Two Worlds Straddling

Two Worlds Straddling
I am walking down to the beach to run lengths along the seashore. I am swimming in my head with music in my ears. I am listening to the beats of Jah Cure and Jimmy Cliff while thinking, planning Canadian journey. I am in Canada thinking about house sitting for a friend while he is in Spain, thinking how much a flight from Canada to Italy would cost, thinking about commissions to be sketched and then stretched, thinking and then sending the warmth of the sun to two friends; one whose mother was recently killed in a car accident and another whose mother is in palliative care. I am in my head thinking about new friends in PEI and Cape Breton and planning future visits, thinking about Eryka Badu and swaying to her sensual soul rhythms at the Ottawa Blues Festival in July.

From a hazy distance I hear in a loud cheery voice “What’s up Cuz?” and there stooped over in a tattered skirt gathering sea moss along the sea shore is Theo’s elderly cousin. A toothless smile smothers her face as she unbends her crooked body. I walk over and click off my ipod.
So where’s my girl?” She asks.
“Oh Maya is home”, I say, “still sleeping.”

I am no longer in Canada. I am no longer in my head, in my thoughts. I am now firmly planted on the beach sharing space with my elderly Grenadian Cuz.

“So I hear Theo’s brother lose his foot. I hear he lose his foot to sugar (diabetes)”

“Yes”, I say, “the foot was infected bad.”

“I battling with sugar too. But you don’t need sugar to lose your foot do you?. Infection easy to catch here. Did you hear about the other cousin whose daughter die the other day?”

“Yes I hear that too.”

Cuz continues, “And I also hear about Uncle. I hear he chop his friend in the shop. I hear the man want a big price to settle out of court. Is it true he almost split his head with the cutlass and two hands broken?”

“Yes all that is true”

“And did you hear of my other relative down on the dump. She the only one who won’t leave. I hear they go bring the bull dozer in and bull doze her house. All the others have been relocated. She say she not moving!”

“Now that I didn’t hear.” I say

We chat for a while longer and I am oceans away from Canada. My thoughts, my meandering thoughts of the future are swatted away like a noisy house fly determined to land. My two feet are firmly planted to White Sand Beach in Grenville, St. Andrew’s, Grenada. However white sand beach is not white sand this morning it is covered with an array of garbage from the May Day fete the night before and what the tide brought in early morning; old bottles and wrappers, rotting fishing nets and kentucy fried chicken boxes, plastic busta bottles and black bags. I am firmly planted back onto Grenada soil exactly where I am supposed to be on a heated early Sunday morning listening to my Cuz speak of relatives and hardships while searching with the glance of her eyes for sea moss hiding amongst the roughage. I am planted in the present listening to Cuz laugh while reporting the news she knows I know already. I am planted to the present for now until the next wave gathers and washes over me and I am back in Canada thinking, planning, wondering, reflecting; straddling two worlds vastly different from one another. I am in my head walking back up the hill trying to make sense but then letting go of making sense to this life I am straddling, to this life that I choose to straddle, to this life I am grateful and honoured to be balancing.