Thinking of Irene Margaret Smith - my mother

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – As I write this blog I’m thinking of my mother, Irene Margaret Smith (my Keba).  I’m thinking of the wit and wisdom I’ve missed out on these past ten (10) years.  I’m also thinking of the overwhelming pride she would feel as she stood shyly by and watch me taking these bold yet baby steps towards becoming what I’ve always dreamed about becoming—a published author.

Many years ago I had an opportunity to be published.  I refused.  Why? It was a matter of principle.  The principle was the most important part of my decision making.  The person who was offering to publish my book (not this one) had themselves started out by self-publishing and had, along the way, gotten ‘picked’ up by a main-stream publishing house and now had their own imprint.  This individual was now ‘gathering’ authors and so I was offered a sum of money and assured a certain number of books would be printed for the first run. I didn’t like this author’s work and I also felt that I wrote better and so, against the advice of the person suggesting the offer I turned it down.  Was that a wise choice?  For a while I wasn’t sure if I’d made the best decision but upon reflection it must have been the best decision for me since I have no regrets.

Now here I am without my mother and wanting to tell her about this journey.  My mother was not an educated woman but she was the brightest woman I knew and she loved words.  My mother always had a book.  She didn’t use any fancy book marks she used bits and pieces of paper to ‘mark’ her page.  Sometimes when she was reading she would say “big Jerusalem” and I would invariably know that she’d encountered a word that she didn’t know.  I understood “big Jerusalem”.  When she said that she knew I would come.  I would tell her the word, what it meant and help her to, as she would say, “sound it out.”

Sometimes if she encountered the same word again she might not fully remember and she’d say, “Here’s that big Jerusalem word again.” I also knew she didn’t want help with it this time.  She didn’t need to know how to say the word.  She’d gathered the gist of and she was just helping me to recall our having worked the word out together—our moment of shared discovery.

It is for times like those or times when she was busy being the best griot I’d ever met that I would miss her and terribly.

On August 28, 2000 my mother’s voice quieted.  I accepted (with a lot of difficulty) that I would never hear her stories (and God were there stories), her whistling (my mother could whistle Ava Maria and make you cry), her singing (that’s where she got the nick name “Keba”) or her talking.  It wasn’t so much the words I would miss but the sound of her voice.  The way her Bajan accent wrapped itself around familiar words and changed them.  She made them free floating rhythm   I knew every inflection of her voice.  I knew the nuances of her speech and even when she didn’t speak I knew her ‘language’.  My mother’s language was one of love.  Even when she chastised you she didn’t strip away the love.  Love was always there.

This journey without her has been like learning to live without my right hand (I’m a righty), without sight and her insight(without both I’ve been blind to so many things), and most of all the words and emotions with which she coated her thoughts.  These words were rich and they touched me deep enough to help me create unbelievable characters. 

As unimaginable and surreal as this part of my Etched journey has been without her.  I keep telling myself that somehow she knows. Somehow she’s in that place that allows her to know what I’m doing and in that place where she is right now she’s proud of me. She’s talking  about me in that wonder lilting Bajan voice she’s saying that she knows I miss her and she’s sorry that there’s nothing she can do to let me know but she knows that somehow my heart will feel her and know.  I know. I know because I’m her daughter. 

My mother’s mark or etchings on my life and soul are indelible.  My mother’s words resonate in my spirit and help me to keep on even when my eyes are blurry with tears and the road ahead seems like a haze or like fog has touched the ground.  Even in the zero visibility days I know she’s there—just up ahead so I forge on following her—my own angelic GPS.

My mother loved all her children.  There was never any doubt about her love for her children or the pride she felt when one of us, and it didn’t matter which one, accomplished something—she was proud.  Her smile might have been shy or sometimes practically covered by her hands but her eyes laughed out loud.  My mother’s eyes would explode with every range of emotion and finally when they were full as her heart she would close them.  I think she would shut her eyes so as to etch her pride on her heart.

Etched is the kind of book that would bring about that kind of response in my mother.  She would laugh at the funny parts, share the sadness of the characters, and at the parts of pure love (physical expression of love) she would be shy but her eyes would betray her.  They would laugh and I would know that she was proud.

