Sweet, sweet T&T.

I am from Trinidad and Tobago. I was born and lived there until I was nine years old, and again from fourteen until eighteen. I have never, however, identified with it as much as my parents would like. I do not freely call it my home.
That being said I have never been ashamed of the beautiful twin island nation… until now.

Recently I heard the heartbreaking news that a man by the name of Jack Warner was made Minister of National Security of our already corrupt and crime-ridden country. Jack Warner, once the Vice President of the worldwide football federation FIFA, was publicly suspended from the club for charges of alleged corruption and bribery in 2011. As such Warner resigned from FIFA before the investigation could be completed and “presumption of innocence is maintained”. Following this the current government of Trinidad and Tobago did not see any problem in appointing him Minister of National Security one year later. I, for one, do not feel safe.

This week I sat through a video 37 minutes long of a speech made by a woman by the name of Therese Baptiste-Cornelis. It took me three days to be able to watch the video in its entirety. This woman is our newly appointed permanent representative to the United Nations office in Geneva. She is, as a result, also ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Trade Commission, the United Nations Educations, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris, the Food and Agriculture Organistaion in Rome and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Vienna. She represents our small island in Switzerland, France, Italy and Austria. The speech to which I am referring was given as the keynote speech at the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Geneva, on the topic of Cultural Diversity as the Fourth Policy Area of Sustainable Development. I cannot begin to describe how embarrassing and disappointing this speech was. To represent our country in such a negative light in an international setting was the last straw for me.

I cannot find pride in a country that promotes people like Therese Baptiste-Cornelis and Jack Warner in our government. People who are ignorant and thought to be corrupt should not be allowed to represent a small island nation in the international arena. These are the people the world turns to when they want to learn what our twin islands Trinidad and Tobago have to offer. These are the headlines that the world will read. If this and Nicki Minaj are all we have to offer then I am disappointed and ashamed.

My opinion, however, is just that: opinion. I have never been particularly patriotic. I simply do not feel that I have one home as I have lived all over the world. This is one person’s view, simply an individual outlook on the island and the way we present ourselves publicly. Because when one person humiliates us it reflects badly on all of us. So many Trini’s are proud to be Trini: “Trini to de bone” we say. Yet where are they now standing up for their country? So many who live abroad make sure that the world knows they are from Trinidad and Tobago. The island is beautiful, they say, the Carnival is the best in the world. But where will empty compliments get us? The island is deteriorating. The oil is running out. Overpopulation and pollution are not non-existent. Not to mention the crime. As a teenager living there I had next to no freedom; incapacitated by the rampant crime. Yet no one mentions these things when they boast of their Caribbean isle.
I am not saying the island is horrible. I am not saying the people are hypocrites. I am simply saying that there is room for improvement and we will not and cannot improve until we, the people, speak up and do something about it. I believe it is ALWAYS good to be outspoken, as long as you have something the world should hear. Therese Baptiste-Cornelis, on the other hand, should have thought before she spoke.

That being said I cannot deny the beauty and excellence of the small islands. While I am not blind to its negatives there are many aspects of which I am proud. I am proud of the nature in many parts of the island that is still more beautiful than much I have seen in the developed world. I am proud of Carnival, a nation wide celebration of joy and patriotism where your neighbours and your enemies alike are your best friends for two days and all judgment is put aside. I am proud of our Olympians Jehue Gordon, George Bovell, Andrew Lewis and others who have worked hard to achieve their dreams and represent our nation in a very positive light. I am proud of the multiculturalism that Therese Baptiste-Cornelis mispronounced and misrepresented; the celebration of Christmas and Divali equally, of mixed cultures and mixed religions living together in a way I have seen nowhere else in the world.

I am cynical and I am outspoken, but I find things to be proud of.

Home is where the heart is

In eleven short days I’m going ‘home’ for the first time in a year. Home, however, is a relative term for me. I am returning to the place I was born, the place where my father owns a house and I have very many memories and good friends. The place I’ve lived for the majority of my life, however sporadically, and where I attended and graduated high school. But does that make it home?

