Love, FA

panic attack

2011-04-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am too-tired, over-tired, scary-tired.

for the first people think I look OLDER than I am

I walk around dazed and scared

If I dont get my health and energy back, ...I feel I will collapse - I won't make it day to day.

My sugar levels go up and down, I dont know what I want.

Chemo and stress not a pretty cocktail.

Waiting for rest to work its miracle cure.

Max and the cat gang came back to take up their watchmen roles along my bedside - all five of them.

Chemo update

2011-02-03T00:25:00.000-08:00

Dear friends

Just to let you know how it is going....

I have been on chemo-therapy for 7 months, since beginning of July.

At the time, the tumor in my gut had grown to the point that it was aiming to choke my alimentary canal again, and also had a potentially fatal grip on the veins coming down from my heart.

The medication I was using, an oral drug called Tamoxiphen, was not working.

After a fun week at St Mike's with all my old freinds - Drs Kortan, Grantcherov et al - I started on intravenous Methotrexate and Vinblastine, weekly, three weeks on, one week off.

By the end of September the tumor had shrunk by a third, to the delight of my Oncologist.

"Rarely has anyone reacted like this to my protocol!' he said. I congratulated him.

He indicated that the accomplishment was actually mine. I blushed and said "Thank you".

He suggested he might take me off chemo after 6 months if the shrinkage continued at the same pace....

Chemo ward - the guy on the left is getting read the riot act... on the left madam catches up with some reading.

As time went on I found the treatment harder to handle. At the beginning it was exhausting, now it wipes me out. I have a range of annoying side-effects. The worst is not being able to finish thoughts, or complete actions without my mind going blank. That and being sick all the time really cuts down on what I can do with my time.... like make films etc, which face it, is trench warfare, you have to be in tip top shape, mentally and physically.

Last week I had my second scan. My Onc anticipating miracles set up a special screening so we could look at the pictures together. Dissapointingly, we both had difficulty reading the strange diagrams. No matter how we interpreted them, no miracle seemed evident. The tumor was still there.

I decided to wait for the radiologists report and today I got that. No surprises. The tumor continues to shrink, with some complications now caused by the shrinkage. Chemo will continue.We give thanks for life ongoing.

Love you all,
FA

Chemo

2010-07-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Chemo 1

2010-07-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

first of all thank you, for all your good wishes.

What a miracle is the internet that we can connect so easily

When I was a child I didn't have this.... Anyone my age can tell you of the emotional isolation that this technology has pretty well cured. I am so grateful for it.

Leonie came with me to my first visit, and I definately recommend carrying a friend along, as it takes the edge off the whole boring procedure (that otherwise will prey on your mind) if only because you have to extend your imagination to keep your good friend amused.

Half way through the session, hooked up to the cocktail, Lee and I began planning our new show

It stars Leonie as an errant intransigent bad-mind old lady (remind me of my granny in her last days - stubborn, outrageous and own-way) stuck in a hospital in Toronto, with Valerie Vuhagiar as her rather drunken Nurse, and Michael Miller as her unsympathetic son. Being in the hospital environment certainly helped us to imagine all the fun scenarios that can develop between these 3 wonderful characters. So we were cracking up together, and the time passed quickly.

Standing outside the hospital waiting for my mother to pick us up after Lee said: "Listen here Frances-Anne, this could really be hilarious, I'm sure CPTC will help us with equipment and I know one or two camera men in Jamaica who want to work with me..."

I sure hope I get to work on all these wonderful projects that I am cooking up these last months.

Collaborating with friends takes on new depth and meaning in this life phase. I have always sought to work and work again with kindred spirits, soul mates. Now it is essential to simplify relationships, refine the creative process. I need not to be THE driving force. I need to have fun all the time.

And together we will circumnavigate new hurdles : chemo brain, hospital visits.

It all seems posible from here.

Love, more love
FA

Coming Home

2010-07-10T16:19:00.001-07:00

Dear all,

When I left Barbados about a month ago, I thought I was only coming to Toronto for a few days so brought nothing with me. I was feeling ill and did not pack. But somehow as soon as I landed here, I knew that it would be for awhile. Now part of my struggle is not having any clothes to wear ... This is not a bad thing. Life gets simple when you only have one pair of jeans and a couple of tops, and have to resort to dresses discarded and left here last year...

It has been suggested that I write about my ongoing health challenges. It is overwhelming and maybe a way to laugh about it will be to share it with you as I go along .... The last time I was in the hospital 2 years ago, left me with a vein of rich and tragi-comic stories that I am still keen to share. They have everyone in stitches the second I start talking...

Now, I am starting chemo-therapy on Tuesday so we will see how much fun that will be.

The tumor is growing and the Tamoxifen I have been taking for 2 years is not working. Last Tuesday I went to see "Dr Congeniality" my oncologist. So named for his non-existent bedside manner. My mother came along just in case he decided to close the door behind him so he could tell me how important he is all over again. That's what he did the last time. This time my mother sat there like a tape recorder, while he empathetically touched my hand, called me "Dear" and told me chemo would be gentle, manageable, and I would lose no hair. He even suggested that I google the protocol. (Last time I mentioned the internet to him, he was mortified that I would take the advice of the INTERNET over his world-renowned knowledge....

As soon as I got home I wrote to my email support group (of desmoid people who have this disease):

I am about to start chemo methoxetrate/vinerolbine intravenous. ... would appreciate any advice, input re side effects/ etc. thank you in advance
Frances-Anne

Within half an hour I got the following response:

Frances- I had a year of Methotrexate/Vinblastine for my desmoid under my right arm. I chose not to get a port and had to get an IV every time. They gave me various meds for nausea, which I took every time, but it always helped to nibble on graham crackers during infusion. The smell really got to me. I was nauseous for a couple days after and I was worn out. I had no energy for almost a week after. As soon as I started to get back to my "normal" self, it was time for the next round. My hair thinned, my fingernails peeled and cracked. I lost about 20 lbs. After all that, I got no shrinkage. But, my tumor did not grow.

O brave new day.

For those who would like to know: a port is a hole they will put in my chest so they can feed the chemo straight into my heart instead of destroying my veins.

Laters.
Love, FA

I had an Epiphany

2009-09-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

It was a perfect Sunday morning. I don't know why life tastes, smells, looks so sweet after a few days spent cloistered with work. (Through which the dark thoughts swarm, you know them well by now).

But on this perfect Sunday morning, deeply rested from a long night's sleep, the new day ahead looked exquisite.
I was explaining to my friend Jean why technology has never scared me. I have been willing to go through days/weeks/months of frustration and hoplessness just to achieve that moment when you wake the next day and its use has become second nature. That has always been my relationship with technology, ever since computers appeared to challenge us in the early 90's.

Unlike for example my relationship with Music. Months/years/decades spent learning the piano, the guitar, the recorder: nothing stuck. I am useless.

"That is because you realise technology is a means to an end."Jean said.

YES! I thought. And so is music, so is every other obstacle that presents itself!

"So what is the end" Jean said after we argued this back and forth.

The end is expression, and the relationship with an audience, the moment when one person gets it and says"Ah!"
Photo: Perfect Toronto morning, College St prepares for a late summer street festival; Toronto couple enjoying dogs and owners romping in Trinity Bellwoods Park.

PS: I write, I sew, I take pics, make flicks. I talk. I can even dance (true not recently tho). Look to see me start making music soon people.

For the Victims

2009-09-05T01:39:00.000-07:00

If I stay awake after midnight, roving guilt overwhelms me.

I agree Susan Atkins (Sharon Tate's killer) should die in jail, what right has she to expect compassion?

But if I apply this purist standard to myself (as I must), then I am guilty guilty guilty.

There's so much I've done in my long life that was just wrong. Crimes against Humanity. Where is the remorse?

Photo: My homemade shrine. For the victims.

Endings

2009-08-23T11:55:00.001-07:00

Friends,

After a juicy fulfilling summer, I'm heading back to Barbados in 2 weeks.

Grateful for the opportunity, but already grieving Toronto, my garden, cats, and feel of HOME that only an owned home has.

(Photo: Sunbathing - taking in the last days of summer.)

Monkey Business

2009-03-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

One of the most enjoyable encounters I've had here in Barbados was with some wild monkeys.

They live in the high trees around the Car Park at the new Center for Creative Imagination at Cave Hill University. That is where I am teaching 2 courses over the next few months - Screenwriting, and Introduction to Film.

This monkey seemed keen to connect but a bit shy. I inched closer to strike up a conversation, but seconds later he leapt into the brush, and disappeared with his whole family.

The weather here is kind - better for my health than the brutal cold. It's calm, beautiful and I am getting a lot of writing done! (a play we're doing in the summer, called "Lockdown").
Talk to you soon.
Love,
FA

Tan Tan

2009-02-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

I got this from my sister-in-law. My niece calls me Tan Tan! When I was in Tobago at xmas I got her to eat by doing a victory dance zulu style whenever she swallowed a mouthful of food. She loved that!
--------------------
Subject: tan-tan

hi there f-a,

just to let you know that your neice is starting to chat away and every time we use your green bottle you gave her she says tan-tan and last night when danny was trying to get her to eat more dinner and gave her a little victory dance she immediately said 'tan-tan' !!!

i keep pointing you out in pics and talking about you so she'll be ready to lime when you get back .....

hope you are well and busy enjoying life....

lotsa love miche

Photo My niece Leah Skye, aged 18mths.

The old washing machine

2009-01-24T22:25:00.001-08:00

Since being ill, I have not felt comfortable about writing, my thoughts seem irredeemably black and without hope. Not that I feel hopeless generally - I don't. Just my thoughts, when I engage them - at night before sleep - which mercifully comes fast - or in the interstices of activity, are just dark.

Having survived menopause I know, these are just dark thoughts, they have no import or connection to reality, so I give them as little attention as I can. Sometimes the dark matter flares up engulfing everything. Two or three days go by of intense introspection that feels rough and harrowing like a washing machine. Then subsides.

Dominica, story no 3: my last washing machine experience:

My friend Y paid for my trip and the whole endeavor, which was somehow miraculous and disempowering all at once.

After 25 years, it was painful to me to notice how complete his life was, though I was also able to genuinely appreciate all the great parts of it. The way his life, well lived and nurtured has flowered into something wondrous and whole. And he seemed to have great connections with everyone - lovely smart wife, great family, kids, connections to community etc. But painful to me because it was so complete. There was no space or place in it for a me, except as occasional guest. This hurt, left a great big sore spot on my heart.

Perhaps it is dying, in that process you have to let go of everything, and often all I am aware of is the loss, a kind of resentment that I have lost love and it is gone forever. It seems I am surrounded by this. Loss of Love, loss of opportunity, the loss of childlessness, loss of youth (imminent). All of this preceding the final loss of life, when you let go and all is gone. Right now it's like I'm not accepting that, resenting it. So it is painful, like tearing. Or it may be the opposite: Now - post this illness, approaching fifty - I am trying to reconnect with friends that I had, connections past that I let fall away. And it is painful how time has moved on. Where there was love is now overgrown with a different life, experiences have changed my friends, I no longer recognize the past. I search for my connections and they are not there. The person I loved no longer exists, or has no space for me. Nor I for him, if it comes to that - my life when I notice is full and defined.

And so there is this big hole, an emptiness, that moreover I have known all my life. But by this stage you would have thought I would have filled it up, found ways to be more complete, more whole.

It occurs to me that this old pain defines me, is me, has made me what I am. In that flame my decisions were forged. So like the dark thoughts, like menopause and loss of love, I should try to own it.

There endeth the lesson.
Photo: Y's wife Nancy, in Portsmouth Dominica.

Toronto

2008-10-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

I have feelings about being back in Toronto. I feel panicked and scared - my heart beats fast and hard, little panic attacks, and constant gnawing and breathlessness.

I dont know where money is coming from to keep my business going.

Being sick I am not sure that I have the energy or even will to keep up this hustle. It's really hard.

Plus there is a "global economic crisis". Imagine. I am trying not to take it personally...

What chances do you think I have of surviving something so vast? Like a tidal wave, indiscrimate in its reach.

Untypically, I don't have any ideas what to do about it.

There are still amazing/beautiful things in the world... like Barack Obama, cats, turtles, babies, and nature.

Barbados

2008-10-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

I attended a screening of "Namibia: The Struggle For Liberation" by the great African American filmmaker Charles Burnett, at the new Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination (what a lovely name) and watched the people arrive and shuffle into the auditorium, some dressed casually in light cotton dresses and flip-flops, some more ornately adorned, each distinctive, all friendly and welcoming.

And I wondered what would possess a person to live AWAY from the Caribbean, since nowhere is as gorgeous and complete as this.

Yesterday I started the day with a beach swim, in the playful turquoise blue waves just across the street from my hotel. The sea was rough, it took energy to keep up. I remembered how good I used to be at surfing: it was a wonderful empowering feeling.

Then took a route taxi up to the Center to check the film before my own screening. It took an hour of weaving around the island, old cab groaning up hills, and along picture pretty back alleys, through depots and markets, me lodged on top of the gear shaft in the front seat. The driver changed the gears between my legs and didn't seem to notice.

The screening last night was the weirdest. The audience SILENT, no laughter, cheering, jeering, or exclamations (like in Jamaica). But afterwards they offered very sensitive critiques. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness.

I am going swimming again this a.m. (and tomorrow before I leave). I love it here, and will be back - for longer. It's the raw insane beauty of nature, and dazzling sunlight that suffuses every living moment, and bathes the landscape with a rough breeze. After a while the brain gives up its querulous monologues and relaxes in to the moment.
(Photo: View from my hotel window).

Trinidad october 2008

2008-10-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

I love this picture. Me, my little brother, Danny, and Leah my niece. More later, Love - FA

Dream...

2008-09-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a very powerful dream.

In it I was with Leonie, and another woman (not clear who), a mixed race woman, school mate probably, an old friend.

Leonie has been a stalwart, a very strong beacon for me throughout my illness, because she has been so solid in my support.

I was going to say "solid in my defense" - as if the narrative of this illness required defenders, or soldiers; as if it were a war, with an enemy, which sometimes it seemed to be: I was constantly aware of, not so much an Adversary, but an Advocate for the Other Side, a Prosecutor, a Nay-Sayer, whose voice or voices were loud and strong, saying: "This is a useless cause. This case is without merit. This person, this Frances-Anne, has not earned the right to live any longer. Her time is up. She had her chance. ... "

Lee's voice stood just as loudly against that noise, saying unambiguously "You are like my own, and you matter. You matter. You matter".

She called me often, sometimes 3 or 4 times a week. Sometimes I picked up all the surprising messages at once on voice mail. Her earnestness brought me to tears.

In my dream, a kind of witchy dream, (from thinking too much about Macbeth? - a current project... Yet the witches seemed very different from those.) The witches seemed like me. Myself and another old crone - my longtime friend, and Leonie, naked, wearing only our skins, met to burn the cancer from my body, adding pieces of my body bit by bit to a fire. Here is a slithery snake of pink flesh, here my gall bladder, there a bit of gut, of heart.

I felt my friend represented a younger, more robust or a cancered me, where Leonie was the one who had been through the fire and survived.

In my dream I realised that for as long as the fire burned there was live cancer in me, but somehow it was up to me, to burn it through.