Irene Margaret Smith…..my mother, my friend, my Keba—I missed you before but now as I get closer to the end of this journey of seeing Etched become a book and I, a published author I’m having many zero visibility days.

Excerpt from Etched - …..came out of the kitchen and she had a white candle in her hand. It was lit and without a word she put it on the side cabinet. Daddy said that the candle was to remember Mommy’s spirit. Seeing the candle started to make me feel really sad. I watched the candle burning and each time it flickered the more I missed Mommy.

Going back to come forward to Etched

A few days ago I received an email from my Editor.  Her comments sent me spinning…not in a bad way but in an unbelievable grinning like a Cheshire cat kind of way.  There was an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.  Not accomplishment because I’d finished writing “Etched” but an amazing sense of accomplishment of finally seeing the millions steps I’d envisioned when I started this pilgrimage as little girl growing up in Barbados, West Indies, dwindle down to a sacred few.

Editor’s comment, “….the book really speaks to the reader, really involves them. I love manuscripts like this, it's so exciting to read something that takes over your whole mind.”

Now I’m standing on the threshold of the beginning of another million step pilgrimage and this time it’s not as scary as the first million step pilgrimage because I’ve fulfilled that childhood dream.  I’ve strung together letters, words, sentences and paragraphs and the end result is—Etched.

Many years ago, in Barbados, a little girl—(me) dreamed of someday writing a book. This dream started rather simply.  I was introduced to letters and then, amazed that they could be combined to make words and then strung together to become sentences my life changed .  Life as I knew it would never be the same.  This stringing of letters to words to sentences to paragraphs to books became the things I wanted to do.   I wanted to know how authors, did that so I could do it too.

That curiosity was fed by a teacher at my primary school.  This teacher was in charge of the school library and realizing, that I had a voracious appetite for books he fed me book, after book, after book.  He fed them to me the way we do paper shredders today. However, one day the unthinkable happened.  I’d done something that no other student had done before.  I’d read all the books in the library—we’d run out of books.  The little school library didn’t have a book in it that I hadn’t read.

Reading out the school library must be understood in the true context of what the library was.  It was located in a public primary school in Barbados during the late 1960s.  Barbados had recently gained its independence from England and was for all intents and purposes—a toddler nation.  It was an island that was still swathed in colonial customs, a public school system set up to educate (and well) an all Negro (don’t know if we were Negroes—might have been Black then) so with that in mind you’ll know that the library wasn’t exactly the New York Public Library.

Anyway with no more books left and my appetite still wide open for more books he, the teacher, gave me the only book I hadn’t attempted to read—the bible.  This bible was the size of bibles you can find on the pulpit of any big Black church. With my super size prize in hand I struggled home.  I remember the weight but that didn’t matter to me. I was in possession of the biggest book I’d ever seen and that was the only thing that mattered. I was blissfully happy in the ignorance of the task I’d undertaken.

I remember getting home and my father, God bless him, looked at me and my prize and said, “I guess he finally found a way to be rid of you.  It should take you the rest of your life to read that thing.”  My feelings were hurt but I had reading to get to so I didn’t dwell too long on his remark.  I started reading and that was the best usage of letters I’d ever encountered.  I wanted to write stories like the ones in the bible.

I not only read the stories in the bible but I added/made up stories to go along with the ones that were there.  I read the story of David and Goliath and since David’s story was already written I wrote Goliath’s story.  When I got to the story of King David’s children: Ammon, Tamar and Absalom I got into Ammon’s head.  I knew what he was thinking when he saw Absalom coming.  He, Ammon,  knew he had to make peace with God and quickly.  It’s a good thing he was a quick with his prayers because in my version when he said, “Amen” he was already standing at the gates of Hell.  That’s the only place you can go for raping your half sister. I didn’t make this up. Ammon unable to accept common sense and reason from Tamar his half sister that he shouldn’t do that ‘thing’ to here decided that he had to have her. In his ‘having’ her he’d dishonored his family and honor had to be restored.  Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, took Ammon out.  Just like that.

