Category transcendence
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 6 24 16 In the Dark
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom” ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Use your common sense, child!” I remember being told this when I was young. I imagine it was said in exasperation by one or other of my parents, probably in response to some obvious question I had asked. Perhaps a […]
FMM 6 10 16 Dream On
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”~ Carl G. Jung My father ‘dream’ me this week. This is the Jamaican way for saying you have been visited in your dream by someone, usually one who has passed on. Of course these dreams are seen as particularly significant, for there must […]
FMM 5 13 16 Be more, Do more, Want less
“We can’t be useful to ourselves unless we’re useful to others.”~Dalai Lama. When I stepped into my bathroom the other morning, I had a memory of early mornings in the hills of Jamaica. A cool breeze would steal in through the open window, warning you of how cold the unheated water might be. Outside the […]
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