I began to rub the tumor, my tummy, where the scar is, the surgery, knowing that as I rubbed, I was erasing the tumor buried under layers of my skin.I had complete confidence in the power of my hands to do this work.

I woke feeling like I had crossed a boundary to old age, to agelessness, and in the same breath, health.

This disease is of fruitless middle age, with its exhausting battle of hormones and conflicted desires.

All that is passed now, burned, sloughed off, like a healing fire. And I know the power is in my hands to heal the rest.

(Photo: Me and my big ass scar, a full 50 lbs lighter.)

On my own again

2008-07-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have thought of writing, felt that pull. It's cos my mom left for Trinidad yesterday, and so here I am on my own with all the business of looking after myself and my life and my illness.

I have to thank her for all the help she gave me over the past difficult weeks. It hasn't been easy. Mostly the process of coming to terms with what I am dealing with - a long term life threatening illness, and adjusting my life, my habits, attitude, to suit.

Yes there were days when I felt hopeless and depressed. I hate to say it because it's not me at this point in my life to feel sorry for myself. But there you have it.

My birthday was one. We went shopping to buy the endless rounds of organic food that I have to prepare and eat on this "cancer diet" I am on. At the check out, my visa bounced, and I burst into tears.

Somehow the weight of the situation overcame me. My belief is that my company cannot survive unless I work 100 plus hrs a week. Even with that we make no money, scrape by by the skin of our teeth financially. It only seems to get harder. So now here I am, sick, and can't afford to buy good food, even on my own birthday.

Well, my mother bought the food, and in fact Susan also put money on the credit card a few minutes later. A testament to what? The good support I have around me. That things are not as bad as they feel.

Often I woke in the blackest depression, and set about cooking and preparing the food. This activity of cooking and preparing was my only defense against the helplessness and frustration of having an illness that I can't see, can't do anything about, can't get the doctors to hurry up and treat. Now cooking is not something I have ever given attention to, so a brand new skill-set. I also am not good with routine, so it has been hard training myself to be so picky and careful and regular with food.

I can make a major motion picture but not cook myself a healthy meal.

The depression didn't last too long. The black feeling of hopelessness that I would rather be dead than living with this. To be fair I had just been through the shock of sudden major invasive surgery (and painful), so I had to process that. Gradually I began to feel living is posible. Working helps because it keeps my mind occupied, though the trick is not to overdo it. ie I assume that I am the same person but I am not, I have a fraction of the energy post-surgery that I had, even after 6 weeks.

After an hour or so of any activity at all (like work) I get cranky. It is a physical reaction that starts inside my stomach, at the site of my surgery. I get a cramp or it just hurts. I feel irritated there and it translates to my whole being, and my brain. I feel hot and tired. When I open my mouth I snap. It's hard to let go of the blackness. It is difficult to explain to anyone that I am exhausted, and ill, since I look fine and what I am saying seems to be about the situation at hand. This is a struggle for me right now because it happens so quickly. I need to catch myself and stop working, just move away before my irritation alienates people.

So, sorry, people. Bear with me. I am just sick. I will get better. Thanks for your support and kind words. I appreciate them so much.

Love, FA

Photo: This is a nice picture of me and Susan at the festival last week - so you see things are fine really (not to believe all the gloom), and apparently I look well so the diet is working. Love.

such a pretty day

2008-06-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

Everything's better here - better food, bed, garden, cats. I instantly feel more positive.

For those that don't know: they opened me up, but couldn't remove the tumor as it was already wrapped round and through various organs. I will take medication to reduce the size of it, then try for surgery again ... (egads)

the good newz is that beyond its organ-wrapping and -penetrating properties, "it" is apparently "benign". (I beg to differ.)

recovery from the first surgery was painful and slow. bypass took some time to kick in. stomach didn't know what to do with it at first.

but all's forgotten from this vantage point of own home, mom-cooked meals, and exquisite summer garden.

I could (almost) forget that I have a damn tumor...

love, kisses

(Photos, morning garden with cat, and below, me: pre-op).

going home

2008-06-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

just a note to say i'm heading home this afternoon, so no longer on the St Mike's hospital number. details soon. the cell number's best.
it will be awhile before I am back on my feet, so do write or call ...
love, fa

What it is

2008-05-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have a tumor between my duodenum and pancreas. It's caused an obstruction, preventing me from eating (I throw up). It may be benign, but this isn't yet confirmed.

I will have surgery to remove it on Tuesday.

Right now I am at St Mike's Hospital (ask for Sharon Solomon) on intravenous food and drip, because I am unable to eat or drink at all.

The operation is not uncommon but a bit complex. They will remove the tumor and sew back the two ends of my duodenum. As I won't be able to use it for digestion til its healed, they will then also create a bypass: put a new hole in my stomach and bring a piece of the small intestine up to meet it. Food will then go down this new hole til the other is healed.

I am trying to stay positive... Hospitals remind you all the time of mortality, this shouldn't be depressing but is. I want to be busy, but feel tired and worn down.

I've been sick for some time, as those who've been around over the past months will know. I've put it down to flu, stress, food poisoning, allergies. The doctor did tests and said it was "nothing" (I think a result of our plodding public health system).

In Trinidad, they ordered a catscan and gastroscopy overnight (I paid for it), and began using the dreaded "C" word, scaring themselves as much as me. I cancelled the Antigua launch (Peter and Mikey went) and South Africa trip (Lucky went instead), came home.

I think it will be fine tho.

Now back in the bosom of OHIP, I feel well cared for though somewhat over-medicated. Having been diagnosed, and in the system, I am on a waiting list, a kind of medical assembly line, where everything happens in its own sweet time.

So grateful to everyone who's thinking about me.

Love, blessings
FA

New Travels

2008-05-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Friends,

As some may know, I'm in hospital. Its been quite the journey, and certainly qualifies as one of my most interesting trips.

I'm soooo sick of this building, the lack of sunlight, and most of all the bed. So just now I went for a walk on Queen Street. Walked out the door with my trolley full of hanging bags of intravenous food and drip. And promptly got stopped by the police...

"What's going on?"
"Nothing, just taking some air"
"Seems a bit weird you walking around with that thing."
"No, it's not weird at all. Take a look inside the hospital, there are lots of us in there."
"I dont think you're supposed to leave the buildig with it tho."
"It's fine. Don't worry. I'm just taking air."

They left, looking back at me suspiciously.... Harumph. You'd think they'd have better things to do than harass an invalid.

I sat in the sun. It must be the first hot full summer day, and pedestrians here in the heart of the city were wearing light sun dresses, tank tops, shorts. Street cars rattled and bustled up and down. Across the street my favourite shop in town - Henry's, the camera store (Discount Outlet) - but I couldn't get there across the street car tracks with my heavy laden trolley. I contemplated lifting it over but then imagined it teetering, bags spilling and splitting across the tracks, wheels flying, cars screeching...I didnt want to be responsible for any of that.

The wheels stuck between the cracks on the pavement as I made my way back. I was terrified one of them might break off so I walked extra slowly, thinking "This is why people with drips walk slowly, because theyr're afraid of breaking the damn thing not because they feel poorly".

Couple of fellow drip-trolley bearers huddled in the shadows of the hospital, furtively smoking cigarettes as if performing an illicit act, like selling drugs or something.

Yesterday they installed a tube into my upper arm, ran it up my shoulder and down into my heart. I watched them do it on a monitor above the stretcher with wings that I lay on with my arms outstretched just like someone condemed to lethal injection (as seen on A&E). I watched the little curling tube run up along my chest and curve down into the black mass of my own heart. Later they hooked me up to new colorful plastic bags of clear yellow and milky liquid, my meals for the next week. The other tube carries the saline that has been hydrating me for the past 5 days.

I've never stayed in a hospital before, never had surgery or anything like this so everything is fascinating. I'm not really scared of anything, except alot of pain - I don't like it.

So I'll keep ya posted. If you'd like to come and see me or call, I'd be delighted. Til then,

Love,
FA

Jamaica 2

2008-04-20T04:56:00.000-07:00

Since returning from Jamaica, my life has been out of focus. Can't concentrate, wondering in a daze. Spend hours poring over photos, reliving the memories.

My brain is still processing the experience. I knew it would be like this. Jamaica is "one of those places". A vortex of energy, an unbearable tension of inextricably woven contradictions, sweet and bitter. A place of poverty and violence, energy and dynamism, explosive creativity and stunning ignorance and barreness.

I knew I would feel like this when I was there, though everything flowed and felt natural and known (like I had been there before).

It's because I had the same experience in South Africa: afterwards to my shock I felt homesick for the place for months, even years. It was years before I got it out of my system.

SA like Jamaica manifests a meeting point of circumstances that is deeply familiar to me, reminds me of Trinidad. I grew up middle class, protected there. but it seems I absorbed more of the harsh realities of inequity, the brutalities of class, than I knew at the time. Those divisions now assault me with an overwhelming flood of recognition. I feel like I belong, and I feel impelled with all the privelege of my upbringing, to act. The call is so strong.

Crossing the class divide - between middle class and poor - feels like home.
Connecting with people in a deep healing place, feels like home
The possibility of direct interaction with humans - no bs - home
Being useful, being able to offer the gifts of my class to a useful place - feels like home

And - swerving through tight hillside roads over mountains to a sun beaten beach place - definately home.
The sea sparkles into view and descends winding hills to the beach - home.
Eating fresh fruit from trees, and barefoot, mangoes and chennettes - home
Stopping at a roadside shop drenched in salt is home.

Wearing light cotton dresses, home.

But Jamaica is different too. I have never met such bullish forceful people, confident for no reason. Very refreshing, like an act of nature.

The layout of Trench Town is shockingly like a Township. I wonder where the architects got that exact floor plan from. Did they collaborate? How come the places look exactly the same? I don't get it.

I told Mary Jamaica was like SA but she grimaced with disgust. " South Africans are so oppressed and under the thumb of whites."

Honestly I did not find them so - found them full of life and fight. They bravely won a war and carry themselves with pride. But Mary's comment says something about the arrogance and spirit of Jamaicans.

And Mary said there are theories that Jamaicans had great unrecorded conflicts during slavery... fought the white man hard and the spirit of rebellion lingers. The taste for violence....

What African tribe are Jamaicans?

I have a new perspective on the British immigration problem. England didn't know what hit it when Jamaica arrived on the Windrush in '48. The brute force of British racism (which we all know) against the equally unyielding force of Jamaicans. Led to ... Brixton, Handsworth, a policeman's head on a stick. etc.

But Britain won. We know this, sadly.

Jamaica is addictive, but it's dangerous too.

I don't think it's acceptable to be there, enjoy the gifts of the place, without living a commitment to end poverty. And violence. And there goes your life. But who cares at that point.

Jamaica

2008-04-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

I have so much to tell you.

We all arrived in Jamaica very late on Monday night - Kevin, Peter, Michael, Ryan and I - after an effortless flight. The flight attendant had me in stitches: his description of what to do in case of emergency (standard script) was like a stand-up comedy routine.... The air stewardess insulted my hair... Welcome to Jamaica.

We're staying with L., a British-Jamaican photographer who inherited his late parents dilapidated family home and has plans to run it as a guest house. But the toilets don't quite work and in any case L. and his brother R., and Ras T. the Cook (all latterly from England) are way too stoned on weed most of the time to manage the place efficiently.

Mary did an incredible job of setting up interviews and other promotional opportunities, and organsising the launch on Thursday. It was wonderful. The highlight was the Talk It Out afterwards. The Canadian consulate had paid for 100 Inner City youth and community organisers to attend. After the screening we opened to the floor for comments and the young people lined up to give their feedback. What was extraordinary was that none of them asked us questions or for our opinions, they just told us what was what with great authority and spoke about their lives.

They even turned their backs on us, standing on the stage, and faced the audience. I felt very priveleged to be part of the event.

Yesterday I got an email from a young man from Trench Town who wants us to come and have a screening for his community at an abandoned cinema in the area. We went to recce the venue and found it to be a shell of a building, no roof, more like a greek collosseum. But Michael (the young man) said they showed the Passion of Christ there some weeks back, and he says he can get a sound system and projector. So the event is planned for Friday night. I have invited two TV crews to come and cover it as it should be interesting.

The press about the launch spoke of the society people who were there, but didnt mention the incredible Talk Back session and all the inner city youth who poured their hearts our after. It feels important to shine a light on these young people and their apparent enthusiasm for the film

The weather is tremendous. Today for the first time I felt rested enough to relax in my skin rather than amble around like a swollen ugly beached lobster out of water.

I'm home.

Wednesday: We've been getting great press.

Tonight we went down to the Old Ambassador cinema in Trench Town an abandoned shell of a building where we have been invited to screen the film on Friday. I wanted to test the equipment to make sure it will be adequate. David who met us took us up into the heart of Trench Town and showed us a fantastic quality sound system belonging to the church. He will bring these down to the venue on Friday. The huge speakers were set up in the middle of a field, blasting reggae hymns. Little children ran around and danced and played air guitars. I joined them and we jumped about to the music holding hands, about ten little kids and myself. They were very delighted with me. Suddenly the rain began to fall and drenched us and all the equipment. Everyone was rushing for tarps to cover the speakers and mixing board. But the music continued to blast undimmed by the tarps and drizzle and soon the clouds cleared, and we continued dancing to the obscenely loud church music under the clear starlit night sky.

The local Bishop brought along a first rate projector and it worked great on the huge white screen - about 30ft by 40ft. It looks like everything will be wonderful on Friday night.

Police officers lounged on the corners of the war torn streets which looked exactly like Soweto, and carried names like Angola, Zimbabwe, and Texas. They flirted with little girls in short skirts, oversized M16's casually strung on their shoulders.

As we left Trench Town the army came through spraying clouds of impenetrable insecticide - apparently to kill the mosquitos - it seems an outbreak of malaria affected the area last year. David told us the soldiers come almost every night to spray the area. Dozens of little children ran and played through the poisonous mist. I wonder how long it will be before they begin to die like flies.

Spring at last

2008-03-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

Brief notes from a place of quiet respite amid mayhem and travel. Busy, busy few months, one thing after another, trying to keep up.

Since January I have been to: Edmonton, LA, Calgary and NYC. Hating travel, I never thought I could go from place to place so seamlessly. Though I was sick alot - headaches, throwing up, and bad flu - I learned to pack quickly, ride the changes. The novelty of travel transformed to a steady pace of moving forward, enjoying the moment.

Surprise! I loved Los Angeles, what I saw of it, the Black side. It seemed to me to be a magical place. I saw an icon in the flesh (Julie Dash), and drove with my GPS - named "Magellan" by Kevin - to Venice Beach.

We opened the film in Toronto and ran for two weeks at the Revue (single-handedly pulled it off - no shit. Miramax and Paramount Vantage have nothing on us.) Some highlights were the Launch night (standing ovation), and the week of packed out screenings we had for school kids (a brand new experience and new language learned to talk to young people).

We played for an extra week at the Rainbow Woodbine - made bearable by the companionship of one Peter Williams - he kept me laughing - and I picked up a whole lot of new marketing skills. We had a table set up near the box office and persuaded (begged, cajoled, bribed) ordinary cinema-goers to come see our film instead of Hollywood's! (Thunderous applause - that's no mean feat.) They all loved the movie, so we were vindicated in the end.

