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| Here's a smile at my grandmother's funeral in Santa Cruz, Trinidad. photo credit coming soon. |
It's strange to be here and not hear my grandmother's voice. Sometimes I feel as though she will just sweep in, back from a trip into town, smiling and full of light and energy. It really is strange not having her around. It's true that the Alzheimer's made me get used to not having her around, but I haven't been back in ten years, and now I understand why.
Life is really funny and it's strange how many of us take it for granted so. A year ago I would have never thought I would be here, in this house, in Trinidad. When I left New York last August, I was so happy to return to my job teaching. And just as I had thought, they had even offered me a permanent contract. I was so happy to have a job that I loved.
But the happiness didn't last that long. It's weird, because we all know that stress kills, so I wonder why it's okay for work to stress you? My school took in way more students than we had room for and I found myself having to either teach in hallways or my classroom was being moved everyday. It didn't take long for my students to dwindle, and as a teacher, that's the worst feeling. It makes you feel like a failure. You want to be that Hollywood teacher that makes the class stay together because you create such a wonderful environment. But real life doesn't work like that. I got really stressed. I was eating greasy food everyday. I was crying everyday. It was horrible. But it wasn't as horrible as realizing that your boss didn't really care about you as much as you cared about your students and your job and they certainly didn't seem to care if you dropped dead from stress. That's when I decided to leave.
I decided to take my book and tour with it and give it that extra push that it needs to sell. Because that's all that matters in publishing - how much is your book selling? So I packed up everything and decided to come to the States. I flew into Los Angeles and had a wonderful event at Stories Books and Cafe, drove to Mexico, then to San Diego, then to San Francisco. Kelly Curry drove us up the coast and we even stopped off to see the burial sight of her parents. In San Francisco I had an event at Alley Cat Books where we ended up going out to dinner and then I flew to Portland where I got to see my good friend Chris Yarrow and Intisar Abiota. The audience in Portland was amazing. Then I flew to New York and had a horrible cold and was sick for like a couple of weeks. But I flew into New York really early and went to this two-day spiritual retreat for Women of African Descent lead by Gloria Rodriguez from DeAlmas Women's Institute in the Bronx and the Caribbean Cultural Center and I felt really lifted by the spirits of the Ancestors although I was soooo sick.
It was great to have a few weeks with no events because that's when my grandmother became really sick and eventually passed. Which as many of you already know, I was blessed to be with her. I then had my New York City event and was able to reconnect with a lot of old friends and I realized that the most important thing about my events was actually the energy that we were creating together. There were so many amazing folks there and the conversation was wonderful. And it was great to have my brother and sister there as well. That was Friday February 22nd, and I left for Trinidad that following Monday and my grandmother's funeral was this past Friday March 1st. And like I mentioned before, I haven't been here in 10 years and I'll be here for a minute, resting and taking care and reaching out to folks on behalf of my book.
Thank you to everybody who has supported my book! I have some more events coming up when I return to the States and I will keep you posted.
