Over the course of one’s life you accumulate a lot of shoes – and many of them reveal an awful lot about who you are or who you’re trying to be and most importantly, they are obvious markers of what races you’re running or which ones you fit into (or not). I’ve been tossing out a lot of shoes lately – not so much because of a bad fit, but rather because I bought a few that were simply uncomfortable.
In my travels over the past year I’ve found a few new pairs in Europe (UK and Germany) and back home in Jamaica that fit really well. Particularly back in Jamaica, the fit was so good that I broke out into a sprint. My life over the past few months has taken on the most unpredictable direction which has focused my most recent running efforts into producing and possibly showing my new photographic projects there.
I’ve been so taken by the open generousity, warmth, beauty, and ease of temperament of my fellow Jamaicans, which frankly I’d long forgotten in my fast-and-furious-singular-ambitious-race-for-survival in New York. I will admit that over the years, I’ve become a New Yorker in every sense, I correlate my needs and resources at a constant pace of supreme urgency just as a matter of course, and being confronted by anything slower is enough to cause a crash. And crash I did, from utter exhaustion into a necessarily new (though old and familiar) way of navigating the path.
Hanging out with friends and family needn’t be as complicated as arranging a triple by-pass surgery with the world’s most sought after surgeon. In Jamaica, I experienced a social ease that seemed to be free of self-importance - free of attachment to busy schedules. I experienced myself at ease, which as odd as this may be to say about oneself, is quite the novelty! The scene in Kingston has changed immensely since my youthful days there. I shamefully admit now that I left Jamaica thinking it was limited in its cultural views and therefore in its expression and growth – and I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life.
Now that I’ve become, for all intents and purposes, a complete tourist, when I travel there my eyes are always open to every new development, and to my absolute wonderment and delight, there have been many. Thriving galleries (you must check out the newly renovated National Gallery!), art fairs and festivals offer new avenues of visual and performing art expression with several exhibition and performance spaces for new talent to share their creations (eg. Kingston on the Edge [KOTE] & Liguanea Art Festival). Gorgeous new hotels with lovely lounges for evening gatherings (Backgammon nights, and lunch at Spanish Court Hotel - winner! thanks Mickey!), which are among the many nightlife options that even the New York Times referred to last November as a happening scene. There is a thriving café and restaurant culture with more culinary explorations than were ever available in my day, and a huge fashion explosion (see Caribbean Fashion week) with promising collaborations of new and established talent from all over the Caribbean and the world. There are also open venues for new writers to present, publish, and sell their works (see Bookphilia). And all this, against the backdrop of an incredibly beautiful, tropical, mountainous paradise with fun, gregarious, talented, sexy, beautiful people. And now all this seems to be hanging in the balance of a few individuals who have all but set the capital on proverbial fire. 
Jamaica for all its glaring beauty has unfortunate glaring socio-economic challenges that have created hot ground under the shoes of its citizens. With the pending extradition of the alleged drug and arms trafficker Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the descending hell of his supporters to prevent his arrest has now sent my fellow Jamaicans running for the hills before a 6pm curfew. State of Emergency?! My God my mind is beating louder than my heart. Being a West African born girl, I know what that means in perhaps a more palpable way than even my friends who are currently in the middle of this fray. I can’t help but project my knowledge of a particular type of national unrest onto this my other home. Ironically "Dudus" is to be extradited to my third home, New York City.
Parallel to this is the irony that for some time now the citizens of Jamaica have been less than pleased, not only with the government and it’s handling of the country and this current set of circumstances concerning “Dudus” but also with the Police Forces – some calling for their total disbandment and replacement. I unfortunately don’t have a fully informed opinion on much of this to be perfectly honest. I am an artist, and a dreamer; I purposely ride in a bubble, and currently with really comfy shoes that want to run home.
The irony is that with the intensity of our current civil unrest – our very safety now relies completely on those whom we have spent all this time criticizing. The burden and full extent of accountability of the reasons behind this not withstanding, I’m sure of this much, we can only pray for and support those who are literally laying their lives on the line to keep our loved ones safe. The run in the streets now is almost like a race for redemption, and their bloodstained soles, in my dreaming mind, serve only to clear the path for clean new ground upon which we can tread together slowly, calmly, and stain-free to a better, brighter, and united future.
May the Universal Love of Life Redeem Our Majestic Little Island
+ Photos of local children and Bonsai trees (courtesy of award winning Bonsai artist Kynan Cooke) in Kingston, Jamaica – all beautiful little things, that with loving care, bend and grow and thrive in little spaces with grand elegance.
++ For more on hot gathering spots, arts & entertainment, and open discourse on current cultural tides in Kingston - YardEdge.net is pretty much the best resource for listings on everything happening now. Check it and bookmark it.
+++ Wise appeals from Bob, Black Uhuru, Shabba, Buju, and Matisyahu:
Bob Marley - Ambush In The Night
Bob Marley - Ambush In The Night
Black Uhuru - Solidarity
Shabba Ranks - Roots and Culture
Shabba Ranks - Roots and Culture
Buju Banton - Cowboy/Curfew
Matisyahu - One Day (LIVE Sirrus performance with beatboxing)
We Hope
We Pray
We Clamour for Peace
for Truth
for Justice
for Unity
AS A NATION
~Mystic Urchin~