Most of all, everywhere I made great connections and good friends.

I'm excited about Jamaica, where we will open in 3 weeks. A different market and audience entirely, what a buzz. Before that Atlanta (next week) then Montreal (end of March). I'll try to keep you posted, if not with words then pics. Forgive me, I find it hard to forever burden you with these repetitive descriptions of different screenings of the same (tired) movie. But I'm not tired of it yet, and hope you'll bear with me and continue to share my journey.

Last week I began a new project, with Bobby, Val, Michael and Lucky. It's exhilarating because it feels like a new creative adventure, but inside I am quietly confident.

Spring came today. I was walking in the cool air, melting banks of snow, and sunshine that now has a completely different un-winter feel, thinking "this is what we endured all the storms for - this joy". Til soon.

Love,
FA

Morning blues

2008-01-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to a new pool, at Shaw and Queen - it's much nicer. Larger, the water is cleaner and clearer, less chlorine. It's lovely swimming in the morning.

So, these are my daily battles to get myself out of bed of a morning: Grumbling drag my things together, step into the cold. Drive in the dark to my local Portuguese coffee house, pick up a latte. Turn the car radio on to 99.1 cbc. I park in front of the pool complex and sit bundled up sipping, listening to the news or Michael Enwright, while the sun decides whether or not to rise today, on account of the cold.

The building is a huge 3-storey glass complex, you can see right into it. At that hour it's all lit up, while I sit outside in the dark and the snow. And I can see the cleaner - a good looking youngish African, sweeping and mopping, swinging his ring of keys as he opens up first the basement (pool) floor, then the first and second floors. Up and down the stairs be goes, followed by his two sons - one's about 9 and the other 6. They do somersaults and cartwheels through the corridors, or chase each other playing, while their Dad does his tasks in a can-do take-charge way. Everyday's the same. The receptionist - a largish sad-looking Aboriginal woman sometimes wanders through. Sometimes the two kids follow her on her own rounds.

At 7.15 on the dot, African comes up from the basement (where he's changed his clothes) opens the side door (with his big bunch of keys) and exits, followed by his sons. He bundles them all into a station wagon and drives off - to get ready for school I suppose.

That's my sign that the gym is open and I gather myself to go in.

Sleep well, sister.

2008-01-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

A friend died, it hit me hard. I'm not sure why. She died in her sleep.

"Well that's wonderful," my mother said."Make sure I die in my sleep please."

Sleep well, Catherine.

I haven't seen her in over ten years...but the memories are very much alive. All that red, red hair, piled up high on her head. Her bright clear mind. Her gorgeous smile. It was easy to envy her and not feel bad - she seemed to have so much. But mostly I adored her like a little sister. She reminded me of mine, the one I had.

So much vulnerability, especially with her health - but also her emotions, which she wore like her hair in flaming woolly tendrils around her face.

Awkward, affectionate, loyal. Careful. Honest.

She was the first person who was kind to me when I moved to BBC Television. She was a great ally to have in that archaic place. Not just because her Dad was the Department Head, "champion of the working class", a celebrity in his own right. (An outsider, I was proud of my well-connected friend. I felt protected.)

It was not just that: She got really angry with racists. She stood beside me, witnessed everything, laughed and cried, plotted and strategized. And then she rolled up her sleeves and worked her butt off right alongside me to try to make a change. (Fat lot of good it did us, but still.)

Bold, ambitious, courageous, and principled.

One day, we went to my gym together. Lounging naked in the sauna - sharing girl stories (we were that close), she began rolling her head as if exercising her neck. Then she slumped forward. I can't remember what she said but it was strange. She was smiling, giggling perhaps, but her eyes were closed. I put my hand on her shoulder and she fell into my arms. It was awhile before I realized ...

She was having a diabetic "hypo" (severe low blood sugar attack). I lifted her out of the sauna, lay her down, called Emergency, got orange juice, forced her to drink. I felt scared and very shocked. But a while later we were laughing...

She went to see my Naturopath, who told her to change her diet and stop smoking. She was angry and offended, never went back.

She was furious that the disease had ravaged her organs, brought on early menopause, preventing her from having children. She felt cheated.

Passionate, and original.

We drifted apart. I held her privilege against her. I could not give her, a white woman, what she wanted most. She told me: "You really know how to hurt someone, you know exactly what to say to hurt the most."

AND NOW I remember years later, running into her in the Canteen, we said hi then went our ways. And then I was aware of her lifeless on the ground. A crowd had gathered, people rushed around. No-one knew what to do. I knew. I held her hand, whispered to her. Calmed everyone down. I got them to bring OJ and cradled her until the ambulance arrived.

"I'm so glad you were there..." When you have saved someone's life, twice, when you have been that close - you love them in a special way. I think she came to find me later and thanked me, but she was distant. She didn't remember what had happened. I didn't want to say "I love you."

Maybe alot of people knew her like that. I don't know.

She told me she didn't expect to live past 40. She was not quite 42.

A Long Journey

2007-12-23T19:27:00.001-08:00

My first day back in New York. This is supposed to be an important trip for me since I will be starting work on New Projects...That means leaving past ones, their maintenance, care, promotion, ... etc behind.

The idea is that I will create rather than maintain (ie produce). Always difficult for me to make that break as there are ever a million life and death, bread and butter crises to attend to.

Yesterday we drove from Toronto to NYC. By we I mean My cats Missie and Max, myself, my mother's car, and my new GPS, that talked to me all the way here. A funny thing happens when you're alone on a 12 hour solo drive: you end up bonding deeply with every animate thing. Is a GPS animate? It talks! I reply... ("Thank you" I muttered gratefully, every time it told me where to go.)

The GPS took me from my home in Toronto to my cousin's front door in Brooklyn New York.... I am so humbled and impressed.

In darkest night, around 11pm, 3-4 hours from New York, with civilised places like "Syracuse". "Ithaca" and "Binghamton" far behind ....The road ahead is pitch black. When I look to the side ( don't dare do that much) impressively high snowy mountains. Kinda scary. Not one car on the read ahead or behind. Driving and driving I have ample time to reflect

...on being alone, and all the dark reasons why it seems to suit me best. And the last time that I drove at night like that - in South Africa - the 10 hour journey to Durban from Joburg...and back. The countryside was awe-inspiring in the mountains above Natal.

...about the time I have left and what to do with it. 20 productive years - no more. If I live that long I must then retire, and find different pastimes. This one thought stopped me dead because surely there are ways to live a life well when you have so little left.

The cats settled down, one on the seat beside me, the other looking out the rear window at the view and flashing lights.

The pitstops became more and more desolate, creepy. I didn't want to stop, was afraid.

One hour from NY (according to the GPS) the hail came, and fog. I couldn't see. So slowed down some more. Inching forward. Endless time.

Slowly life came to the countryside. We were in New Jersey, then went under the Holland Tunnel, arriving in Brooklyn around 2am.

Great screening/ bad review

2007-11-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone who wrote comforting notes to cheer me up after I nose-dived on friday night. Sorry about that. I rallied on Saturday and am better now thanks.
I guess my expectations were bound to be dashed some time and it was a small thing really, given all the positives of this trip - what difference would an extra 50 people have made in the end?
The screening tonight was much more uplifting for me. The cinema was more or less full. It was a classy little Uptown theatre, and the audience's comments for the most part seemed serious and considered. One gentleman in particular, turns out he is quite a well established african american actor - said it's "as good a movie as he has ever seen" and compared it to Mean Streets and The Harder They Come. I was so chuffed by that.
People loved it.
Then when I got home I saw some New York critic had panned it, said it was hackneyed and "painfully earnest". Yippee. Our first bad review. He put quite alot of effort into saying how much he disliked the movie. Still I am so touched by the positive reactions of the audience tonight that after the first shock I am not really bothered at all.
I should add that we got a decent little review in the New York TImes - it's basically a version of my mother's synopsis, but I do like the word "elegaic".
Got to sleep now. Toronto tomorrow.

PS: There were a couple of ridiculous comments from the audience (There always seems to be one per screening) For example on Friday an African lady went on and on about Valerie's single white breast and how inappropriate it was. The last time a version of this subject ("gratuitous nudity") came up - in Scarborough - I got a bit hot under the collar defending the scene. This time I invited the audience to respond ...and respond they did, very spiritedly, til the poor woman could only sputter that she felt misunderstood... she hadn't meant... etc etc but by then it was too late - her argument along with her credibility lay in shreds. Tonight a very proper Jamaican gent wanted to know why Gene had to smoke weed in the film. "Where are our Heroes?" he bemoaned. This was not the right thing to say to young Peter WIlliams.
"We wanted to show that the devil resides within. Those who are good, may have bad sides to their personalities, and the Bad guys have good qualities too." Then he added "Tho on a personal level I would dispute that smoking weed is a BAD thing." The audience howled with laughter while the poor gentleman sat humourlessly in the middle of the audience, still seeking Heroes no doubt...

After the NYC screening

2007-11-24T00:13:00.000-08:00

There's a film I saw many years ago, about a middle-aged actress (Gina Rowlands) going through a mid-life creative crisis. On her way from the theatre one night a young woman, a fan, throws herself against the window of her car. I can't remember exactly how, but the young woman is hit by the car and killed.

The look on her face against the window haunts the actor who struggling to come to terms with a new role, a drinking problem, and crushing self-doubt, becomes obsessed with the dead girl. The most striking scene in the film is when the dead girl physically appears to the older woman and begins to beat her up, punching her across her head, breaking her glasses, and throwing her around the room. The actor eventually finds the strength to retaliate. At the end of the film the actress is liberated from the demons that haunt her so violently and emerges even more powerfully in her talent, and her life.

I thought about that film again tonight,as I have many times over the years. I was talking to Peter about really taking on our inner demons, his and my own. That you literally have to go head to head with them, and win, or they can cripple you for life. You don't even know what ancient spirit is crouched on your chest like a vampire, sucking your life away, til you try to shake it off and a fine battle ensues. But then you're free.

So that's my lesson for tonight.

New York loves Leonie

2007-11-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

Very quick update...
I've been rushing around, up and down. Yesterday morning when I woke I prayed God I didn't have to get right out of bed and start again. But I did, and did.

By last evening, lugging projector, camera, speakers, computer, clothes (to change into) up 3rd Avenue, I was lagging, wondering if any of this was worth it. Remembering "I Is A Long Memoried Woman" (my first film) - the number of times I'd turn up at a community center, tape in hand and personally climb a ladder to hang black drapes (with clothes pegs to block the light), focus projector, take tickets, press Play. Hours and hours of physical work to try to get the film seen, long years after I had finished making the damn thing (as if that wasn't hard enough).

Has anything changed. Am I not too old for this? But the thought was fleeting and I had to get back to it.

In the end the Reception last night was extraordinary and so worth it, if only for the tears streaming down Leonie's face as one after another, admirers - esteemed members of the arts and business community in NYC, came up and spoke, sang, joked, prayed, performed and played her praises and the influence her talent and generosity has had on them. How she touched each and everyone.

The large reception room was stuffed to capacity, with Jamaica's dignitaries past and present peering down, as the crowd rolled and laughed, gasped and exclaimed and enjoyed every minute.

I was so pleased that I insisted on getting the good (read: expensive) projector, and was able to show clips of Lee in films of mine over the years. Something I've wanted to do for some time, because in truth she hasn't had alot of really meaty roles in film, most of her body of work has been in Jamaican theatre and so contained in the memories of those who have seen her perform there.

But she's amazing in all my films. The audience thought so too. My only regret is I didn't show a clip from "Miss Lou then and Now" - the doc we produced together just before Louise died - cos for sure they would have cried.

So that's my update for now and I gotta run. Another hectic day. Energised tho - Because of last night I am sure the screenings of A Winter Tale will be packed out and it seems we will get alot of press - nuff cameras were flashing last night, some must have belonged to journalists...

Talk soon,
Love,
FA

2007-11-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

On my way to New York for the African Diaspora Film Festival...

Just want you all to know that everything went off without a hitch. All my bags and bags of stuff: posters (with little string handle made by Justin), 60 pound film, suitcase of dvds, press kits, computer, camera (still and video) etc etc. Clothes. (Susan persuaded me to leave the TV at the last moment). All got through customs and security with no problems at all, and they aren't too difficult to lug around.

I even had time to get my shoes shined!

O, there was an American lady running around the departure lounge trying to get people's attention. She wanted the airline to put her on an earlier flight. "I need to get to Philadelphia! I need to get to Philadelphia" She kept saying. I turned my back. I didn't want to know. I wondered if she knew how close she was to being tasered. And killed. (That's how we deal with airport shit-disturbers here in Canada.)

The flight's boarding, gotta run. Have a great week! Be in touch soon.
FA

Gots to keep it burning...

2007-11-11T05:31:00.000-08:00

Yes there's much to reflect on with the elections in Trinidad, but strangely after the first shock I don't feel hopeless.
The actual numbers show alot of people voted for the COP - "the party of values".
Were all those 148,000 "middle class"? That dirty word.
As if being educated, and having the means to live a decent life is a BAD thing.

I have been thinking for some time about the class divide in Trinidad that has effectively locked the "middle class" out of meaningful political life. I don't know how to bridge that gap, personally.
I guess as you say, working "on the ground", with integrity & humility, as far as one is able.
Each of us has to figure out how to make that leap, take the risk. A lifetime commitment, not the whim of today

Try not to be petulant when you don't get your way.

In the meantime that Mr. Manning builds a 48million dollar home sparing no luxury off the back of the votes of people who have no water, electricity, no roads, no homes is just a symptom but it is so wrong. I feel so angry.

Gots to keep it burning, on the road to Zion...

In this world of calamity
Dirty looks and grudges and jealousy
And police weh abuse dem authority
Media clowns weh nuh know bout variety
Youths weh need some love and prosperity
Instead of broken dreams and tragedy
By any plan and any means and strategy

My experience as a middle class person is if you step out of your comfort zone, which is supposed to be perpetuating the status quo, then you risk becoming the butt of jokes and abuse by almost everyone as you stumble around trying to get it right. But who the fuck cares. Its better than doing nothing.

There is also the danger that you may get killed.
It's an important consideration if you value the contribution you may potentially make. So take care.
Love FA

2007-11-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

Reflection of a Sunday morn.
Working quietly in the office, I was interested to see how these seemingly domestic beings who inhabit my life so comfortably, "in "play" move seamlessly between cuddly kitty and wild animal and back again, rIght before my eyes.

Just a note...

2007-11-10T06:03:00.000-08:00

... to touch base. Things are head above water, moving forward.

In that phase of production where all feels overwhelming, pressure at the max, not the prettiest time. But Rany's got it under control (Thanks, Treasure, for your great work, professional and positive attitude). We lost David to collatoral damage. (So long friend, you will be missed). We have been cyber-vandalised again. (Unwelcome walk down memory lane)

But who wants to dwell on negativity? Times like this my ghosts whisper... I'm holding them at bay.

Wonderful Things: We're heading to NYC (Susan & I) in a week, where my pals Kevin, Leonie and Peter will join us for a week that will be fruitful and affirming for all.

Heart Beat our series starts airing soon (on November 27th), and the shows are shaping up beautifully. Thanks to everyone who generously gave endless creativity...