I’m leaving a place where I have never officially lived, but have been visiting for three years now. I have friends, many friends who I am very close with despite never actually living here. This is a place I feel comfortable, a place where I also have many memories, a place where my mother has an apartment. I feel at home here.

I recently left Italy where I lived and studied for the past year. I had four different apartments while I was there which I shared with different people each time. I lived in four different cities. I am not fluent in Italian and never felt I truly fit in as it is obvious that I am not a local, though I loved my time there and will always have a place in my heart for those cities. Italy gave me great memories. I felt at home there.

I’ve lived in four different places in my life.

In a few months I will be moving, yet again, to a new place. I will be starting over. I have visited this place once and have never seen the student housing I will be living in by myself. If everything goes according to plan I will be living in this place for four years.

Property does not make a home. Time does not make a home (though it does make it easier). Language does not make a home.
Friends and family make a home. Memories make a home. Love makes a home. You make your home.
If you want to you will feel at home. If you try to you will feel at home. If you make the effort and see the positives in a place, if you learn to love it you will call it home. This is something I have learnt from experience. No matter how long (or short) you live there, no matter who lives there with you, no matter why you live there. Call it home and it will become one.

A kiss.

A kiss is like a touch of magic.
A kiss goodnight, a kiss better, a kiss goodbye. The comforting kiss on the forehead from your loving mother as she tucks you in to bed at night. The welcoming kiss on the cheek from a good friend when you are reunited after time apart. The passionate kiss on the mouth from a lover, expressing how they feel in a way that does not need to be spoken aloud. A kiss is a promise, a remedy, a gift.

On your cheek or on your lips a kiss will always bring a smile to your heart. I dare you to kiss, or be kissed, and not feel it spread through your body. Not feel it’s warmth erupt at the point of origin and pulse happiness from your fingertips to your heart. No matter where you are kissed or by whom I dare you not to feel it in your heart.
A kiss is the only part of fairytales that is not fiction.
A kiss is a dream come true, a granted wish.
A kiss is like a touch of magic.

A love letter to Florence

When a girl falls in love for the first time she will remember it for the rest of her life. She will remember his face and his hands, or maybe his arms and how she fit between them. She will remember his voice and the feeling- above all the feeling. The bliss and the beauty of the world when she was with him, the ‘can-do-no-wrong’ way she saw him, and the indescribable happiness with which he filled her heart. That memory will be her most valued memory. Even when the magic comes to an end and she cries and mourns and then she moves on. Even when she finds someone else, maybe even someone better. Her first love will always be her strongest.

That is how I feel about you.
You are the greatest thing that ever happened to me. You were my first love: the first one to creep into my heart and stay, to crawl into my mind and fill it with joy. You could do, and can do no wrong in my eyes. Your faults are not faults, but contribute to your beauty. With you I could not be unhappy, a bad day was a good day in comparison to the rest of my bad days. You saved me. You came to me (or, rather, I to you) when I needed you most, but you welcomed me with open arms and loved me as I loved you. You wiped away my tears, you calmed my fears, you comforted me and erased all my bad memories. The world was better when I was with you. I have not been as happy since, or felt as loved or loved as much. There have been others, but none the same. None have loved me as you did and I could not love another more. I would not betray you. Though I cried when it came to an end and though I was sad and hurt I knew you did not want our end any more than I did. I knew we wanted to be together forever. We shared the same hopes and dreams; no one could come between us. But our time came to an end and I had to leave you though I did not want to. Leaving you was the hardest part because loving you was so easy. Wait for me, I will return. Remember be, I will never forget you. Love me as I love you: forever.

Io sono tuo,
Tara.

Writer's block

I have that painful stare-at-the-blank-page-can’t-think-of-anything-good-to-write illness. It’s torturing me.
I have all these thoughts in my head, so many in fact that they are swimming circles around each other. Racing and competing and drowning each other in a competition so fierce none come out on top and the page in front of me remains blank.

One thought rings loudest in my mind, but whispers words so fragile they disappear as soon as I write them down.

