I’m almost afraid to write anything here, for fear of getting too personal.
There’s a certain quiet comfort that I’ve enjoyed, existing mostly within my own mind. A lot of my thoughts, I’ve kept to myself. It’s easier that way; I get to not only enjoy my privacy, but I also get to enjoy that whole deep, enigmatic, ‘mysterious chick’ aura that I’m told surrounds me.
When I write, however, I can’t help it; everything just comes spilling out. I’m no longer very mysterious, and probably turn out to be significantly more boring than one might have previously suspected.
And now that I know that a few more people are reading (hi!), there’s absolutely no pressure. Ha.

But not to worry! I’ve been working on a couple of things that should be published within the next few days (Insha’Allah), so stay tuned, and thanks for the support so far.

We Are Scientists – Hoppipolla (Sigur Ros cover)
Coeur de Pirate – Adieu
Birdy – People Help The People
Lana Del Rey – Video Games
Anya Marina – Whatever You Like

Would anyone miss you? Nobody noticed when Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, surrounded by Christmas presents she had been wrapping, and with the TV still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of her life– not even a photograph.
Interweaving interviews with imagined scenes from Joyce’s life, Dreams of a Life is an imaginative, powerful, multilayered quest, and is not only a portrait of Joyce but a portrait of London in the eighties—the City, music, and race. It is a film about urban lives, contemporary life, and how, like Joyce, we are all different things to different people. It is about how little we may ever know each other, but nevertheless, how much we can love.

How does this happen? Most of us hope to touch the lives of others in some meaningful way, and for the most part, we do. So how does a woman who was social, well-liked and respected, go missing for three years, and no one questioned why?

This has really made me think about the impact I might have on someone else’s life, the relationships others have with me, and the fact that, despite the friendships we build and the relationships we forge over the course of however brief our existence, you, me, and everyone we know ultimately dies alone.

What’s black and white and green with envy?
Shamu, when he sees the tricks  you can turn with this baby. Put him out of work quick fast.
Oh yeah.

I just made a bad joke. Awesome.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I have no interest in the promises of Portia, Bruce, Andrew, or any of these other people who have unfortunately been placed in positions of power even after countless demonstrations that they do not have my or my country’s best interests at heart.

I am only interested in what they can do for the development of this country that we all want to see prosper. Are any of us really satisfied with what is happening?

I’m sorry, but I’m not.

Jamaica has too much potential to have remained stagnant for so long. There is no reason for Jamaica to still be categorized as a developing country.

I am so tired of turning on my television and seeing, time and time again
the finger pointing
he said she said
dragging each other through the dirt
and trying to make one party look better by comparison.

Why are we so easily satisfied with better by comparison? Is this really 2011? Haven’t we learned anything after almost 50 years of the same old routine? If you want a different outcome, you have to do something different.

I am unsatisfied. And I won’t be until something changes.

Until I can wear a shirt of any colour without fear of repercussion.

Until I can go about my day without being bombarded with empty party promises, political announcements and other associated paraphenilia.

Until I can engage in an intellectual conversation with my fellow Jamaican about politics without either party resorting to PNP/JLP arguments.

Until I can enjoy the benefits of my hard-earned and even harder-to-part-with tax dollars three hundred and sixty-five days a year, not only just before an upcoming election.

Until schoolchildren can walk to and from school without fear, without concern for the relationship between the colour of their uniform and the area they live in or travel through.

Until your coworker can be a Labourite in a PNP community (or vice versa) and experience no reprisals or ostracization.

Until there are no designated PNP or JLP communities.

I am not a Labourite. I am not a Comrade. I don’t bleed orange, nor do I bleed green.
I am a Jamaican. And chances are, if you’re reading this, so are you.
Something has to change.

I don’t carry a backpack.
Consulting maps is for my hotel room only; I make sure I know how to get where I want to go and how to get back before I go exploring. In cases of emergency, I’ve been known to consult a map in a corner of a department store of whatever neighbourhood I happened to be wandering around in.

I don’t like to look like a tourist. I like to step off the plane and blend right in, like a chameleon. I am probably less successful at doing that than I think I am, but let me have my fun! It’s just the way I prefer to feel. I don’t want to waste any of my time being lost, or overwhelmed, or adjusting to the newness of my environment. I just want to start experiencing it right away. I want to see the sights, but I don’t want to look like a tourist seeing the sights. I like to let my imagination run away with me a little bit, and try to imagine what a stranger might think when they see me. Maybe I just felt like going for a walk because it was a beautiful day. Maybe I’m just doing a little shopping on my lunch break.