So much to celebrate. My health, my smile, my friends, my work...

When I contemplate the sunrise in my frosted garden over steaming latte, all's well.
It's a gorgeous brisk November day - I'm headed for the gym!

Love, good things,
FA

New York again.

2007-11-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

New York again. I managed to set up some meetings with journalists, so here I am. Everytime I open the door to go outside I feel happy, so much life in the streets.

Today watching the NY Marathon, I began to cry. Was it the crowds lining the streets, shouting support to the hundreds of runners streaming through Brooklyn; or was it the sight of all those hefty Black policemen. I think it was the latter. You may be surprised at that. I am not generally a fan of the police, but something about the very idiosyncratic ways these cops own their roles, wear their caps, bestride the streets, felt empowering for Black people everywhere. They were in charge. Just wish I had my camera then.

Canada feels provincial in comparison. What I hate most about Canada is the way it makes you feel bad about being black, the powerlessness. What do you say about a country that loudly vaunts "multiculturalism" yet the government and all the institutions are all white. Nit-pick if you like, the facts remain.

Canada is OK, I just need to get out of the place from time to time, or it will damage my mind.

Talk It Out

2007-11-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

Ryan G., Ryan I., Lucky, Mike M., Shakura
Just wanted to say it was great to see you guys the other day at the AWT screening and Talk it Out in Scarborough. It's like we're family but we don't see each other much and yet the connection is there, is understood. I really appreciated your participation in the event, when each of you spoke, what you said. And just having you beside me felt safe.
Because I was moderating (and generally stressing) I didn't get to take any pics...
Sorry! Got to be better organised next time.
I think the Talk It Out forum is really interesting, and also scary and dynamic and real. All those young people - I think there were about 220 in the end - and their frenetic energies, mad intelligence, volatile sensibilities, clear thinking. It was overwhelming.
Can't wait to do it again, and with this experience behind us.
We should meet to discuss how to use all our skills to prepare... Some of you have way more experience interacting with young poeple than I do. For eg: we could take time to talk to the audience before the show, tell them more about what is going to happen, that there will be a screening, then a discussion. Perhaps a bit of call and response with the crowd - warm them up. We used to do that before the tapings of Lord Have Mercy when we filmed it in front of a live audience. Then the audience will understand what's happening as more of an event - not just a screening get up and leave after, but to participate as well. Send me your thoughts, & we'll meet.
That's me for now, I'm in New York right now - hoping to see you here for the NYADFF screening at month end. Love you. FA

Eyes on the Prize

2007-10-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made a list of the things I had to do, then worked through it systematically, ticking off each task as I completed it. That may seem to you basic time-management but in my last post, I described to you my highly dysfunctional way of handling work overload, which is to meander around in a stress-induced daze, performing odd tasks as they occur to me, because any more deliberate form of organisation is way too scary.

Yesterday they emailed me to say that my film A Winter Tale, about gun violence in Toronto, won 'Viewers Choice Award for Best Feature' at the Trinidad Film Festival. I am particularly pleased because it is an audience award - and from my home town. "And you won by a huge margin," they said. "Way out ahead, it was not a close call." Was there someone I wanted to collect it on my behalf?

I first tried Sprang (one of the actors, who lives in Trinidad) but it turns out he is out of the country. "When will he be back?" I asked the lady at his radio staton (WACK 90.1) "I don't know. Sometime after the elections."

I laughed out loud. I can well believe Sprang's way of dealing with Trinidad politics is to leave town til it's all over.

I called a few other people but no-one was available. I was just about to start thinking I have no friends in Trinidad (how sad is that?) when I finally got through to my little brother. He would have been my 1st choice, but I knew that he is in the middle of an election campaign , running as a candidate for COP.

"Hey FA!" he said "How you doing?"
Before I could reply he said: "Listen call me back in ten. One of our candidates has just been attacked. We're here trying to organise security."
"What happened? Where?" I exclaimed
"In Laventille. We thought he was shot, but it seems they beat him, with a stick. Call me back."
He hung up.
I did.
"Still in this meeting. Can you call back?"
I said. "I just wanted to ask you..."
"Ask me."
So I told him my film won an award and I just wondered if he could collect it on my behalf...
"What a great opportunity! I'll do it. Will they have TV cameras there? I'll say one or two things about Change, and perhaps throw in a few other points. Housing. Poverty."
"Great, great. Say whatever you like," I said. "Thanks Dan..."
"Thank you!" he gushed.

Just a few minutes later the phone rang again. It was my cousin in Trinidad. He was one of the people I had called when I was casting around.
"If Danny says he'll do it, then he will" Paul said, "But I want you to know what's going on here. One of our candidates was attacked. That means the government is getting desperate."
I said: "Please take care. Take care of Dan. When I was there at Christmas, my neighbour, a local councillor, was killed."
He got very quiet. "I know. We're doing the best we can."

From Hardbeatnews, Port Of Spain, Trinidad, Tues, Oct 23 2007. "The murder rate in the twin island of Trinidad & Tobago has seen a spike since general elections were announced on September 28th, with 28 murders committed in 22 days..."

2007-10-22T01:27:00.000-07:00

I thought I would let you know what's going on. Since returning from NYC, it's been hectic and pressure-filled as we prepare for the launch of our documentary series. It's crunch time and that's never nice. Ever the case that everything that could posibly go wrong, always does at this time. I won't bore you with the details. I regret most the toll that it takes on the morale of our wonderful staff. I get furiously angry with how much is expected of us by broadcasters, for how little. Nothing to be done about it: brick wall. Course we'll get through it but at what cost, yet again. Personally I feel I can't push myself too far since HBP is just on the edge of my consciousness all the time. These days, one day overstretched, and I wake up with a crashing migraine the next. I have no space in my brain for much else, mercifully. I mean like rubbish that gets thrown around, people's shit, their patterns.

I'm managing to hold onto things right now, but just a bit worried it might escalate. Can't. Not sure what I'll do then. Hope all's well with you! Till soon. Love FA

(Photo: This is Blue, have you ever seen anything so precious? He is just one of the cats who live at our office, reminding us everyday that some things remain very right in the world.

From NYC

2007-10-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I'm in New York. I came to "lay the groundwork" for our screenings in November - A Winter Tale will be opening the African Diaspora Film Festival. It's a bit overwhelming. I am staying in Brooklyn and can't quite get over the size of the city, and the weird uninhibited behavior of it's myriad inhabitants. Very unCanadian, very un-anything else I'm recently used to.

But it's wonderful, the weather is hot, hot, hot - unseemly temperature for October, but we are lapping it up, acting like it's the tropics.

My cousin Marsha owns a spa in Fort Greene, a lovely place, and she lives upstairs. She came to NYC 4 years ago, out of an oppressive 20+ year churchy marriage in St Vincent: The first year she studied to be an Esthetician, the second she got a job in this spa. The third year she bought the spa from it's owner and moved in upstairs. I am very impressed with her. It is gorgeous, situated in a gold-painted brownstone on the corner of a busy multi-racial intersection, very down-to-earth, everything you could need in spitting distance. Best of all Marsha is happy! This is obvious for all to see.

I am still fighting HBP but not smoking. I have met a bunch of people. It's not really like me to go out so much but I am rolling with it. It's taking me some time to figure my way around this monster city. More later - I have not worked out getting internet access on my laptop but when I do will upload some pics. Til then,

Much love. FA

Monday update: Kevin - "my publicist" (he is in fact my publicist - just it seems so pretentious to say so) and I have been pounding the pavement all day, and it's been fruitful. I spent most of the morning up and down midtown Manhattan gawking and exclaiming at the whacky things New Yorkers do ... but by this evening I am jay-walking with the rest (a treasonable offence in Canada), my arms swinging, even indulging in a little swagger as if I come from here...

Stories Marsha tells me: Spike Lee lives just up the street and is a bit of a weirdo. His sister Joie is nuts. Alicia Keyes has issues. Tales from the fingers of a masseuse...

It's 80 degrees. On the 8th of October! Temperature hot as house prices in Brooklyn. Internet still not connecting to my laptop in Marsha's flat. Pictures tomorrow... I promise...
TTYL

Rare pleasure

2007-09-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

Something about England made me very happy. England is only accidentally my birhtplace, but it was like a homecoming to be there. Everything felt familiar and welcoming ...

Krystina, Lucky and I had the best time all round... Easy, relaxed and joy-filled.

The hospitality of our hosts was 1st class.

Now I'm home, it feels slightly uncomfortable...

I've enjoyed travelling with the film over the past month. It's given me a bit of a break. The consistently positive reactions of very different audiences has been great!

Hello from England

2007-09-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

There is something so comforting about flying into England, all those messy little villages splayed around, and disorganised country fields. Every single one a different size and shape. No Canadian symmetry here.

Course I had a headache after the 6 hour flight and 1 hour drive from Manchester. But everyone is lovely - the driver who brought me to this gorgeous hotel. And the hotel owner Ryan who has made us feel right at home. He even laid on an extra room for my guests...

Krystina my friend from London, arrived around 3 and promptly went out for a walk to take pictures, leaving me to sleep off the jet lag.

My cousin Montio's cheerful voice woke me up, she might come for the screening tomorrow.

And then Lucky - yes Lucky! - arrived around 5. (I'll tell you that story later)

Later, we all headed out for dinner at an incredible lush Indian restaurant with our gracious host, young Mr Addy Rutter, Director of this fest.

Thanks to you all for a wonderful start to this trip...

Tomorrow, Farouq my Kenyan friend from Brixton days arrives...can't wait to see him.

And now good night, it's 4 in the morning (I'm still on T'o time).

(Photo - Us all beaming after a plentiful supper: Lucky, myself, Krystina and Addy. See the lovely silk scarf Krystina gave me)

Whiling away the time....

2007-09-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

I am UK-bound, very excited. More from the other side...

Waiting to board the flight, I thought I'd share with you the most exciting thing to happen to me in T&T. Meet my niece Leah, 4 mths old.

Trinidad report

2007-09-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,
Great screening last night... at last I can report such.
Yes, it was packed - I'd say around 200 folk. Wish I had taken a photo of the line-up outside the cinema before the screening.
Great response... Good press, will post those anon.
Funny thing, Trinidad thought it was a Trini movie, they wondered what Canada thought of their film. People said: "It was only the snow that made it Canadian..."
Anyway guys, it was very refreshing...
Tomorrow I'm off to Bradford. More then.

(Photo: Right at the end, I asked the audience to smile and clap so I could take this photo for you. Some had already left so that's why a couple seats are empty to the left. And you can't see right to the back but it was completely full. And yes that is my mother in the front row... 2) Sprang and Mauri and I taking questions after the first screening. It was great to see them both.)

Quick "Hi" From Trinidad

2007-09-18T06:27:00.001-07:00

I'm in Trinidad... The flight was rough but I'm here ...and it's beautiful. More soon.

Sorry I didn't write earlier. Halifax was weird. Mixed feelings.
Everyone said "no" before they said anything else.
Then full-on segregation, with all it attendant peripherals are alive and well there - it felt quite 19th century in that respect.

On Saturday we travelled 45 mins outside Halifax to the Black Community Center where Fil Fraser - formerly of Vision TV, now the interim chair of Telefilm Canada - launched his new biography on Harry Jerome. There were exactly 2 people there, not counting the hosts Rev and Mrs Brian, the local photographer/artist Henry, and Fil and his entourage of 4, myself included.

2 guests therefore, and they turned out to be Fil's neice and godson. This tells you how hard it is to get the Black community to come out to an event.

Nevertheless the best times I had were spent with Fil, a real Black Elder Statesman, Sylvia (Hamilton), a well-respected local Black filmmaker, and of course precious Pat of the NFB, who made all things real for me. Apart from our little group, and Tonya (Lee Williams), Clement (Virgo) and Joan Jenkinson there were few people of colour to speak of at the fest. Always the case tho, but I felt it here, because Halifax boasts the largest Black population in Canada. You'd think some outreach might have been effected by this stage...

Our screening was successful under the cirumstances. A Winter Tale was directly in competition with a film by Peter Greenaway and Poor Boy's Game, both lavishly publicised by the festival and the funding bodies (mine was not). So when 70 people turned up to see the film, I felt very gratified.

On Sunday there was a column on us in the local paper (with pic of me), and we had also sent e-vites to all the delegates at the festival. People who came did tell me that they received the e-vites and saw the article, so again, very gratifying to know that our homemade PR strategies had an impact.

The audience was all white, bar one wonderful person , Mr Lou Gannon, a retired social worker who was the only community person of all those we contacted ahead of time who agreed to meet with me. He brought his wife, brother, and brother's wife. They all really liked it.

After the screening the audience sat stock still and said nothing. I derive from that that they liked the film because they did not leave until I told them to about half an hour later. But I have never encountered such a dead-pan reaction.

No laughter. Can you believe they did not even snigger at Sam's line "I will cut off your head"?

Bizarre. Like I said: the place gave me the heeby jeebies. But we count our blessings and move on.

(Photos: Fil Fraser and Halifax Filmmaker Sylvia Hamilton; Fil signing a copy of his book for his godson...)

Report from The Last Screening...

2007-09-02T20:15:00.001-07:00

I was sooo tired last night when I got home, so didn't have a chance to update you on the last screening...

All went well, there were 117 people there. 119 but 2 left, I think they were French speakers who found the dialect overwhelming. Only a few seats empty... the front row and part of the second.

Well, OK yes. I would have liked it to be full. I would have liked them to be lined up around the block. But the other cinemas were all practically empty. (I know this cos when I wasn't obssessively counting the audience at ours, I was darting in and out of other screenings to count the audience there) So...

Pat was ecstatic and says we did really well. She should know.

I wanted to take a pic of the audience to show you... but the camera stuck at the last minute... Very embarrassing. So one thoughtful gentleman offered to take pics of the crowd outside the cinema for you ... it's a bit dark but here are 2.

Later I caught a bite with my aunt and her friends in the Quartier Latin. Then home, train-wise.

All in all a hugely successful trip. Who would have thought we could get such great press! The Community Contact also ran a full-page article - that's besides the Front page feature we got in the Gazette Thursday. In fact everyday the Gazette endeavored to mention the film. Even yesterday it said "If you only catch a couple of films this weekend, make sure you see... A Winter Tale..." (?Wild!)

Must also thank my Auntie Janet who telephoned all her friends Friday, so at lest 20 of the older Black female population of Montreal were dutifully in attendance.

And I was able to make excellent connections for the Talk It Out Tour in February: The whole thing is set up - a week of screenings around the city. I am looking forward very much to working with Nadine Dominique - a gorgeous, charming and very dynamic community organiser - who is excited and has bags of ideas about how to make it great.

Disappointments: That more Black people didn't come this week ... still about 5:1 in favour of the white folks. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the natives came...And hopefully we will remedy this situation by busing the negroes out in droves (kicking and screaming) to see it in Feb...

I'm planning a little screening during TIFF, and end of next week we're off to Halifax. Thence to Trinidad. It's all an adventure and seems all to the good.

Love FA

Photos: 1) Outside the cinema, and 2) proud Auntie, showing me off to her friends.

Friday night at Martine's...

2007-09-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here I was at my friend Martine's place on Friday night.

Her lovely daughter Lily and twin Matisse, over dinner.

