The Point is...

In a few hours, I will celebrate my birth. My mother did not have to push me out, she was assisted by a team of doctors and they cut her open and took me out. I didn’t have to struggle through the cervix to get here I was lifted elevated out of the womb and my mother was asleep as I cried; afterall that was thirty four years ago. I know I am not imagining this because my mother tells a story of having woken up asking the nurse for her daughter. She knew I was a girl. The nurses knew I was pink and dubbed me that Pinky; I had a pink teddy bear to commemorate that, but as I got older I named him Johnaton and soon killed him after.

But there is also Louise, my grandmother, who said I was Chinese. My Grandmother was the woman who would sit in the house from 9 am till 5 pm to get me to drink porridge, or who would run into the room when my mother would forget about the baby sleeping on her chest and roll in the bed tossing the child on the wooden floor. My Grandmother I sometimes dream about and imagine as the woman who loved me unconditionally and protectively and was always there to rescue me when my mother failed said that I must have been a Chinese, a funny joke I keep to myself now when people ask me if my Scottish name Wanliss is actually Chinese.

In a few hours I celebrate my birth.  I grew up Jehovah’s Witness and so there was no celebration of birth in my family. But there was a lady who shared the small side of the house, Aunt Lurlene, who taught me to cook and had a real passion for baking and would bake me, this is where my memory gets blurry since I am not sure if she did it once or many times, a yellow and white icing birthday cake with my name written on it. I think my mother reminded her that there was no need for gifts or celebration or any “Happy birthday” wording on the cake that just my name would suffice since the only thing Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate is Christ’s death. I do remember being happy to have that cake and I remember staring at my name on a cake and eating a slice a day two if they would let me.


I think that was my first and last celebration, well the one where my mother explained to Aunt Lurlene, the neighbour, about the lack of festivities. I remember my mother sitting on a stool and me resting between her legs as she spoke. I have received maybe only one cake for my birthday after that. 

In a few hours I celebrate my birthday and in my mind birthdays have also been painful. Eighteen years ago I was raped and that pushed me off a trajectory of church and being someone’s wife. For me and my family that was me dying. And maybe I did. Maybe I had to experience the horror of no birthday cakes and a bottle of alcohol for every year I had survived. I remember one year waking up but naked in my mother’s house and hearing that an entire day had passed. I slept away the twentieth. I lived a year one day short.

But being raped brought me closer to poetry and wanting to tell stories and later directing theatre. Many years later I think it was my 30th or 29th birthday a woman I loved deeply baked me a whole chocolate cake from scratch. What happened eighteen years ago two days before my CXC exams on a Tuesday night on Red Hills Boulevard has brought me here in Trinidad dedicating two years to writing and writing and writing. 

  And now, in a few hours I celebrate my birthday away from home. Normally, I mean normally after the cake, I would try to gather people together and read poetry. The first time it happened a friend of mine Jason “Ganjari” Crokshank who wanted to have an event  saw me on the road just a few weeks before my birthday stopped me and said yea you can do it my house. “Back a Di Yard” had its first gathering on my birthday and only a few people came but I had a blast. It was nice to know who you are and to have even ten people saying yes to your work. After that I have always read poetry for my birthday. And even after he died I still did it with the help of other space holding friends. 

But that is Jamaica and this is Trinidad. And with only a few more hours left I don’t know what will happen. But for the past few days all I have been feeling is a need to be silent to give thanks for surviving. After all, I will celebrate my birthday in Trinidad without my mother, without alcohol, without the cake, without my lover.  Trinidad has not been easy between the Wanliss matriarch’s death, my need for relocation, stolen goods, loss of love, inability to fulfil contracts because of stolen goods, being away, the fact that Trinidad and Jamaica are as different as air and land. 

But it still feels like I am in a dream because, in a few hours I celebrate my birth and after 34 years  I have the knowing to be grateful since I have with me in Trinidad theses hints to Gift of Divinity:

1. fear is the wardrobe you struggle with and carrying it around only stops flight. It’s okay to feel fear but never be afraid.

2. principles are guidelines and are not all there is to life. Being stuck on someone’s shoulds blinds us from cans.

4. being your best self all we can do, this is not just about doing but recognizing integrity and purpose are partners in life.

5. pain is a gateway and, as a friend of mine would say, it makes no sense to go to door knock and me scared to enter. The only thing to know is love is an energy it never goes away

6. awareness is responding not reacting

7. sacredness is the magic wand that is fuelled by love. And that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with life and magic and worship and practise is a noun and a verb for a reason

 And all this does is point out to me that growing older is way different from growing up...

But really all of this post was a shitty way of showing you pictures of myself as I grow older, the words twas ambiance...

                                             Happy birthday to me... 34