Description- An Aged Matriarch

Bent Willow Tree by altergromit via http://altergromit.deviantart.com/

She lay there on the twin sized bed, making no attempt to even draw back the curtains and let fresh air in. It made me wonder when was the last  time she felt the sun or the wind, or saw the sea which was right outside her door.  Somewhere along the line of life she had become weak and feeble and almost detestable.

Her pale skin had shown the neglect and the wrinkles which criss-crossed over her skin told the story of her resignation to living rather than resilience towards life. Her mouth had long since lost the stern edge that I was told set a whole village of children straight. Unfortunately, now all she did was lie on the bed,  day and night; occasionally she got up to the bathroom or eat. But that was only ever with help.

She had a mind as clear and memories as vivid as yours, but seldom could be motivated into conversation unless it reflected on age old memories. It perplexed me how someone could hold so much information but have so little motivation to share .

Her life was one which made you question the tenacity of man and your own will. If the backbone of a village, mother to seven plus two, plus two could be content with living the rest of her life, unmoving from an airless room, then where would you be? Who would you turn into?

Life On The Sea- A Taste of My Island

In my writing my settings are primarily based on places I have never been to, so I made a conscious effort to base this story/description in the fishing village that my mother and her siblings grew up. This is from my perspective after visits to my grandmother every Sunday after church.

She sat on the veranda and looked out onto the sea. It was amazing how nothing changed but on the inside everything was different, the village was still there but as a faint echo of her childhood there. Her smile spread across her lips as she gazed first at the sea, then the street leading further down to the market place and finally into the old house. There were so many pleasant memories just waiting to be rediscovered.

For instance, the excitement of the cerulean sea on a beautiful day was one a child could never forget. Her grandmother’s house was on the road across from the sea and the air was tainted with the sweet smell of sea salt. *There was no pristine white sand beach like in the movies but only beautiful black sand littered with palms and dead branches from the coconut trees that towered above. As a child whenever she went spent the night by her grandmother she would stay up and listen not just to the rhythmic beat and chirp of the night insects or to the woosh and splash of the waves on the beach but to the slamming of dominoes. After hours, the men of the village sat on the splintered, old, salt embedded picnic table, long battered by the waves and wind, and play a heavy game of dominoes. It was a wonder that the force which they slammed down their dominoes with did not break the table. Their coarse skin was impervious to the battalions of nature and they played their game whether in bright moonlight or harsh sea breeze. She and that beach had been through a lot for better or for worse, she regarded it as a bitter wife, one who was always glad to see you but never left you without a few scars. Scars especially in the form of a deep splinters from the old battered fishing boats. As a child they held so much tantalizing adventure that she could not have resisted running across them, bare foot of course.

Incidentally, it was the bitumen road barring her from a wonderful sea that also took her to her second joy, the* market. Sometimes, the whole village was like a market, the woman who lived next to her grandmother sold drinks; the woman who lived up the road sold ice pops*, the man by the church sold sweet coconut ‘jelly’*. But none of that could compare to the treasures that were sold down the road at the market. She would ask her grandmother politely for some money and wait patiently for her to fish out some spare change from her purse. Then she and her village friends would run down the road to where the vibrant shacks and the fishermen leaning on their overturned boats stayed to meet the lively old ladies and their delicious treats. Thinking back, she did not think she knew what those delicasies were called, but there was nothing like the flurry of of colours  that was a Caribbean market to make a child feel at home. The sun’s unrelenting heat was not on the forefront of her mind when choosing from her pick of delicasies. The vendors and their sweet old smiles, always reminding her to tell “Teacher”* Ilva hello for them, and the village boys running around and playing their same tricks put her under a hypnotic spell one that tended to end with an inconceivable stomach ache, one that was soemtimes remedied with a nasty dose of  castor oil*. It sadden her a bit to remember that part because unlike the man with their games and the sea with its rhythm, neither of which had left, the number of vendors had decreased dramatically.

However, nowhere did memories live as strongly as in her grandmother’s house. The house itself was another adventure, literally two skips from the sea, it boasted what had seemed (and still did) like a towering red wall that had battle bravely against the worst of the sea. Behind this fortress, her grandmother’s home was surrounded by what had been to her, a mysterious jungle filled with undiscovered beauties. After one had battled through this forest thicker than those Indiana Jones had ever seen, you would emerge on the porch that overlooked the world. There, even more of her favourite riches were hidden. There was an ancient rocking chair that guarded her grandfather’s vast (but musty) library. inside the house itself there were innumerable trinkets, but to a child this merely meant more toys than Santa could imagine, more pictures than the Louvre could hold and somehow more *shot glass than any rum shop. Her grandmother’s home also meant being a pickup truck ride away from the church and the best steamed boneless flying fish that one could ever think to be possible, was made right here. Her grandmother’s home was a child’s haven and the happiest place on earth.

In essence, ash she gazed onto the abandon street, or walked down to the empty market or even took a tour through the now termite infested old house, there was nothing that could surround her with more happiness even in the bustling streets of town. She finished the last of her sour-sop ice pop and walked down the steps to the creaking gate, her magnificent jungle had been reduced to a weed filled garden, but at least the sea was still here.

*The Commonwealth of Dominica was formed from volcanic eruptions instead of coral and limestone build up, therefore we do not have white sand beaches except for in one case but instead we have black sand.

*Icepops- this isn’t the commercial, artificially made bright and colourful coolaid tasting ice pops that are seen on T.V. These are made using fruit juice or in the case of coconut, blending the food with milk, pouring it into a very small and clear plastic and tying the top before leaving it to freeze.

*Jelly- is a local term for the white food on the inside of a coconut. Things like this, mango and banana do not taste the same as their artificial counterpants. They are much better

*Teacher- In the more rural or “country” towns it is still popular to refer to someone, especially a woman by her profession even after she retired. So my grandmothers were always and forever will be “Teacher” Ilva and “Teacher” Phyllis while my aunt is ‘Nurse’ Ophellia or simply just Nurse.

*Castor oil- in the Caribbean  it was popular for children to eat too many fruits during the summer, they used to remedy anys toamch aches with a spoonful of oil from the castor plant. When I was younger my mother would mix that and vaseline in my hair to make it thicker.

*Shot glasses- I don’t know, maybe it was thing? People used to seem to enjoy collecting all these shot glasses with little pictures on them from other islands.