I also learned about romance from the bible.   In the Song of Solomon in verse two (2) she says, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine.”  In verse five (5) she says, “I am black, but comely and in verse six (6) it says...I am black because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

Having figured out by then to string words together I was able to see right inside this story.  The untold story was deeper than anything in the bible.  By then I knew that they were all Africans but what propelled me to think deeper and differently was the constant reference to being Black.  Her blackness got her ostracized.  Her mother’s children…not her brothers or sisters but her mother’s children—she didn’t share full parent-ship with these siblings. Did her mother ‘step’ out and the rest of the family knew so they had to keep her out of sight thereby sending her into the vineyard.  Now of course I understood that with her out there tending their vineyards hers of course, went unattended. The first version of Cinderella ever talked about.

That book helped me to understand (and I could be wrong) interracial relationships steeped in passion.  I wanted to string my words together so I could tell those kinds of stories.  Now here I am embarking on another pilgrimage and it’s exciting. I’ve written Song of Solomon kind of romance and when my characters are Black…they are comely and awaiting kisses on their mouths.

Excerpt from Etched that shows a strong interracial love:

It’s true he was a white man and a Jewish one at that and, most of them didn’t have any uses for Negroes but this white man, that was Jewish, was different.  He was sweet on Aunt Bess and had been for years.  Naum Glassberg would have been happy to hang his hat and coat on Aunt Bess’ coat rack if she’d let him but she never did and now he, the white Jewish man that loved her had….

The Journey To Now

This has been a journey; though solitary, not one I'd willingly embraced until I saw the end results.  In those solitary moments I discovered literary wells that were untapped--just waiting. In those untapped wells characters waiting to be discovered, poetry waiting to be written and prose awaiting dialogue.

Allow me now, if you will to share with you a result of that solitude an excerpt of my forthcoming book, Etched:

I learned over time from Cousin Thea about her man Crawford.  To hear Cousin Thea tell it she and Crawford had invented love and loving.  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and tell her that I believed both of those things started with Milton and me so I let her talk.  I didn’t have to say anything that would hurt Cousin Thea’s feeling since it seemed as if Crawford had forgotten himself about hurting her feeling.  He’d forgotten all the good and beautiful things they done to get to the point where she was pregnant and her feeling were raw, fragile and it was important that he not do or say anything to hurt them.

Cousin Thea and I were sitting in the upstairs drawing room—we’d taken to using it but mostly if Aunt Bess was at church, down town or visiting one of her friends.  Aunt Bess didn’t mind.  She said the whole house was for living and she was glad that we were doing just that by using the upstairs living room.  I’m not sure what Cousin Thea and I were doing but for sure it had something with our hands and had to involve some kind of needle .  We’d been doing our needle work quietly for a while with the radio playing for itself as Aunt Bess called it when the radio was on and nobody was really listening when Cousin Thea said, “Remember that day we met—on the bus; well it had taken me just a few minutes to get on that bus but I’d waited weeks—as a matter of fact; three…three weeks of hiding and not knowing if I’d be able to get on and get away.”

“Hiding?  Who or what were you hiding from?”

“The police and Crawford.”

“But why?”

“Before you ask a thousand questions I’m just going tell you and when I’m done with this telling I’m not telling it again because to tell it means I have to live it again and I don’t want to do that.  Living, what I went through, the year leading up to those three weeks no woman should have to live through.  You see if Crawford had gone to her, don’t ask me who her is, I’m going tell you or its going come out in the telling anyway. If I’d never known—you know, never saw the way he was loving up on her I would have gone on—maybe suspecting; if I had even suspected, hurting if I felt hurt—I would have just gone on loving him, loving him, loving him but he went to her.

The “her” was my cousin. She was more than three or four times removed on my father’s side, and no I’m not going to say her name, her name isn’t important.  What’s important to the telling of this is that she was a nasty stinking whore—cousin or no cousin.  She was a stinking, nasty, slimy bitch of a whore.