What do you do when the one thing you want to write about won’t jump out of your head, crawl down your arm, ignite in your fingertips and tattoo themselves on a page in front of you? What then? How do you make the one idea you have an actuality when you know it’s the one idea that isn’t any good? ‘No one will want to read this’ I keep thinking, ‘that is not a good story.’ Yet it remains, the only idea stronger than all the rest, the only spark of inspiration setting a fire in my mind.
Yet the words are stuck, trapped inside me. They pulse in my brain and leak through the membrane to my blood, flowing through my small body and into my heart where they beat within me like a life force, mocking me, taunting me with their fickle presence. The one thing I want to write won’t come out and nothing else survives.

How do poets find inspiration so willing to be tamed? How do authors write plots so eager to unfold? How do musicians make melodies wanting to be heard? When I can’t write a story because it doesn’t want to be told. It wants to be lived. And life is not an option.

I have that painful illness, that teasing trick, that contemptuous feeling.
I have writer’s block.

The Beach

I love the beach.

I love how the sand gives way to my eager steps towards the water. I love how the hot sand makes the cool water that much more rewarding. I love how the sun hits the waves and reflects off the surface as if the clear water hid crystals just waiting to be found.

I used to believe that I was destined to be a mermaid because I love the beach, and water, and swimming so much. I would have to be dragged out of the surf by my parents as the sun set and my lips turned blue with chill, but I still never wanted to leave.

Water is calm. Water is fresh. Water is relaxing and energizing, loving and teasing.

I love how after a swim the salt sticks to my skin and crystallizes on the light hairs on my arm. I love how if I lick my lips I can taste the sea and all the things I love about it. I love how my hair dries after being tousled by the waves and saturated with salt.

Today I sat at the beach and read. I did not pay attention to the conversation of the people next to me. I did not aimlessly watch as the passers by passed by me. I barely even spoke to my mother who was sitting at my side also immersed in a book. I escaped from my world, from my thoughts, from everything on my mind good and bad happy and sad and I read.

Reading is my great escape, my favourite way to ease my mind and forget my troubles, but reading on the beach is unparalleled. The combination of a good novel, a sunny day, the sand and the sea and the way my hair dries after a swim makes life seem serene.

I love the beach.

Lessons Learned

It has now been over a month since I left Italy. It’s hard to imagine my time in Italy felt so long but my time away from it now is going so quickly. In one more month I’ll be leaving Cyprus, my home away from home, quite possibly for good. One short month after that I’ll be starting college in Boston, living in America for the first time in my life.

It’s taken me this whole month to decide what my big end of Italy post should be. I was going to write a one-month anniversary reflecting on everything I learnt this year but honestly that post would probably take a year in itself to write and read. I’ve learnt so much, seen so much, experienced and loved so much this year. I decided to write not what I learnt most in Italy, but what I learnt most about myself.
This year, amongst many other things, was a test of my independence and my relationships with others. It tested my friendships that were hard to maintain while away from home, tested new friendships formed and sadly lost, and tested romantic relationships. Not just in Italy, but in life I have learnt that all relationships start within oneself.

Recently I read a very good quote: "As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do." If you don’t fight for what you want you won’t get it. If you don’t tell your friend you care about them you will regret it but if you do argue and quarrel and cry you will forget what you were arguing about eventually. This advice applies to all aspects of life, not just relationships. If you don’t travel you will regret not experiencing another culture. If you don’t smile you will regret the sadness you allowed into your heart. And if you don’t love you will regret missing the opportunity. Some things come once in a lifetime, like cooking the perfect soufflé or travelling with friends. Cease the opportunity because it’s better to experience than wonder what you could have learnt.
If someone is important to you let them know. I’ve made many mistakes this year when it comes to relationships with others and I will admit that they were my mistakes and my responsibility, because a friendship cannot fall apart unless you let it. That being said the other person has to accept this attitude as well because one person cannot be entirely responsible for both parts of a relationship. If you both accept your own responsibility instead of blaming each other I believe that even the hardest friendship or relationship can be maintained. Maybe not in the way you had hoped, maybe not even in a way that you want at first. But keeping a friend is better than losing one, no matter how hard it is to keep them.


That is what I learnt this year. Above all I learnt that I will never stop learning, never stop trying and never stop growing.