It was lovely to see you all. Thanks and bisous. xoxo

Exterior nuit, Montreal

2007-08-30T00:49:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday night, Pete and Mikey have gone their ways - Mike to his Gran, and Peter back to Vancouver. And I am very tired.

Went for a walk to catch the night life: it didnt't take me long to find it. Alot of street walkers and late night party goers hanging around bars. Plenty young and old men and women (all white) in various states of inebriation and undress. Police cars crawling the streets. I tried to move away from them.
A Native or Latino gentleman emerged from a bar covered with blood. Chatting with his friends.

In less than a minute got taken down by around 15 or so cops who appeared from behind me. Plus ca change I suppose.

Montreal at last

2007-08-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,
We met a very nice gentleman, Egbert Gaye. Originally from Trinidad, he runs the local Black newspaper here, Community Contact. It's strange to me that before we came everybody told me he was THE person in Montreal to meet who would be helpful. I can't think of someone in Toronto that people speak of with the same high regard.

He met us at the train station, and took us back to his office where we had a bite. Here he is interviewing Mike and Peter for an article that will be published in tomorrow's paper.

Yes, it's true: the lovely Peter Williams is in town. He looks even younger and more beautiful than ever, and keeps telling everyone that he's turning 50 this year.
We were pumped for the screening, the atmosphere seemed so full of promise, but the audience was a bit disappointing, not more than 50 people.

Half way through the film though I forgot all about that as I realised those who were there were transfixed by it, and even I ended up being pulled right in. I haven't seen the 35mm print since April, and it looked gorgeous. Afterwards the audience clapped and clapped, stopping just long enough to start again, and again and again. I also clapped and applauded myself heartily for a job well done, and clapped for Peter and Mike who as always looked wonderful on screen. The small audience stayed for quite a long time after the show, chatting with us. We have another screening bright and early ...Til then, love.

On our way...

2007-08-28T08:26:00.002-07:00

FINALLY, we are on our way to Mtl. Very exciting!
Mike Miller is coming with me, I invited him inspite of our straightened finances. The festival is offering 3 days accomodation, but are not paying for travel.
When Michael heard he would have to share a hotel room - albeit at the Hyatt - with moi, he nearly pulled right out.
"The honey's'll be expecting me to have my own room!" he exclaimed.
What HONEYS?!
The point being no way could he share a hotel room with me.
Later he called back to say he would come, but just for the screening, then take a bus to Quebec city to visit his Granny.
From 'honeys' to Granny?!
Peter (Williams) called last night to say he's going to meet us there... at his own cost. Wonderful!
He doesn't mind sharing a hotel room with me...
"Anything to save money man."
The first screening is tonight. We got "Today's Best at the WFF" in today's Gazette.
I'll be updating you all regularly.

2007-08-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

Granny @ large

2007-08-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

I have been doing alot of staring into space.
And as noted, thinking about death and suffering.
When I close my eyes, even in the middle of a traffic jam, or a busy day at work, I imagine myself in the body of say, an East African woman, a refugee. Through her eyes I feel the scorching heat, unbearable hopelessness of no home, children dying or dead. I open my eyes, and it is College Street Toronto.
Last night I closed my eyes hoping for sleep, and was in my Granny's body, feeling the heat of approaching death.
"It's hot as fire" she kept saying, fanning herself furiously. She kept squinting into the mirror opposite as if at someone. When I asked her what she saw she stared at me and waved dismissively: "The children."
I open my eyes again: I am in my own comfortable bed, I am only 40-something, and healthy.
The heat subsides.
Is this menopause, this expanded capacity to empathise, or just what it means to grow old, or even just be human. And what was I all along - indifferent? Insensitive?
I note the capacity for linear thought, a useful survival technique for me, increasingly derailed by soft and meandering tangents, heavy with emotional urgency, leading in a million directions at once, splintering my ability to concentrate on the moment at hand.

Yesterday another Sign: my cousin Marsha, my Granny's niece, contacted me through facebook. I haven't seen her for over 30 years.

This morning I informed my mother that her late mother, my grandmother, is at large, riding me.
"She's around?" my mom enquired, matter of factly.
"Yes but its disturbing, what does she want?"
She seemed surprised by my question.
"She's looking after her children!"Photos: 1) and 2) My granny, the day of her death; she said she was seeing "the children".
3) Below: my long-lost, new-found cousin Marsha - I havent seen her since I was 13 years old - with her youngest son, at his graduation at Penn State University.

I believe in Angels

2007-08-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

My mother said she dreamed of Granny last night.
It was a wonderful dream she said, her eyes shining.
Granny was with all her sisters, and I was there as well. My mother said that I looked beautiful.
"I am beautiful" I said
"Yes, you are. But you looked even more beautiful. You were wearing a yellow strapless dress."

I'm sure it's more than coincidence that my Granny decided to appear to Mummy in a dream so soon after I wrote about her death and the vision of her I had the night she passed.

I still have photos of Gran on my desk, that I have been meaning to scan, but couldn't get the machine to work.

And I sent one picture - this one - to my cousin Jim in Oakville who has never met her.
"Look how much you look like your great-aunt." I wrote him yesterday.
His energy reminds me of her. He often sends me kind messages, with email *hugs*, *kisses*, & *shoulder massages*.

We began corresponding some months back. Jim is the grandson of my Granny's brother - also named Jim. Gran used to keep her brother Jim's picture on the mantle at home. But we never met him because - so the story goes - he married a white Canadian woman whose parents made him cut ties with his Vincentian family because some were Not Quite White.

My grandmother went the other way, married my "coal-black" (her words) grandfather, and moved to Trinidad. All her life she maintained a deep distrust of white people would rub her nose, get very agitated when they were mentioned. Had all kinds of superstitions about them. They smelled she said, had "criminal ears", and something or other was wrong with their noses.

It wasn't til she died, someone mentioned my "white grandmother" and I didnt know who they meant. She was Black in my eyes. Such is the power of one person's belief about themselves.

All that is incidental. My Granny was an angel in my life, during her lifetime and after her death. She always brought a clear positive unconditional light, til Alzheimer's made her bad-tempered and impossible to reach.

During her last days I spent hours chatting and playing with her, and for that precious time we understood each other, she knew me intimately. Then she slipped away. I'm so grateful to have shared those moments with her, because it made her death very personal to me, and very special.

At her funeral, friends of hers, people I didn't know, told me how much she loved me.

She was my mother: she welcomed me, when my own mother overwhelmed by motherhood, brought me from England at 2 months old and entrusted me to her for 2 years.

My friend Jay looks like Granny, maybe that's why I loved her from the time I set eyes on her. When she stood up on a chair to teach my U of T Renaissance Poetry class at Vic. She seemed very familiar. But the resemblance never struck me til a few weeks back. Jay came to our film festival and my mom said "O really? Was she there? Which one was she?" and I described her. My mother looked briefly confused: "That was her?" I said "Yes, she looks like Granny." And my mom said " Yes. Yes she does."

Of Death and Lying

2007-08-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

I think about death often. Not just because I'm aging, but also since Iraq, and Lebanon last year, and before that 9/11. To my shame perhaps, death wasn't as immediate before. But it is now.

"Just a breath away, always" to quote a friend.

When I am tired, as now, it mingles with thoughts of my childhood,and TPWHM (the people who hate me) to produce a nightmare sensation that is hard to shake.

There were definitely times in my childhood when my perceptions of life seemed permanently tinged with horror and dread, surreal, all the time, waking, and sleeping, and all day long, particularly at home. Then, growing up, I'd have a tendency to fall back into that place. As an adult, it's never far away. Just outside the door, beyond that corner, after the next sentence... It descends like a mist, like a sick premonition. And stays around. Is really hard to shake.

Mostly it exists in certain unhealthy interactions with people. When people are lying. Or when they don't like me. Or wish me ill. But they don't come out and say it, instead weave of web of poison and deceit. Like a bad smell, the stench of bad faith. I know when I have that feeling, when the cloud descends, enveloping everything, that it's all over. It's a feeling of doom, of the end.

Something is dead there. (in the state of Denmark)

Speaking of death, when my Granny died I had that feeling strongly. I went to see her that evening, and where before she had always connected with me, she didn't now, kept looking in the mirror, and fanning herself. "It's hot as fire" she kept saying.

I took pictures of her that evening, I'll post one tomorrow. She was dying but I didn't know it just then. I went home feeling almost paralyzed with guilt, like I had let her down badly.

I woke to daylight, locked in a cloud of oppression. The phone was ringing, and its sound hurt me. I was not surprised to hear my father call my name and went upstairs where he told my that my grandmother had died in the night.

I burnt the toast that I was trying to make for breakfast. My father came upstairs and stared at me, and laughed and took the toast out and started again.

My aunt Janet and I went to see her. The undertaker pulled out the drawer and there she was, skin stretched tight in a grotesque grin across her artificially unlined face. Definitely dead. It took my breath away. I was transfixed.

That night, slipping in and out of sleep, the wind was blowing my curtain open. My granny came and sat on the edge of my bed in a pool of white moon light. She seemed happy. She was surrounded by all her daughters "Janet, Margaret, Anne Marie and Grace" She beckoned to me ("Fran!") to come and join the group of happy women, and I did, then fell back into a dead sleep.

After that I felt liberated from a certain denial of her death. I felt that I had faced it and knew what it meant and that it was just fine. She was such a wonderfully positive, straightforward person, full of mischief and fun, her own self fully. Who loved me unconditionally, and I carry that with me to this day. It's a place I go to whenever I doubt myself.

Packing again...

2007-08-10T02:39:00.001-07:00

I'm getting ready to travel again, and looking forward to having you all as my constant companions.

You should know that fundamentally I hate travel, because it's so discombobulating. On my last trip my phone was stolen, my computer broke and that was just before breakfast... Luckily this time I am not going to St Maarten (smile).

I'm off to the Montreal Film fest (one of my favorite cities!), then to Halifax for the Atlantic Film fest (never been there before!). Then Trinidad (home!).

Oh, and just to get this off my chest: We did not apply to TIFF - we were not elligible. They don't show films that have already premiered in Toronto...So stop asking!

Rejoice in our many successes! Life is good.

Love FA

Sleepless, again

2007-06-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

When I lived in England, after I left the BBC, I used to spend all night every night cleaning my house. I think that was the beginning of my menopause, wake up at 1am and be wide awake thinking for hours phase. Though I've never slept deeply or well, this wide awake brightness bang on 1am was somewhat new. Then I thought it had to do with leaving the Beeb, which truthfully was very traumatic, it was a huge big deal for me. I would be up all night thinking about where was I going to get money from, how would I survive, what was the point of me or anything I had ever done, where was I headed (which is the WORST feeling for me, I hate not having direction) and really it would nearly give me a heart attck through those wee hours of darkest night. So I started to get up and clean. This proved therapeutic, and when I would finally fall asleep around 5 or so as the day broke (something about the light cracking the sky always brought hope, and a sense of completeness), I would climb into bed gratefully with the feeling of a job well done and fall into a perfectly angelic sleep.

All that brings me to now. Over the years since moving to Canada, I missed that sense of cleaning purpose. The transition to Canada disorientated me, I never felt the sense of ownership of this house, that I experienced for the first time in that little place in Harlesden in 1998-9.

Houses have always overwhelmed me. Ownership and home have always had special meaning. Growing up, I had both, and neither. Being priveleged, we owned homes, sure, especially as my father's law practice grew and he became more well-off. But they were homes inhabited by grief and the painful absence of mothers, a brother, a sister. And the violence of those separations, and the violence of how it was when they were there, it was all extremely painful. Also my dad's chaotic sprawl: he was terribly chaotic and messy, which I proceeded to inherit. And the fact that for him there were no boundaries, so for example he gave me my own room, built a house for "us" in fact (when his multiple relationships and marriages all exploded in ruins), then didnt hesitate to break the door down physically if I happened to close or god forbid lock that door. Or climb through the window, to get into my room, and wake me up to tell me that he just wanted to make sure I was there, which could be sweet if you look at it one way, but presented in the context of all that violence and invasion, for a 14 year old, was just plain creepy.

One night I locked my bedroom door after he broke into the bathroom and beat me senseless naked in the shower. Apparently I had done something to my sister cos she was crying. She was crying because her mother was gone and she didnt know where, because my father decided to get rid of her mother and made her mother disappear, and the little girl five years old was crying. But somehow her crying like everything was my fault so he beat me up. When I ran and locked myself in the bathroom he broke the bathroom door down and tore the curtain down that separated him from me, and took the shower head and beat me with that. The shower head broke off and into pieces. His violence had no boundaries that was the thing with it. Its purpose was to remove those. Later that night I was sleeping, I'd locked the door. He came through the window and sat beside my bed and touched my face, my hair. Creepy. I just burst into tears, convulsively. He said he loved me. I said " You're crazy".

I remember that moment clearly because it was one of the few times I was honest with him, and I could see in his eyes that he heard my words, acknoledged them. He looked ashamed.

Here is a poem I wrote at that time (called "Home")

nought I be all creature of sacrifice
crimsonned fragments of tear spliced dream
tendered meat on this crisp holy crime

call the children from wood
and relics of mine
strewn like objects
a family whole
ghosted
and mildewed in linen
still ringing with fit-fall voices

senile my dolls of fancy stalk this house like in their dresses.

Anyway, all that to say: I have been cleaning my house this past week, and I feel very good about it.

Thanks to all my new friends

2007-06-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hello!

A big "hi" to all the new friends I met on my travels. I hope we keep in touch.

Nerissa, thanks for the conference, it was great. And to everyone who participated in the video workshops: It was a privelege to work with you and share your stories. I was very entertained and moved by your enthusiasm, and hope to see "Where's the money?", "Everyday Heroes" and much more at a local cinema/TV screen soon...

To the wonderful delegation from Guadeloupe, thanks for your hospitality. And Ms. Hazell, for having us all over for dinner at your home.

When I get a chance, I'll upload more photos: in the meantime

Much love,

Jamaica Goodbye

2007-06-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends -
I'm back at home now.
I had an amazing time in the Caribbean, and was very sorry to leave Kingston. I felt there was a lot more for me to explore there.
Thanks, a bientot, to everyone I met along the journey.
And to you my Friends, for receiving all my postcards.

Kingston At last

2007-06-02T05:45:00.001-07:00

Friends, my computer broke - don't ask - and my cell phone was stolen in St Maarten.
I see it as a Sign that I must let go of Technology.

Fat chance.

And, don't laugh, I missed my flight on Thursday and was forced to overnight in Antigua: quite a wonderful respite, as it turned out. I met some great people, a couple, Mitzi and Howard , who run a local TV station.

Mitzi and I went for a long walk at dawn, down to the white-sand beach - St. James Beach - called "The Gym" because rich and poor , young and old, villagers and politicians, congregate there at that hour to walk, stretch, soak and old-talk. We swam for an hour in the perfect clear blue water before I had to catch my flight.

Even the people at the airport seemed generous: I didnt have the $50 US change fee and departure tax, (every ATM within a ten mile radius of the airport was out of order),but they just winked and waved me through.

Kingston at last: As soon as I landed at the airport the energy was electric. As the plane hit the tarmac, the sky opened and truckloads of rain fell onto the runway. The passengers all started to scream run and skid wildly towards the airport building, while the airport officials, tucked safely under the corrugated iron lip of the terminal building, waved their arms, whistled and fell about laughing.

