Author Archives: bethpow06
FMM 9 23 16 Find your own Voice
“Children go where they find sincerity and authenticity.” ~Eric Cantona. They say confession is good for the soul. I don’t know if I ever admitted to one of my childhood crimes. My mother was quite an intimidating person, and at the time I found it far easier to deny, deny, deny, than to admit it […]
FMM 9 16 16 You Think you Know
“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”~Joseph Joubert. I still remember the smell of Pears Soap. I chose to use it as the first soap used on my firstborn, associating it with purity and simplicity, a transparent oval bar that we could only find in a Jamaican store. But I associate […]
FMM 9 9 16 Walk a Mile
“This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.”~ Alice Walker. At the age of 8 or 9, I attended a country school in the heart of Jamaica. I was the only white girl in the school, which meant I was […]
FMM 8 26 16 Road Trip, Baby!
“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”~Maya Angelou. Before my family moved to Jamaica, our annual vacations began with a road trip. My parents would pack up whatever old jalopy we owned (one was the ‘orange monster’!) with camping gear, supplies for a month, and five kids. The journey was made slightly […]
FMM 8 19 16 Leading with the Heart
“One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.”~Knute Rockne I was not an athlete growing up. I longed to be an athlete. My father had won awards for his athletic prowess, following his brothers in all manner of sporting events. But I had team spirit. I cheered my team along. I […]
FMM 8 12 16 Jamaica Sweet!
“Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night?”~ Claude McKay. For many years, I was totally loyal to Air Jamaica. I refused to fly on any other airline when I flew home to Jamaica. It was not just the beautifully sleek […]
FMM 8 5 16 Fingerprints and Footprints
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers”~Khalil Gibran. The older we get, the harder it is to be fed a line. We have grown from being idealists to being cynics. When someone pays us a compliment we may […]
FMM 7 22 16 Sound and Fury
“Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…”~Rudyard Kipling (‘If’). My father used to hate crowded places. He did not go happily (if he went at all) to fairs or festivals, crowds of people and loud noises. I tend to react the same way to multiple people talking at the same time, it seems confusing […]