let it rain

When I was here in June, I asked when it rains in Nevis. The answer must be: July. My morning hike was canceled due to the rain, and I sat on the porch trying to wait out the downpour before venturing into town anyway to submit my citizenship application. There’s a bit of a problem: my father was born an Elliott but changed his name to Hood, and I was born a Hood but added Elliott to my name. I’ve got documentation to support my name change, but nothing to prove that my father really is my father. I guess I’ll have to check with the Canadian government. Right now I’m content to just sit here in the dark listening to the rain and the occasional crack of thunder. I’ve packed my suitcase, which is mostly empty and very light now that all the books are gone. I gave my last copy of Bird to my cutest cousin in Nevis, Yakira. What a sweetheart! She made her own little book by copying down the lyrics to a hymn she sang at church, and she made me a postcard in yesterday’s workshop for kids. When I asked her what games she liked to play, Yakira said sometimes she ties a sheet around her shoulders and pretends to be a superhero! Not a princess, a SUPERHERO. Clearly, we share the same genes! I had lunch at my cousin Rodney’s restaurant with another cousin I recently met, Clayton. He’s a poet who spent a good portion of his life in Toronto. We talked about what it takes to be an artist in a small place, and I told him about my afternoon talk yesterday where the issue of “deviance” came up. I presented on The Hummingbird’s Tongue to a small but diverse group of Nevisians, most of whom are writers themselves, and we speculated on the perception of mental illness in the 1940s. Another cousin recalled knowing of people who were “off” when she was growing up, but neighbors knew how to “call them back” (sometimes by sprinkling the person with water, sometimes by just softly calling their name). So you had to be pretty far gone to be sent to the asylum in Antigua, though Steve Manners (far left) recalled that anyone who didn’t follow the strict moral code in Nevis could also be “shipped off”  back in the day…

Ok, it’s late and I need to crash. Rodney sent me home with two extra johnny cakes but I only had room for one—they’re SO good! And she rightly pointed out that I’ve gained weight since my visit last month…Rodney’s an amazing cook—and a peace broker here in Nevis, where political tensions are high. We also share a love of birds…so good to meet so many kindred spirits here in Nevis!

This evening my host, Mrs. Sonita Daniel, came by bearing gifts—a lovely hand-painted tile with a traditional Nevisian home pictured on the front. Then she drove me over to Brown Hill, the village where my father grew up. We saw the Pilgrim Holiness church he attended, the community center, and many of these small wooden homes that look to me like the perfect writer’s abode. Maybe one day I’ll have a little home of my own here…

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