Outside the Terminal, some construction workers were joking around. One threw his hands in the air, sucked his teeth and stomped off in mock anger. The others, all in a group, pretended to throw stones at him, killing themselves laughing. Then one of the group, took a real hammer out of his pocket, and chased the lone worker around the airport complex. He finally caught him, and pretended to club him over the head several times with the hammer, to peels of laughter from the rest.

I couldn't help giggling out loud at the end, it was all so over the top. Right away the whole group turned on me. About 9 of them lined up on the makeshift fence separating the construction site from the roadside where cars arrived to pick up and drop off travellers. Perched like so many pigeons on an electricity line, but with orange hard hats on, they began chirping at me. "Miss, I like ya hair!","Tina Turner!","You a wait s'maddy, Miss?" etc. I smiled politely in acknoledgment and turned away, looking for my driver, Mr. Lewis, an unassuming brown-skinned gentleman who had just gone off to get the car from the parking lot. Immediately three workers appeared at my elbow. "Miss, wuzya name?" "You want me tek you fi a ride?"

Just then, Mr Lewis returned. Without saying a word he picked up my bags and put them in the car, barely cutting his surly eye at the construction workers swarming around me. Who instantly disappeared, like in a puff of smoke.

Attitude is everywhere. On the drive downtown, I was rivetted by a local radio call-in talkshow hosted by Wilmot "Motty" Perkins. Right at that moment Mr Perkins was expressing outrage at the behavior of "Our Prime Minister".

"I'm telling you." he said in his best Jamaican middle-class accent". This was NOT Our Prime Minister. It was a raving, crazed Jezebel!"
"But Mr Perkins," the caller insisted. "How can you say that it was not she, when plain as day it was right there, for all to see?".
"A Jezebel I tell you!" Mr Perkins roared.

Mr Lewis then helpfully interceded to explain to me that the night before, Prime Minister Portia Simpson had been on TV ranting and raging in a common and unseemly fashion at the press who she accused of not given her adequate coverage. Apparently at a recent political meeting the TV cameras showed her face, but not the swarms of her supporters behind her. The same TV had, in representing her opponent, shown not just the leader's face, but also his supporters. What is more, the TV station had given her opponent 7 and a half minutes of airtime ("because apparently she have time to sit around timing it" Mr Lewis smirked) whereas she only got 5.

Mrs Simpson's huge base is the black poor and working class that she rose from.

"But she mustn't carry on so." Mr Lewis bemoaned,"Somebody around her can't explain to her? If she have something to say to them, she must get one of her em, "supporters", to "speak" on her behalf. She have enough who will do it!"

He shook his head sadly.

The conference that I came for, the Travelling Caribbean Film Showcase, is screening What My Mother Told Me tonight (Leonie & I will attend). Laters.

Lucifer Rampant

2007-06-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

I keep waking up at 2, textbook menopause they say, and tossing and turning. Try to keep myself busy, washing clothes, tidy the room etc, for the devil is rampant at that hour. All kinds of thoughts present themselves, mostly about what a useless person I am, but also: what is the point of aging, of death. Of poverty of course, and war. Of tourists, colonialism (still alive and well on these isles) and slavery. Why all this suffering. Everything I see hurts; its difficult to handle the intensity of my feelings, so I just pray for sleep. As dawn "breaks" the sky, so does my mood, and I fall asleep. Last night it was to a chorus of cocks crowing and dogs barking, and closer to my window some cats having a violent argument. I tried not to think about what could be making them scream so loudly, whatever it was felt completely unbearable.
(photos: Dawn breaks over the town of Marigot, St Maarten.)

Picture pretty postcard of St Maarten

2007-05-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here you go, guys, I finally figured out how to upload photos on this ancient machine.

We don't realise how lucky we are in Canada.

Imagine: some people in the world don't have 24 hr internet access! I don't know about you, but that would do me in completely.

Next time you hear from me, I'll be in J'ca. Til then, take care.

P.P.S.

2007-05-29T06:03:00.001-07:00

Things have been good tho.

The conference was fun, met lots of nice people, young old, experienced, new, a really nice vibe.

St Kitts is quiet and empty and a bit wide-eyed. I mean people seem very friendly and open, and the island is generally very safe. St Maarten has more of an edge. Even tho the whole place is only the size of the GTA if that, it is actually two countries, one owned by France, and the other by Holland. Everywhere on the island are white people speaking either french dutch english or all.

Lots of heavily touristed beaches and bare breasted europeans. Lots of new timeshare and hotel constructions going up everywhere. very overwhelming. But the sea water is gorgeous and today I am going down to the haitian shopping district, hoping to find things a bit more "real" there.

I'll post a photo or two next time.
Soon!

Update!

2007-05-29T05:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone I am in St Maarten.
I came on Sunday to visit a friend that I knew back in high school.
Internet access is difficult and the phone is expensive.
It seems like I do receive calls on my cell phone sometimes tho.
I will try to come to this internet cafe a couple times a day.
On Thursday morning I am headed to Antigua to catch a flight to Jamaica. I'll be there til Sunday, then come home.
Talk to you later.

Such a long journey...

2007-05-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

I'm sleeping in tomorrow morning folks.

Here I am in St Kitts, I hardly know if I'm coming or going. My room is HUGE, the hotel is luxurious, tho a bit what we call "koskel" - with pink and green ornate things on the high walls and pillars. Kind of gaudy.

But hey, it's fabulous to be here, and VERY comfortable.

Nerissa, my host is lovely. She met me at the airport, and explained to me why she brought me here, and what the upcoming conference is all about. She seems to be a one-woman powerhouse. I'm looking forward to being part of her world for a few days.
Waiting and waiting...
The trip felt endless. We were delayed in New York, leaving for San Juan, Puerto Rico 3 hours late. I finally fell asleep watching the planes arriving and landing through the big glass windows overlooking the runway at JFK. Woke up just as the final passengers boarded.

Did you know that Puerto Rico "belongs to the US"? That's what my new Puerto Rican friend (above) told me. She's a nurse in NYC, travelling home for an aunt's funeral. She explained that you don't need a green card or passport to live and work in the US if you come from Puerto Rico.

That must explain why the airport in San Juan looked like a Miami tourist resort, I couldn't wait to leave.

How relieved I was finally to touch down on a real Caribbean island, Black men and women, all healthy and confident in their own land, greeting me at immigration, marching up and down, calling out to each other and chatting.

The air is warm and welcoming. It all looks familiar, even in the night. I came here when I was 14 years old to spend Christmas with a friend, and though its probably an illusion, craning through the car-window I imagine that I remember landmarks, curves in the road, particular kinds of vegetation.

Just happy to be here. Sleep now. Looking forward to what the sun will reveal when it rises outside my window over the Caribbean Sea.

Chaotically yours...

2007-05-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

I am off to the Caribbean (St. Kitts and Jamaica) for two weeks. Just threw my few clothes, and camera, into bags and am heading out the door. I'll be in touch. Much love.

Friend

2007-05-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

My friend Leonie Forbes has been here for a month.
We get along so well. Is it her or us? It just always seems effortless having her around. She's a hermit, mind. She stays in her room all the time.

This I can identify with, since I spend most of my time, when not at work, in bed. She also reminds me of my mother: that huge inner space, requiring peace and solitude. Never lonely.

With Leonie there is the added knowledge for me of her enormous talent as an actor. It's as if all the time she spends on her own, literally in a basement room, windows covered with black towels to block the light, crouched on her bed, is time spent gestating the roles and characters she unleashes on the world. They explode fully formed, profound, complete in every detail, from her. I think it's her capacity for solitude, concentration and stilless that brings that force to life.

She never runs from her demons, but sits quietly with them. She crochets, to calm her nerves. Wild torrents rip her apart inside, she rides them.

I admire her, understand her, love her.
I've learnt so much from her about the humility and simplicity that can accompany a fully realised creative life.
(Photo: Leonie accepting Outstanding Achievement Award, richly deserved)

a simple elegant affair

2007-05-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

At the Brunch for Leonie at Manyata Courtyard, an "upmarket" event, but relaxed, not pretentious, Leonie received an award and said that there are 3 people who influenced her life and work : Sir Philip Sherlock, somebody else, and since 1981, me.
I can't remember much about the occasion, I was so tired all that week, (and still) but what an honor, what a lovely, generous and gracious thing to say.
The audience clapped, and I looked down. I heard Christopher say "stand up Frances-Anne" but couldn't.

I wanted to thank her, felt that would be appropriate, but couldn't say the words, for I don't know what she meant.

How could I be one of three people to have influenced her rich full life?

The brunch was nice tho because my mom was there, and Christopher. Manyata means "the meeting place", and despite the location (Hazleton Lanes) it had an open airy subtly African feel. The owner, an East Indian African (unfortunately I can't remember his name), motored in a relaxed but quietly petulant way between business and the demands of his little daughter, aged about 7.

Christopher stirred his tea with a fork - no spoon seemed available - and launched into a scatalogical analysis of creole culture from the Troubadours through Carnival, which enchanted his audience, Indira and Colette from Telefilm Canada.

Indira seemed to undergo one of those rare moments when the heart softens and spontaneously opens to possibilitites. She leaned forward to Tonya and asked: "What makes you do this?" meaning the festival, ReelWorld. Adding quietly " It's very inspiring..."

Tonya acknowledged her mother, the ever-present Korah, and said that it's moving to see my mother there too, showing again how we as women stand on the broad shouders of family, of our mothers. (Photos: Manyata's owner with little daughter; my friend Tonya Williams, Founder and CEO of the ReelWorld Film festival; & with Indira from Telefilm; Christopher Pinheiro and my mother; Leonie and her award.)

Terror

2007-03-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

A cluster of thoughts are criss-crossing my mind tonight.

I was asked by Geoffrey Phillp to write "In My Own Words" for his blog.

"I'd be particularly interested in how you have managed to keep Leda Serene going..." he said.

I'll try to reflect on that (if indirectly) over the next days.

Last night I was reading Harriet (the Poetry Foundation's blog), where the poet Derek Walcott is quoted as saying he still feels terror at the empty page, and "any writer who says he doesn't is lying".

To which a younger poet replied that Walcott should be ashamed of himself.

I lay sleepless wondering from whence the macho indignation at Walcott's admission?
I wrote a comment to that effect: that as artists we face terror daily when we choose to express whatever it is we call our truth.

Creation is a form of Terror, particularly when you come from a colonial context and background in which Empire (read: a sense of inferiority) was imposed through education, language, culture, as much if not more than through the barrel of a gun.

Most chose silence.
(My mother and my father both.)
For those who dont, how can we not be terrified?

Walcott paved our way, dared to be creole, hybrid, native, himself, in all his inherited complexity.

He did it first. He must have been/still be shit-scared, all the time.

Fear -real, tangible, sweaty, sick-to-the-stomach, terror - comes with the territory. Defines it. There's no shame in it.

I try to live with it, but it's not easy.

From Nicholas Laughlin's Blog, January 11 2003:

The Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott stood alone on the stage at the San Carlos on Thursday night in a bright pool of light in front of a wine-red curtain, and read sections of a new, as yet unpublished poem...
... Between reading sections of the poem, he spoke not only of a colonisation of the planet by powerful European nations, but also the colonisation of the mind and the soul by European culture. In the face of such dangers, poetry provides people with a navigational tool, a way out.
Liberation is possible when one honestly examines and expresses one's conflicts, thoughts, and emotions. As Walcott wrote in a poem in his book Sea Grapes, "Now, I require nothing from poetry but true feeling."

From Walcott: "The Schooner 'Flight'"

...I know these islands from Monos to Nassau,
a rusty head sailor with sea-green eyes
that they nickname Shabine, the patois for
any red nigger, and I, Shabine, saw
when these slums of empire was paradise.
I'm just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation.

Photos: 1) Myself, warts and all; and 2) Walcott, or any red nigger with sea-green eyes and a sound colonial education

lots of feelings bubbling

2007-02-25T01:22:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when I stop working:
Everything fizzes to the surface.
Pain like a fissure, emotions, diseases, pimples, every single thing I have been forcing down for weeks, or months, in service of work

Comes up. Not pleasant at all.

First out is a headache. It begins as heat, a sweat, a restlessness, a band of tension across my head, that then locates itself solidly behind one eye and grows into a monster migraine. Followed by nausea, vomitting, a purging.
There is a moment I recognised yesterday, when my mouth is dry, and toxins spontaneouly pour from every pore/orifice.
Me helpless by this stage, allowing this to take its course in waves.

Black depression, loss of memory, "disorientation".
Exhaustion, lack of motivation.
Emotions - paranoia, hopelessness, loneliness, obssessive love, grief. Grief.

Need to sleep, but it is really hard.

Eventually I start to pick up myself again.
First the brain rallies, and starts concocting concepts as soon as it can string two thoughts together.

Note to self: First thing to do is organise my space, which looks like Ground Zero right now.
Start there (and try not to do anything til you can start there)

all is calm...

2007-02-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

The office cats, Tucker and Tregar, are camping out at my home til we are finished editing A Winter Tale - our editor has dramatic asthma attacks - making the total cat population here 5.

To prevent the cats fighting with each other - which is what happened the last time - the cats all went into trauma and were peeing and shitting everywhere, fighting and creating chaos, I decided to sedate them all with the tranquilisers that I got from the vet for Max.

So here they all are, peacefully sleeping.

I felt diabolically like Jim Jones tonight as I mixed the powerful pills into their food and watched them gobble it up. But I'm grateful for the peace.

Til tomorrow...

Old Year's

2006-12-31T07:41:00.000-08:00

Old Year's Day at the Hilton Poolside.

This Family were celebrating the 4th Anniversary of one of their brothers, singing along to the tepid entertainer (canned 70's pop), seen in the background.

Here they are doing doo-wop style backup to "I will survive".

Afterwards they came up to me, curious. When I told them my name, it turns out they know my family, in particular my uncle and aunt, Jimmy and Grace, the babies of the family.

They are an old Belmont family, the Nesbitts, from Hermitage Road.

"I do not know those people." My Uncle Jimmy said.

The rest of this story is CENSORED, by my mother who does not want me to disclose any tidbits of family gossip on my blog. Sorry!

The University of Woodford Square

2006-12-30T07:44:00.000-08:00

Woodford square: I spent the afternoon talking to the men, who get together in groups to chat and argue all day.

They were very nice. Most of them knew my grandfather. (or said they did.)

I wish I had taken the time to write down their names, which I now can't remember. The next time I go, I will make sure to do that, and bring them for you. Their names were incredible too. English, very colonial names. Proper upstanding Trinidad families. Some fallen on hard times.

The square has been cleaned up alot. In recent times it was full of alot of drug addicts and homeless men. But now it's green and the fountain works. A new noticeboard for people to write down topics of discussion that they wish to table, or thoughts.It's a a nice carry forward of the Square's tradition as a central place for national discussion and debate. In the old days it was where polticians held public meetings. That's how it was when I was growing up.

Roland has a stall, one of several that are coming up. He's an artist who makes vases from empty rum and beer bottles. "The bottle used to rule me, now I rule the bottle."
He says his father was a maroon who came from Jamaica in the 19th century, and he atributes his creativity to that independence of spirit.

