- 44

When the moisture in the room after you make love freezes on the window sills in huge ice chunks, you know you are not in Trinidad anymore. The reality has stuck. I heard People say that it is easier to breathe at these temperatures, that its scientifically proven, I say shut up. You don’t know what the hell your talking about.
My fact is that I cannot breathe properly at these temperatures. When the breath out of your mouth freezes as it comes out of your mouth or the snot in your nose hole crystallizes as you walk out of the door, or every crease and opening in your body becomes a playground for ice, I believe the word for that is FROSEN!! And I cannot breathe.

Its like living outside a space shuttle. People think its insane.

People who live here would laugh at me , I mean – 44 is a balmy temp. I hear this a lot up here in the Yukon. Its warming up to –34. Warming up! Warm doesn’t describe minus anything.
I have met folks up here who have survived in -77 in the Yukon. Things break at temp below 40. They break and get destroyed. Don’t even think of touching anything metal with your bear fingers it burns.

I left my wet swim suit in the car after the pool, and came back the next morning and it cracked. My swim suit chile.!!!!.
Anyway, I cannot make excuses not to get up and go to work at –40, There is life at those temperatures. No one stays home unless its –77. People Bike and walk and run and most often die of depression if they cant do just that when its cold out. I on the other hand have to find courage. Yes Courage and face the day, cut wood and haul it inside to keep my house warm and cozy for my husband when he get in. I still have to twist my dreadlocks and make sure they stay in tact when its frozen stiff. I cannot afford for them to break.

However, no matter how cold it gets out. He will touch me and say I am beautiful and suddenly my dreadies start to unfreeze.

A new set of eyes

Coming to Vancouver from Trinidad , a baby girl like me would not have figured myself to fall for a white guy. I know what your saying… harsh words .. But hear me out before you judge me and call my mother names.
I have always had a fear of the opposite sex, and an even greater fear of a sex outside my race. I wouldn’t have expected anyone outside my race ( unless it was a dark Indian dude) to fall for me. And I really wasn’t looking in any direction other than what I was used to ,in any case.
So On arriving to Vancouver, and realizing that I was a very sure Minority, I expected NOTHING for myself. And any black guy that I saw that took interest I wasn’t surprised.
Meeting Brent was not easy, He saw me before I saw him, and honestly so, because to me, all white men looked alike. And don’t laugh I have heard it said that all Asians look alike and Black people and so forth. Anyway, I am sure that Brent could name more than one occasion when we were in touching distance from each other and I never even saw him.
I wasn’t looking in his direction and If I was he would have faded into background .
I was dating a halfy (black and white mixed) guy when Brent and I started talking and making music. You think you know where this is going but you are wrong.. It was ironic that we should have both ended up in place where friendship was amazing and not confusing just when I was about to leave for Montreal, to a life of party and drinks and loud laughing and dancing with people that were like me in the secular sense. My ex’s friends were funny and creative and loud and strong. I think I loved his friends more than the idea of moving to Montreal. I was born there but I had never been there. But the longing to be accepted and have fun fun fun, was dimmed when I suddenly and finally saw Brent.
He emerged from the faded background and played a chord on his guitar and looked at me and slapped me with music and a reintroduced me to God. He took me back to my roots and I made friends with people who were ready to show me back to my path , my calling , my purpose. Anyway, I am not saying that I was so far gone and Brent was an Angel sent from GOD, all I am saying is that I didn’t ignore a beautiful friend, and I didn’t ignore my doubts about moving to Montreal, I didn’t close my eyes to the reality that I was going to be lost to a place that was further from the place that i am now. All i am saying is I didn’t walk away from a calling that was really a scream.
Its different being married to someone that’s different from you, but its just what the doctor ordered. I have fun in my life and creativity and color, I have huge debates with B and through them I realize my own thoughts and the thoughts of others that are different from my own. I am able to appreciate myself and where i came from and accept the diffenences of others. I see things through the eyes of a loving husband and I show him things through my own eyes.
I am not a one track minded person like I was. I am not fearful of anyone anymore. Ah well sometimes I am. But I am so welcoming of change like I never have been before. My family now have the opportunity to share in something most of them never have. And most importantly I am happy. However thats just where my story begins...