Etched - The Journey

Etched - The Journey To Now -Sunday,9/26/10

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time ‘blogging’ and when I went back to edit the blog to my great dismay and chagrin I not only edited but somehow deleted the entire blog.  For a few minutes I was upset but once I realized that I could not recover the document I let it go and just as quickly the vexation left me—it passed with no residual distress.  Perhaps, my mind said it wasn’t the right thing for now as some parts of the blog bothered me.  Who knows maybe I subconsciously intended to be rid of that particular blog.  It is gone so here I am re-writing or writing fresh.  I want to think writing what should have been written in the first place.

Why am I blogging or doing a task that I’m unsure anyone will read?  For all the same reasons I wrote my book “Etched”.  I believe in the power of the written word.  My father, a very interesting man, loved words. He used them in varying ways. Sometimes he was complimentary and other times…brutal. Despite all of that I learned from him to love words. I loved them and used them; sometimes—now not easy to admit—just as brutally and with almost, if not the same degree of precision as he did to inflict hurt or shame on others.  Time, patience and a better spiritual relationship has tempered that ‘quick retort "cut-like-a-sword" spirit’ in me and now I’m able to dispense my words—even the ones that might hurt with a lot less force and even some kind of buffer.  I've learned that it’s not always necessary to ‘hurl’ my words at anyone.  I don’t hurl now—I aim.

Many things can change many people but words of care and concern can change all people - Annette I. Smith

It is my hope that as I journey towards getting “Etched” edited and published that I can document this process.  “Etched” was not a book that I sat down with clear ideas as to how I was going to write.  There wasn’t an outline of: Title, introductory sentence, tell them, tell them, wow them, draw them in and wow them!  None of that existed.  What existed in my mind, my head and my heart was a clear picture of my intended audience/reader in mind. I was going to write to the individual who appreciated a well-crafted tale.  My reader, that proverbial, invisible, all knowing, all interesting individual would want to know about my characters.  He/she (my reader) would be excited to be taken on this journey of trial, triumph, love, hate, passion and pain.

So, with my reader locked in my mind I starter the journey to write and to write all the ‘right’ notes.  As I wrote the story changed.  What I started to write on that July 3, 2003 night is tucked away in a file somewhere waiting to be introduced in a few months as “Lineage” the sequel to “Etched”.

“Etched” and its many characters chose me.  I didn’t know these characters nor did I have any idea that they would develop as they did.  It is my belief that “they” wanted their story told and chose me.  I feel so deeply honored to have been ‘chosen’ as their scribe and Griot. Just like the great African story tellers I'm not just telling Etched; I witnessed its unfolding.  I lived it, shared in the characters joy, happiness and God knows—I felt their pain.  Sometimes the pain was too much for me, my angst too deep and my worry and concern for them continued well after I’d put my pen (yes I wrote 95 – 99% of this story in long hand) down.  I have cried right along with these people (they became my people after a while). I never approached this story with the slightest notion that I knew what was next. I waited with a developed patience.  We, the characters and I, spent a great deal of time together.  This was all I did every evening from February 2010 until now. I started at or around 6:30 PM (August, my 85 pound Mastif/Labardor mix) had to be walked) and I would continue until I was ‘let’ go--this mostly left me exhausted when morning came and I started my day around 5:30-6:00am (August again).  Sometimes I wrote before I left for work and then, as soon as I sat on the bus (never took the train as it wouldn’t have allowed me time to write or to edit) I would start the process of writing or editng.

Sometimes I would her myself say to the characters, “(blank) and what did you do next?  What is it you want me to know?  What happened?”  I found when I adopted that attitude and waited invariably the ‘story’ started, unfolded and I was filled with the sights and sounds of that moment. Some characters and their interactions with other characters was easy and some….were very difficult.  I even disliked (and with a passion) some of the characters.  My dislike had nothing to do with their development.  I wrote them as completely as those I liked.

I never labored with this story.  I never had to worry about character description.  I was most often told what the character looked like.  I accepted the descriptions and wrote them just as I was “told”.  I am at peace with the end results and it’s my hope that my reader will be pleased with the story that I’ve traverse time and space to bring to them.