This hospitable group invited me over to join them.

This beautiful man looked very sad as I approached, but his face just lit up during our conversation. Originally from South Trinidad, now he squats in an abandoned flat near the Park. He went to Presentation College, which is one of South Trinidad's prestige boy's schools, where he says he was a star soccer player. He says he was "stupid cos I get involve with gang and gun and them things."
His wife abandoned him and his health too.
"You married? I can see you was very beautiful as a young girl. Not to say that you not young now. But I can see these things. You have children?"
He looked at me with gentle disapproval.
"I could never stay with a woman who don't give me child."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "I love children. Just love little babies."
A sweet man, this one.

Neighbors

2006-12-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

My neighbors are not that friendly.
Yesterday I decided to make more of an effort.
Mr Telfer's house overlooks my street. To my daily irritation he oversees my goings and comings from his front porch like a skinny vulture. Heightening the impression of a malignant emaciated bird, most often his left foot is hooked up on the porch railing at a ninety degree angle from his body, with only his right leg holding him up.
I approached his house and waited for him to come out. I knew that if he was not actually on his porch staring, he would be peering at me from behind his curtain.
"Do you mind if I take your picture"
"Why not."
We chatted for awhile. He told me about his sons in Toronto, his broken marriage, the wife who took the kids and left, and now they dont have much to do with him again.
He explained this was his father's house, and when he died, Brian stayed on. In the last couple years his eyes have got alot worse; many operations later, here he is with these thick sun glasses.
"I never used to wear them before."
A hint of vanity.
" You married?"
"Yes"
"How much children"
"I don't have any children."
A mischevous glint of disapproval.
"Last night our local councillor was shot dead. Two bullets to the head. He lives in that house around the corner. I don't know if you can see it from here, but it's behind your house."
I must say I was very shocked.
"Shot right here?"
"No no, not here. He get shot quite up there, by the Valley Road."
He was trying to reassure me.
" I think they will catch the boys who did it. The woman who was with him, she said she knew them. But she will have to be careful, because they will come for her next. These young people here..."
He pointed at some children playing in the street, they couldn't have been more than 12 or 14.
"... have guns, and they use them."
He made his fingers into the shape of a gun and gestured: POW.

I walked around my house to the back entrance, which I use to come into the house. Between my door and the back wall, is a drain about 4 feet wide, and the neighbours house is built virtually onto the back wall itself. If I reach out I can touch its windows, and look right onto the porch. Last night, tens of people were entering the two storey house. It looked like a Xmas party, but no music . People chatted together in a relaxed way. As some left, others arrived, in a never ending stream. A TV cameraman came out of the house, and greeted those present in a familiar way, before heading off. No-one seemed particularly upset.
This is the murdered councillor's home, where he lived with his mother.
She was on the news last night, being interviewed in her living room. Dry eyed, matter of fact. I can only attribute this bizarre fact to profound shock.
"He got death threats. I know that. But he didn't deserve that. "

TV Announcer:

"Councillor for Belmont North Bertram Alette was walking with a female companion, when two men jumped out of the bushes. He told her to run.As she did so, she heard two loud explosions. She thought she was being shot at. When she returned to the spot, he was bleeding profusely, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Hospital.

"Why was he shot?" I asked Brian Telfer, my neighbor.
"Politics" he waved his hands in a general catch-all way. "The URP. Government employment scheme. You know it? Some people feel it have corruption in who does get jobs and who don't. So they shoot he."
"Everybody know him, I would say he is a very well known person. Just Christmas day, you see that house there?" He pointed to an empty lot of land next to mine. "It used to have boys smoking drugs and selling there. So Christmas Day he bring a truck and knock down the house. Then he and the next neighbor husband..." - he pointed in the direction of a woman who had just gone into the house next to his - " put all the rubble in the truck and take it away so the boys can't use the place for they thing no more."

Postscript: I told this whole story to Betty who came to clean my flat today. When I told her about the coke den next door which had been demolished just days ago, she said: "That is why they kill he. They does be selling coke up and down, all about. He come and mash up they business, so they had was to kill he."

Meanwhile all morning, the same dry eyed mourners were going in and out of Councillor Alette's mother's house.

From Newsday

" Sources revealed that Alette was threatened recently over his influence in securing jobs for certain persons in the Belmont Community. Alette had asked the persons who were threateneing him to meet with him to discuss the issues, but they had refused."

daily walk

2006-11-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

Every day I love Toronto more.
I have stopped swimming for the time being, cos it was exhausting me too much. So in the mornings now I walk. Drive the car to work as early as I can to get it out of the school carpark (where yesterday a rabid schoolmistress practically assaulted me for not removing it by 7am - as if school teachers and their cars ever arrive by then) then, head off on foot to explore the city for an hour or so.
I saw the most beautiful buildings. Everywhere was a mess of fading flowers, bright fall leaves and the idiosyncratic parahernelia of human lives, displayed with joyful abandon. Torontonians have become so creative and arty, with real flair and own style. There's nowhere quite like here. Relaxed, yet ordered; comfortable, but odd; urban, with lots of leafy expanses. Along Queen Street which is fully gentrifying, every shabby second shop is a quirky art Gallery. Past the Drake Hotel, into chaotic/friendly Parkdale. Such a community, that one. It's the gateway for new immigrants from everywhere, cradle of old white working class, just down the road from the mental hospital, and the Alcohol and Addiction center: a tumultuous mixture. People - real characters - stop and chat to you for no good reason all the time. The streets always full of activity and drama. Every residential home adorned in the spirit of its inhabitants in cheerful bright colours.

stress-free

2006-11-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've read that one of the things to never blog about is cats, cos its boring. But here goes:
Six months ago my cat Max had a urethral blockage which means that he had crystals in his urethra that prevented him from peeing. When I caught it, he was howling in pain and probably hadn't peed for a couple days. A quick google of the condition told me that apparently, after 48 hours this condition is fatal, so I rushed him to the vet, an incompetent Indian lady who proceeded to try to force a catheter into his tiny penis. After 10 tries she still hadn't found the hole, so she tried to give him an anasthetic but couldn't force the 6 inch needle into his skin. Cursing and complaining she got two people to help her, and they held the cat down by force and gave him gas. Max, by that time totally traumatised, refused to succumb to the drug, but somehow, finally, they catheterised him and extracted the urine which was a dark wine color and full of blood. Not surprising, given that the butchers had probably punctured not only his penis, and his urethra but also his bladder. Anyway. I was sent home with an almost comatose cat, some antibiotics, and special food.
A month later Max was howling in pain again. I took him to another vet who was actually unable to even find his penis much less insert the catheter. I was asked to leave the room. (I initially refused) so that they could knock him out and operate. The next day I returned to collect my cat who was shaved from the waist down and stitched up. The vet proudly handed me a bottle in which were two little white stones that he said had been extracted from Max's bladder - the cause apparently of the blockage. ( I say "apparently" because I am convinced that the second blockage was caused by the knife and fork job the first vet did on him).
I thought now the nightmare would be over but was not prepared for the post-op recovery process. The next day Max was yelping again, from a range of raw wounds on his body caused by needles that missed their mark, and the stitches to his stomach, the site of the surgery to his bladder and urethra. And he still could not pee. When I asked the vet what to do, he seemed surprised that he had forgotten to give me pain killers...
I learned to express the urine manually from Max's bladder, by pressing his stomach gently and forcing it out. I fed him special expensive food, and the other cats in the house all had to eat the same so there'd be no chance Max might eat something that would restimulate the creation of crystals that was the source of the problem.
Max gradually recovered, after many nights in my bed, huddled against me, confused and moaning, in a combination of pain and drug-induced confusion.
A month later he was blocked again. I took him to yet another vet. A batter of tests ensued. He still had crystals. Even more specialised food.
Now finally, he is crystal free. Yet over the past few weeks I have whisked him to the vet no less than six times. I come home to find him moaning and bloated, unable to pee. I pick him up, carry him to the car (I don't even bother to put him in his carrier anymore) and walk into the vet with him in my arms, crying plaintively. The last time, it was decided to subject him to a full physical: x-ray, urinalysis, blood work. The results came back. NOTHING is wrong with him.
"He is holding it in." The vet explained, holding up the perfect x-ray that clearly showed no stones, no blockage, a perfectly formed bladder. "This means that his problem is psychosomatic."
He grilled me about any recent changes in the household.
Now it so happens that we recently acquired a kitten, an adorable lively person called Leda who has caused a schism in the harmonious friendship between Max and his litter mate, the lovely Missy. Since Leda arrived Max has become very protective of me, and of Leda. He spends hours tucked under my arm, obsessively licking and cleaning Leda all over. He attacks Missy whenever she approaches either of us. He sprays all over the house (leaving a nasty stink) to mark his territory against Missy. Missy in turn pees everywhere neurotically. Max does not pee at all. Leda dances and plays with both of their tails, and jumps on their heads, oblivious of the bedlam she is causing.
"You may need to get rid of the kitten" The vet cautioned. "It is causing stress for Max"
My face fell. I could not imagine how any of us, Max, Missy or myself, would survive losing this youngest member of our family.
"There is another solution." The vet went on, observing my reaction. " We can put Max on tranquilisers".
So for the past week, I have been giving Max anti-anxiety medication in the morning, and muscle relaxants to loosen his urethra in the evening. I stand over him anxiously after feeding him the drugs coated in special kitty treats, waiting to see if he will pee. He holds it in for hours, for as long as he can. I sit beside him coaxing, softly urging him. I place him in the litter, and he walks right back out. His belly is tight and full of urine. Finally, at around 10pm every night, he comes to me, and lets me lift him into the litter, where after 8 or 10 tries, he finally releases the painful fluid - a full cup or two each time. It starts in a tight thin stream, then evolves into a full healthy rush that continues for a minute or so. I am so delighted! He always looks so relieved!
The photo above shows him next to his litter, having successfully completed a generous deposit.
The tranquilisers make him dopey and lethargic. He sleeps alot more. The spraying has stopped. Missy is allowed to approach these days, and take up a tentative position on my bed at night.
Leda, ever the provocateuse, follows Max around and copies his every action. Here she is, peeing on top of his, clearly just to make a point. "Me too!" she seems to be saying.

Space

2006-11-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

Today I got back some pieces of me.
I have been setting up a studio at home. The G5 came some weeks back, so that I could finish editing the film in peace, undisturbed by daily distractions at the office. Since then I have been working here til 2 every day, before heading down to 99 Gore Vale. It's felt like a real shift, cos it's given me the mental space I have always craved, ever since I can remember. For the past 20 years my life has been dominated by the need to survive, either through a consuming day-job, or latterly, since running my company fulltime, by the trials and stresses of managing a company, keeping it afloat: personnel stresses, financial considerations, administration.
This simple physical change of space and time has suddenly changed that. Now I have mornings to myself and a space at home that is for me.
So this is it.
You can see my precious G5, and on the other wall, the rolltop desk that Christopher Pinheiro left here 3 years ago, and that I inherited. After the shoot for a Winter tale, this along with many of the pictures that had been on my wall (that I loaned to the production), were abandoned at one of the locations and we only got it back day before yesterday.

The rolltop reminds me of the Caribbean, I had one growing up, an old wooden monster. My dad would collect these antiques and repair them, polish them. I think they remind Christopher of home too. I'm sure he found it on the street here, he was a genius at finding abandoned gems.

Inside the roll-top I found a sepia photograph I have been carrying around for perhaps a decade, of Frida Kahlo's studio at her home in Mexico. I kept it close all those years for inspiration because it always struck me as the the most perfect creative space: comfortable, personal, warm. So now I have one too.

'Course what's missing from the first photo are the cats that have taken up residence since I began writing this, making the space complete. Just as it should be. So I've just taken one to show you: here's Missy. Max and Leda are draped across the G5 keyboard and sub-woofer respectively.
(P.S. I removed the previous post about S. with the photo and all, it wasn't fair to him)

Fish

2006-11-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

This enormous fellow was sitting on the sidewalk of my walk path this morning. I thought he was an ornament at first, his big head sticking out of a box in the street. Til, walking around to the other side I realised he was indeed real, just awaiting transport to become filets of snapper and sold for 16 dollars a pound at the fish shop. "Sixteen dollars a pound!" the owner impressed on me during a break, as he finished his ciggy before continuing his morning preparations. "The Jamaicans buy it to make soup. They like the red colour. I don't know why".
For some reason, it's not what I expected to see in the middle of a Toronto street in winter.

such a pretty place

2006-11-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

I caught the dawn finally, on my morning walk. I woke early enough, just before 6, and drove to the office to feed the cats, collecting a coffee on the way. Then set off across the park just as the orange sky was breaking. See what I mean? It is such a gorgeous sight. The city is a perfect integrated blend of leafy spaces and urban thrust. In the park, dog walkers are plenty, I'll catch you some of those next time.

FROST!

2006-11-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

...sat on the ground this am, heralding winter. tho the ground's still green, and the trees holding on to stubborn leaves...it was COLD, and my breath smoked in front of me.
Photo: Tai chi in the park. I've always been enchanted by this ritual of the chinese community here, to practice their traditional disciplines inspite of their adopted country, even in the middle of winter.

autumn gold

2006-10-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

This morning, walking, the gold morning sun on the red and gold leaves took my breath away. There must be something that can be done with the glorious beauty of this weather, but right now I am waiting for one specific thing: snow, so that I can finish my film. So I walked on. It was only after that I thought to snap some pics for you, but by then the sun had retreated. I'll do better next time.
Maybe there is something else wrong with me besides general exhaustion because I am already bone tired, at 930 am and I was also bone tired (tired inside my muscles and in the pit of my lungs, right deep inside) when I finally fell asleep last night. I take the vitamins.
I feel better since I STOPPED swimming everyday which left me so exhausted I could hardly move - I havent been for about 8 days. Plus, (almost) not smoking means my skin is clearer and my hair feels really healthy.
But I'm graying. My mom says I must die it. Personally I can only see the mushroom of electric white hairs that are salted among my dark ones when I look up close, with my glasses on. But then I do notice that there are many, and multiplying.
Apart from that I feel great tho. I feel kind of centered.
I did the two panels at Innoversity on Monday and Tuesday. It made me sick to do them, but afterward I was glad. The reason I felt sick is that it hurts me to go among people, and especially to speak in public when I am in a deep concentrated internal mood, as I have been for the past 18 months of working to make and complete all these projects. The process of social intercourse and interaction seems bizarre and false to me, I stand on the outside looking in on all that pretense with resentment and rage, unable to do anything about it.
The good thing is when this happens the only place I can speak from is deep inside the humility of my everyday struggles: a hard place. But it seems that comes across well. People always come up to me afterward and say: Thanks for being honest.
Enough of that.
I like the process of being centred. "finding the center"
It does set you apart from lots of perspectives and ways of seeing in the world (because you are submerged in your own), but that's ok, as there are many points of view that it's not healthy to participate in.

