writing for me was born out of a need to express. I didn’t write to gain anything. I just wrote. As I got older, and this is, say, high school, I became a teenager, and you know how teenagers become all dewy-eyed-oh-my-God-I-may-be-in-love-with-that-boy. So I had a million boy crushes. It happens. It’s so funny but every heartbreak I had became a song I had heard on the radio and it became my theme. “Stranded” by Jennifer Paige was a constant song that kept playing in my head every time I would see this guy at school pass by. Man, I could stare at him. I thought he was really cute!! But that went nowhere. My point is, in case I digressed too much, I knew when my affair with writing began because it became a response to my emotional state. So I went from songs to what became my greatest love – Poetry. There are many definitions for poetry. Some people say songs are poetic and it is because at the heart of poetry is emotion. But I became obsessed with the body parts of poetry, and by this I mean the structure. So I would write expressing emotion, yes, but the rhyming became a thing I needed to perfect, the type of poem, the words i chose, the punctuation – I just enjoyed my blooming affair with Poetry. In grade 10 our English Language teacher encouraged us all to get notebooks which we would title “Creative Writing Book”. In that we would write songs, poems, short stories – anything, as long as we would be expressive. My first poem in that book was titled “Alone”.  My teacher loved it and said it was “Touching”. It goes like this:

---

Alone she stands, in the rain, she knows not laughter, she feels just pain. her family abandoned her, her partner is dead, so she lives on her own – filled with dread.

She longs for comfort, for someone who cares, a savior, maybe, who’ll wipe away her tears. But such luck is rare, and she knows it well. For no matter what happens, she’ll never be the same again.

---

Little did I know that this would become a small plateau in my affair with words. It became a relationship, something I fully committed myself to, even over Christmas and Summer breaks. When I wrote I went to a place, it was like being hypnotized. I had no control of my hands as they wrote, the words seemed to literally flow from me. It was a beautiful feeling. I found something I was good at. When I eventually came out of “the zone” and re-read what I wrote, some of it made no sense but later on at University I learned that it doesn’t have to make sense at first, just write what comes and make sense of it later. I did just that. I still do it. Now I have many books and papers, and tissues of poetry (I write on what I have at the time, even tissue). My newest venture has been story writing. I’m very afraid of it. But  I love the challenge and I will continue to perfect it. In fact, I’ll post a short story for you later. Well! Now you know of my affair with words. It’s out in the open. Run and tell everyone! (seriously, please tell everyone). I plan to share my works with you and I need your support in establishing myself as a renowned poet and writer. They say word of mouth is the best advertising. So, my friends, go ahead, spread it that a new blog is around and it’s gonna be great!!!!