For there is a time in the tide of the heart when . . . despairing in action, we ask,
O God, where is our home?- Derek Walcott (Return To D’Ennery; Rain)
EXILE IS A RECURRING THEME in the works of many of our well known writers, and understandably so. Nothing rends the heart more than distance; the inability to connect with one’s roots especially in some time of dire need.
But there is an exile for which no span of land or ocean is required. The path towards that exile seems pretty straightforward. All you need do is acquire a “good” education, a reasonably well-paying job and a mortgage.
Then move away from the rural or urban village where you grew up, enter the heights, parks or terraces and there you are – exiled.
I plead half-guilty, if such a thing is possible, to having followed this trend, though with the best of intentions. After all, what’s wrong with social mobility? Wanting better for the next generation? One answer is that while there may be gains in the process, something authentic may be lost.
How true it is also that the heart has a way of arranging its own agenda. For as I reflect on all the above, I am overwhelmed by the need to pause, to revisit my childhood. I feel I must go back before I can move forward with this piece of writing.
I invite those especially of my “vintage” who have taken a similar path of exile to join me. My reason is twofold: to reconnect with the past, which many a heart longs to do, and to make an honest assessment as to whether it is indeed possible to “return to the village” in any real sense . . . .
I begin at Harewood Corner in Greens, St George, where one of the few bungalows in the village is situated. It’s a washed-out pink and shaded by a huge tree bearing sweet fleshy almonds, several of them lying under the tree. A quick brush with dress or uniform and we eat the fruit; crack the kernel with stones afterwards to get at the nut.
From dunks to plums to golden apples, we eat everything that grows on tree or vine, so long as it appears edible. For example, there is something we call “lizard pumpkin”; it’s a bright golden colour and we eat the red flesh.
And yes, there is the sharing. Neighbours can’t help but know one another, since something is always being borrowed or shared. Everything moves from house to house, whether it is ground provisions, fruits, butter, lard-oil, matches or money from meeting-turns.
White Ace will be borrowed to make sure that shoes are spotless for a special occasion, and a neighbour who can eat nothing without pepper must be provided with some when she runs out.
But back to the journey. We are at Aunt Lil’s house where we play pickups on the steps with small stones gathered from around the house. We sit on these same steps on moonlight nights between games of Puss Puss Catch A Corner and others, and share stories the older relatives have told us of duppies, higues and men who turn themselves into cats and horses in order to carry out their evil deeds.
We hear of others who make contracts with the devil at midnight by four-crossroads. They’re usually found dead in strange circumstances afterwards. We’re terrified to go to bed at the end of the storytelling.
Mrs Dottin’s shop is on the opposite side of the road. No sweeter tenor or bass can be heard anywhere else than here on Saturday nights when the men “get sweet” on Mount Gay rum. Having run the scale “doh, rey, me . . .” they sing with unabated fervour their favourite hymns: O God Our Help In Ages Past and Abide With Me.
It’s amazing how they keep from falling. M.J. is not the first to have mastered the 45-degree angle stance, camera tricks notwithstanding.
Then there’s the small mission hall, as familiar to most of us as home. With very few exceptions, everyone goes to church. Twice on Sundays and at least once during the week. Revival meetings are among our favourite occasions.
This is when sisters and brothers from other churches visit. Then the wooden building rocks with the dancing congregation and the beating of tambourines, and every testimony begins with “I too can rise and thank the Lord . . . .”
(The journey continues in Part 2.)
*Esther Phillips is an educator, poet and editor of BIM: Arts For The 21st Century. Email eephillips7@hotmail.com