For example - I give you a phone conversation I had yesterday with a radio journalist:
Journalist: "Why is it important for you to tell your own stories?"
Pause.
Me: "Sorry?"
Journalist: "Why is it important for you, or say, Caribbean people, or ethnic people, to tell their own stories?"
Me: "I'm sorry I don't understand the question."
Journalist: "As opposed to for example letting white people tell them for you."
Me: "That's like asking me 'why is it important to breathe? Instead of, for example, not breathing. Because you could choose not to breathe. So, why?' It's an irrelevent question. People need to breathe....
Journalist: (snapping) "Well you know lots of people have that question. Thats why I'm asking.
Me: "I dont think I want to engage with where that kind of question comes from. It's a bit creepy. Don't you agree?"
Journalist: " OK, I think thats all. Thanks." (Click)

How neanderthal is that. I mean really.

Photos: My neighbours backyard, my neighbours porch.

essential

2006-10-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

This blog has lain abandoned since I decided my personal feelings are of zero interest to anyone, especially myself.

Not my thoughts about my work, my art, my company, my country. Those have a place, (barely). But what lies underneath those, the churning intensely intimate gruelling mental work my brain processes daily. I often feel the aftershock of its tumultuous activity when I get up in the morning: a sense of having gone through like a physical work out, leaving me emotionally exhausted, my muscles slightly aching.

And my perspective seems clearer, or more immediate, more considered, or thought through; and different emotions or memories may have surfaced during the night than were there before.

Like a buddhist, I consider all this work "the mind" must do to keep my sentient being current and clean. Healthy and surviving.

Its what my mom means when she says "Sleep on it" meaning "Let the mind do its work, things will be clearer in the morning". "And they are!" she always says triumphantly, meaning seriously that correct solutions present themselves to her after a good nights sleep.

Sleep has never come naturally to me, so writing was my way from a young age - 8! - to give space to my inner world. (Others have been: long midnight conversations with friends, co-counselling and other therapies, meditation etc etc. My work, of course.)

But I like writing. I will try to give myself permission to do it here. If only for my health, to track the movement of the mind.

Photo: me and max, relaxing after a hard night's sleep.

Dr. Waldron

2006-09-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

In honor of garbage I have been adressing my local mechanic as "Dr Waldron".
He is an emaciated rastafarian, who speaks the Queen's English and is a genius with a wrench.

Driving around the Savannah the other day, I heard myself say to a friend: "Black people here are so cute!" It was a shocking statement, that slipped out of my mouth before I could censor it. My friend asked me what I meant. Horrified by my own thought, I then heard myself explain that I witness the way that oppression (read: poverty) sits on black people in this country as having the effect of infantilising them - they seem and act like little children.

I saw this first in South Africa.

Back in 1998, I remember asking my friend Kethiwe a question that had been bothering me for some time.
"Why are black South Africans so short?"
"Malnutrition, my dear", she answered blithely. Then explained to me that Apartheid's strategy was to make sure africans had the worst land, and consequently the food they were able to grow lacked nutrition, and over generations poverty did the rest. I should have known really but the reality hit me like a brick in the head.

I am also reminded of the way that certain white South Africans would refer to black people as "sweet", as in "He is so sweet!", meaning compliant, accomodating, polite. Small. Conversely, any black person who displayed even the slightest evidence of an independent mind or critical intelligence - or if he was tall! - was decidedly not "sweet". He or she was then refered to as "difficult". It didn't take much to fall into this category.

For my part, I fully passed for white, (with all its associated - and considerable! - priveleges) until the words coming out of my mouth caused me to be swiftly and brutally reclassified as Colored. And a "difficult" one at that.

I always say that being in South Africa reminded me - for my sins - of what Trinidad must have been like 4 years after the abolition of slavery, with all its legislated inequities still basically intact and prejudice like an open wound everywhere raw and evident.

South Africa, in 1998, four years after the end of Apartheid, revealed to me clearly what is barely hidden in my own country, but present all the same: the cost and consequences on human lives of racial and economic inequalities caused by a legislated history of colonisation and slavery.

Further - South Africa excited me because the movement from legal apartheid to a whole new dispensation, determined by a black government for its people - felt meteoric and full of possibilities. It showed me what change could be accomplished in a very short time.

Who would have guessed in 1990, that within four short years the ANC would move from being a classified "terrorist" organisation to the elected goverment of the land?

Like many others I have a tendency to believe that the mess that we live in in Trinidad, is permanent and endemic. That has been the case since the elections in 1976 when my heart was broken forever. Then I thought we would never be free. Of poverty and privelege, ignorance, pretense and denial: things that as a light skinned middle class girl I revolted against violently, but instinctively, because I had no analysis or understanding of the context. But things are changing here. More slowly than they have perhaps (apparently) in South Africa, more slowly than we would like. And I am sure that it will still take alot of time. But as my Uncle said to me yesterday - if you take the long view. If you look at change for example as a graph that traces movement over the past century, then you can see for certain that there has been change. Atititudes are changing. Now also money is available for change and progressive people exist who can take the country forward. This is good and positive, though the potential and reality for heartbreak is always present.

Our Servant Leader

2006-09-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

Trinidad is beginning a transformation process. The man who has taken the lead to initiate this is Winston Dookeran, a tall gentle-looking man, a Professor at Harvard, and former head of the Central Bank of T&T. He called a meeting Sunday where, in front of a huge - some say 15,000 strong - racially mixed crowd, he announced the formation of his new party The Congress of the People (and simultaneously, his resignation as a leader of the embattled opposition UNC).

The new party will be built on integrity and values, and bring an end to the politics of race (African vs Indian) that has polarised voters in T&T for decades.

"...And the leadership that I will be providing will be Servant Leadership."

He was on our flight back to Toronto, where he is launching a new book on finance. I went up to ask if I could take his picture. He took my hand, and bent close to look right into my eyes. What struck me most was his directness and absolute lack of pretense. And his vulnerability. I worried for him. He was travelling with a team, and there was no shortage of supporters and well-wishers approaching him in the airport and on the flight, but I felt like a man with a destiny like his should have a bodyguard at this point in time.

Right now Trinidad is so rich, rolling in oil, but there is no benefit to the poor. People are crying. There's so much pain. Open corruption on display. Everywhere infrastructure is collapsing - roads, the health system... Meanwhile in Tobago, I hear the people have begun going onto the land with cutlasses and guns demanding that the middle class owners hand it over, like in Zimbabwe. Many who own land are leaving and there's a tourist advisory in the UK against visiting Tobago.

Winston's official website: Click here

Gang leaders will be holding a press conference

2006-09-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

The TV news At 12.45:
“ Gang Leaders will be holding a press conference at Hasely Crawford Stadium at 1pm.” My mother was outraged. “What is this country coming to? How could gang leaders be holding a press conference? “

With crime levels skyrocketing, my friend Nicola and I took the impetuous decision to attend, and headed down the road, the rain pounding her battered car. We half expected the press conference to be rained out.

The stadium stood empty, except for some straggling students, waiting for soccer practice to begin. Eventually we found the dark smallish meeting room, and were greeted by a kind-looking Rasta. “What press organisation are you from?” “We heard about it on the news…’’ He looked confused. “Well you are very welcome here.”

Formidable-looking men and women were seated in the front row, including 105.3 FM radio host Gladiator, all in white, with shades. On the other side of the room, a short black man head to foot in green sat in conference with what looked like henchmen. A one eyed woman arrived dressed in mauve and much silver, particularly in her teeth. This was Princess, aka The Warrior Princess, the Laventille District PRO.

We learned that the “community leaders” were waiting for the Government Minister to arrive – and the Minister was late. The whole event seemed a bundle of contradications – first: that known “gang leaders” would get together and have a press conference in this most public of venues (a football stadium!). Then, that they would be deterred from doing so by the late arrival of a government minister….

Finally the minister arrived. With no fanfare, shaking everyone’s hand, he took a seat at the head of a grand table set up in front of the room. A youngish man – my age, or younger: Roger Boynes, the Minister for Sport.

A group of 15 or more – “the Executive Council of Laventille” - took the table and the proceedings were opened with a prayer from Mother St George.

Laventille community is a poor community that sits on a hill overlooking the city of Port Of Spain. Rich in history and texture, it is the birthplace of Carnival, steelpan, and the PNM (the political party that took the country to independence in 1956). It is also one of the most notorious in the land for crime, drugs and violence.

This year so far there have been 256 murders in Trinidad, in a population of 1.5 million.

I am late in this debate but what I saw yesterday moved me. Up to 40 “community leaders” come together to put down arms, make peace with each other, and end the violence. Supported by a number of government departments, they have been going through a difficult process of reconciliation and renewal, meeting daily to work out a strategy for change. Alongside the speeches, there were tears.

“ I am saying the we, who are the most responsible for this violence, are taking the most responsibility for ending it. “

From NEWSDAY Friday September 8 2006 – Letters to the Editor

The Editor: After listening to the Laventille Community Leaders recite a litany of woes, I am left… a much more compassionate person. One Rastafarian described the community as “a caged animal” whose instinctive reaction to stigmatisation and police brutality is to lash out. He lamented the fact that Laventille is undisputedly the bedrock of the current regime, yet the reward for such fealty is to be the most neglected community in the nation. Despite the window dressing…very little trickles down to a large percentage of unemployed brothers and sisters on the block and this is what translates into gang wars.

From The Daily Express. Editorial

…Whether we care to admit it or not, these men, though they are not official representatives, are certainly representative, Some may be, in their own words “ bad boys, gunmen, murderers, and criminals” (though in a country where $10/hr (US$1.60/hr) minimum wage is legal, who is to say what true crime is?). The voices of Bill, Fresh, Paranoid and Croc represent a portion of our society that has existed for 500 years, unheard, unchecked… and we have never done a thing (but) exploit them for sexual and manual labour. It is important that we hear them, because the difference today is… that these have guns, now. What they are saying is “Deal with us, or we will deal with you”.

My car got towed

2006-09-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t sleep in the flat because the dust made me sick on the first night. I’ve cleaned it now. Thursday I set off to buy a new mattress, but parked badly in St James.

By the time I got back (with the mattress) my car was gone.

At the police station where I went to collect the car, an Indian gentleman – a police officer – in glasses, crouched in the corner, opened a conversation with me.

“My question is – where you supposed to park? There is no parking in this area.”
He commiserated with me while logging my license and accepting my fine payment. I hardly noticed the money slip through my hands, so captivated was I by the paradox of this sympathetic and bookish little man, dressed in a police uniform.
“I’m sorry this happened to you” he said softly,“But they say good comes from adversity”.
“I met you” I replied…
He seemed touched .
“Nobody likes me. That’s why they transferred me here. Cos I tell the truth. But why should I lie?”
He then asked me what I do for a living.
“You should go around the country and make a documentary. Talk to the people about the elections that are coming up next year. They will tell you!
You say you live in Belmont. That is one of the most interesting areas around. Make a documentary about the Community Leaders – the Gang Leaders – that are getting together now to end the violence. Now that is story!”
Another officer appeared to talk to “the boss” (my new Indian gentleman friend) so I took my leave. Glancing back, he seemed to have forgotten me….

My House

2006-09-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

"This is the hill, Calvary Hill, where the sun set on starvation and rise on potholed roads, thrones for stray dogs that you could play banjo on their rib bones,holding garbage piled high like a cathedral spire, sparkling with flies buzzing like torpedoes...

(from The Dragon Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace)

2006-09-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Midnight. My first night here, Trinidad is strange/familiar.
I can’t sleep – so here I am… It’s all a bit overwhelming.

Outside in the street a madman recites the alphabet. I find the only open shop on the dimly lit, run down street. The woman selling surveys me condescendingly – “Do you sell single cigarettes?" I ask.
She looks horrified. “No!” she says. I quickly retract “O you only sell them in the pack...”
“We don’t sell cigarettes” she says
“Why?’
“Because. They’re not good for you”.
I look around the walls, seeking clarification, and finally see a picture of Jesus; “U Turn to Jesus!” a poster says.
The woman sets her level gaze on me. Then reluctantly points me in the direction of the nearest bar.
“Past the traffic lights, dead on the corner, you’ll find Bobby’s."
I walk on half a mile. Feeling no fear. The whole place is way too familiar for that. I should be wary. But its my first night, and first nights tend to be restless for me, I need to roam and settle.

The street is completely desolate and dark. It reminds me exactly of a Johannesburg Township: Alex, or Soweto. But this is downtown Port of Spain.

Outside the all night “restaurant” –(just another run down corner shop - barricaded solidly with iron bars) a few young men and loud cars are “liming” buying groceries, and drinks. They seem impossibly beautiful, their long lean bodies tight and confident in the hot night air.

This is the area where my little house is – Belmont - a previously “respectable” working class area, now run terribly to seed. In a certain sense its where I come from – where my mother’s family grew up. In those days it was a mixed neighborhood with poor and working/middle class co-existing in that strange post colonial symbioisis that seems to me to define many Caribbean living situations.

My grandfather was a doctor – our house was across the street from the general hospital, very decent but a stones throw from the Dry River – a big ravine - beyond which was a series of notorious ghettos: Laventille, Morvant, Gonsalves…

Winding through it is the Circular, where ‘proper’ black and brown working people had little latticed wooden houses. I would see them on mornings walking to church and school, looking pristine.

When my Granny died we inherited her house. Ten years later the family sold it, which broke all of our hearts. Now its the local police station, and that makes no sense to me. So when I decided to buy a house here, it had to be in Belmont. Family and friends alike think I’m mad. But that’s their problem, not mine.

Love, love, love

2006-08-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

There's a photo on my wall of my grandmother Amy Cropper, a "white" woman from St Vincent. A "white" woman, squatting like a boy on the beach, arms grabbing her knees, skirts hitched into her panties, staring dead straight at the camera.

The year could be 1940. Behind her, her black husband lounges on a tree trunk, laughing. The picture says so much about who she was: dynamic, straightforward, defying labels. A skinny white woman with no fear. Love made her life decisions easy. Love, that woke her every morning with its cheerful uncompromising clarity and dead straight gaze.

So long, Granny, I won't forget you.

GOOD MORNING!

2006-08-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Writing for five minutes a day is something I could wake up for!
I've moved my table in front of the window, overlooking the street, just where I like it. The cats and i sit people gazing, like the characters in Rear Window (which my mother made me watch yesterday to distract me from the Middle East).
It seems there was no massacre last night in South Lebanon.
Off to the gym now, swim for half an hour. have a great day. Image is of Leonie in the movie.

Cities vs Home

2006-08-13T01:28:00.000-07:00

the meeting place of cityscape, and Home is not easy, but it's dynamic.
whether its toronto,
new york-o ,
london-o,
paris,
jo'burg
or port of spain... I love the mad wheeling of cities, their ridiculous excesses, the so many mysterious stories they hold. places of discovery and fear.
in cities (the madder the better) i can walk for hours, travel, live, rejoice in the endless creativity of human beings to survive outrageous incidents, to overcome fear.
and yet...i find them heart-breaking places
of crushing hopelessness
unfathomable desperation.
none of it is me.
home for me was a green space i came to at 9.
i was welcomed there.
people knew who i was ( i was recognised.)
a woman bent down to me and said: are you frances-anne?
I know your grandfather, and your mother.
I had no memory but I was known.
home was a beach I discovered with my dad called maracas
which now means
Home.
the waves broke like china, tripping over themselves in the pink and gold morning light.
home was knowing that everything i felt was real, my instincts are always right.
home was having understanding to apply to chaos.

the excitement of the city, the sharp
recognition of a place called home.