The highest compliment is another tourist, complete with running sneakers, fanny pack, and I HEART NY memorabilia asking me where they can find something, because not only does this communicate that I probably look like a pretty friendly person, it means I’ve successfully fooled them into thinking that I know what I’m doing and *gasp* I am not a tourist like them.

I feel like a spy.

There are two possible outcomes: I might actually be equipped to help them, or have absolutely no idea (“Oh sorry, I’m not from around here!” meanwhile, just try to wipe the grin off my face as my head begins to inflate because I fooled that sucker).
Either way, I am winning.

One thing that betrays me almost every time is my accent. Of course, like most people, I don’t think I have one. Once, on a trip way upstate New York, someone told me that I had a lovely accent and asked where I was from. How strange it felt to be simultaneously flattered and embarrassed to be exposed for the phony I was..

I like New York City, though, because it’s such a pleasant mix of cultures and dialects that I can (almost) get away with it. I betray myself in other ways, like losing focus and gawking when I go to Grand Central Station (I mean how can you not, really.. have you seen it? The place is beautiful) or Times Square, or any other place that tourists tend to flock to and locals tend not to appreciate as much, because they’re too used to it.

I guess you might say I’m in love with the romantic and thoroughly impractical idea of simultaneously knowing a city like the back of my hand and seeing it, really seeing it, for the first time.

Songs for Cinema – Origami Airplanes
Michael Giacchino – Life and Death
Pierre Adenot – Les Lumieres de Paris
Henry Mancini – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Michael Giacchino – Parting Words
Adele – Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin cover)

Why, yes, I have been watching a lot of Lost lately. How nice of you to notice.

I’m feeling fairly nostalgic. You were warned.

Graduation has come and gone. It was great to see so many of my classmates from the many grueling hours spent together in labs, tutorials, and lectures excel and be recognized for their achievements over the past 3 years. Our valedictorian was a girl from my tight-knit marine series of courses, and I remember sitting at the bench across from her during first year bio labs. I remember how diligent and serious about her work she seemed even then. Who knew, right? As I sat in the audience and listened to her speech, I reflected on those times when our benches would try to ‘divide and conquer’ all the work we had to get done in lab (it was truly the only way to do it). It was nice to reconnect with friends and acquaintances that I hadn’t seen or spoken to in a long time, some even from high school. I’m glad I decided to go through with this graduation nonsense after all; it was a nice little experience.

It hasn’t quite struck me that I more than likely will never see half of those people again. That tends to happen to me a lot; I enjoy the time I spend with people I like spending time with, but I take for granted that we will see each other again. I guess I prefer to live in that moment with them. Quite a few of my friends don’t live here, and they’ll be going back to wherever it is they came from.. and that kinda.. sucks. This is true even for the people that will remain in Jamaica; there is no real guarantee that our paths will ever cross again. I’ve had many relationships that I thought would never come to an end, but how can you know at the outset of a friendship if it will stand the test of time and distance? The simple truth is that you don’t. All you can really do is appreciate and learn from your relationship with that person while you still have it. There’s a poem that talks about how people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime; you might not know from the start which fits each person, but upon reflection it might become clear. I try to think of that whenever a friendship comes to an end. Maybe they just weren’t meant to be there for a lifetime.

Now that a major chapter of my life has closed, I’m looking forward and wondering where exactly it is that I go from here.
I remember when I was little, I would stare out the window of the car at the passing scenery on the way to school and wonder what would become of my life. What was I going to be? I was too young to consider too many possibilities (becoming an astronaut was definitely at the top of the list, though), but I distinctly remember wondering where I would be in another 10, 20.. some abstract number of years. And to be perfectly honest, I am still not entirely sure some 15+ years later.
I used to create checkpoints for myself, in moments much like that one while I travelled in the back seat and think to myself, you will remember this moment. Remember this when you’re 13. Remember this when you’re 18. Remember this thought and make sure you’re happy. Make sure you’re doing what you need to be doing. Don’t disappoint me.
Like time capsules of thought that I buried away in my mind.
I don’t waste time telling people about these things I used to think about because 1, a lot of the time people don’t believe me when I describe the depth of thought I had at that age (I was a really intense kid), and 2, who would listen? But I figure if you’re bored enough to be reading this, I might as well share that with you
I think as a symptom of getting older and busier, I haven’t checked in with myself like that in a while. And now that I’ve unearthed one of those time capsules again, I wonder, would 5 year old me be happy with where I’ve brought myself?

I’m not sure. I don’t really remember what 5 year old me was like. But I’m striving for that.